The 110 V-max is a bad mother

The 30-06 V-max load is really shaping up! I had a chance to try it out today on something other than paper and the results were nothing short of explosive!

Our volunteer was a 2.8L Sunny Delight bottle stuffed tight with newspaper soaking in water, and lit up at 100 meters. At that range, the 110 grain round must be doing about 3100 fps and it looks like it really comes apart.

This is one I have to film on impact for y'all one of these days! In the meantime, I have the aftermath here.

Here's the loaded rounds, and bullets




This load started with 51 grains of H4895 powder and its been worked up carefully to 54.5 as of now, the target being 57 with a speed of over 34oo feet per second at the muzzle.

Now, our victim!





On impact, the bottle flew 7 feet to the left, and I could see the explosion of water and paper in the scope. As the pics show, at least half the contents was blown out, and I measured 30 feet from the impact to the farthest bits of wet newspaper.

It really shows that th V-max is performing as designed, giving rapid and devastating transfer of energy, and expanding without needing to penetrate that far first.

The exit was rather oblong and I wonder what remained of the bullet to make that hole. The bottle is blown nearly in half.

I really, really have to film this impact!

Norinco 1911A1

Finally, a couple pics of the .45

The verdict?

Well, you can see where they cut a corner or two...They don't finish the machining inside all that well, but you never see it until the pistol is taken apart. The sights could be a little bigger. And the grips are plastic.

But none of it affects the function of the pistol, and the pistol does work. Don't expect it to feel like a McCormick trigger, but for $330 it is very usable.

I had gunsmith Gunnar Christensen do a prep job on this one, including a trigger tune and a lapping to fit the frame to the slide, going over the ejector and extractor, etc.

This is the softest recoiling automatic pistol I have fired yet. Shot lots of 9mms that have kicked harder. The weight helps. It really impresses you as a solid chunk of tough steel. A small plastic recoil buffer also cushions the blow of the slide reaching the end of it's rearward travel. The result is more of a slow shove than a fast crack. Great for keeping you on target when snapping off rounds quickly, and shaving time off in a comp I would reckon.

The sights are not adjustible for elevation, but at 21 feet were right on the money for 230 grain FMJ ball, which is the classic .45 ACP load.

Overall I have to say I am very impressed. I'll try to post some groups soon.

Diagnosing a common problem

I had just finished loading a set of 30-06 Springfield 110 grain rounds for my Winchester Model 70. Beautiful rifle, a pre 1964 style Mauser action they call the "Classic". Here's a pic.

24" barrel, fantastic cut of walnut for the stock, you have to see it to be able to make out the good looking shades and grains in the wood. Great bluing job, very satiny black finish and it's wearing a Bushnell 3-9x50mm 3200 Elite scope in Leupold rings.




Here's the trouble. When I chambered the rounds, some chambered just fine and others offered a degree of resistance.

Now, there are several possible explainations with that. One could be the bullets being seated too far forward, so that on chambering, the bullet is being driven against the rifling. It should not be encountering rifling, as this will affect your pressure, jacking it up and possibly causing bad results.

But I checked the round. They measured the 3.170" I wanted, and factory rounds with different bullets are much longer. So that's not it.

Maybe the shoulder was not set back far enough? When you use a reloading press to force fired brass into a full length sizing die, it compacts it by squeezing it back to what should be factory dimensions. If your die is not screwed into the press to the proper depth though, the casing won't be pushed in far enough to be properly resized.

But no, comparing the length to drawing and schematics, and to a factory round. Shoulders were fine.

After talking to some friends online who forget more about reloading than I will ever know, I narrowed down the cause. It took coating the bullets in black magic marker to become apparent. On chambering, whichever part of the round is making the friction, it will have the magic marker scraped off and you can immediately see your bugbear.




You can see my problem right off, starting a quarter inch up from the bottom of the case. The case head is too large.

Turns out the explaination is really simple.

This brass came from my M1 Garand and was mixed into my other 30-06 casings. The Garand (as do most military rifles) has a larger chamber, so the casings are coming out with a funny shape. If I cannot load a bullet quickly, it is at worst an inconvenience. For a US soldier or Marine in 1944, it was a matter of life and death. Their ammo was sometimes gritty and dirty, and sometimes not all made to the exact same specs. To feed easier, chambers were slightly larger than those in civilian rifles.

My RCBS full length die doesn't have the horsepower to cram the Garand brass case heads back to proper shape. There's two possible remedies. The first is buying a small base die, a special die made just for this problem, or switching to a Lee die set. I like my Lees and they seem to form a little tighter. I think I'll try the Lee.

The good news is, I can still shoot this ammo for now. It's just a little stiff to chamber.

Hope this helps someone someday!

Handloading at last!

Yup, I finally took the plunge into the world of reloading!

Here's my setup.



It's a Lee Challenger kit, including a press, powder scale, powder measure, case care tools and a hand primer.

I've also picked up a Lee Zip Trim case trimmer, that little grey thing bolted to my desk in front of the safe. Great piece of kit. You lock an empty case into the chuck and pull a cord to spin it against a cutter to return it to factory length.



A selection of bullets: .308 caliber 110 grain V-max, .458 caliber 350 grain round nose soft point, .308 cal 155 grain moly coated A-max and .308 cal 150 grain Ballistic tip. The bag on top is military style 150 grain .30 cal FMJ for cheap shooting.

The V-max is a wonderful little bullet, typically used for varmint shooting. As such, it's light, flies very fast, and expands and fragments extremely violently. Another plus is that it is a light kicker. Being light, there is less recoil due to the fact that less inertia is being pushed out of the rifle. It's got a great potential for accuracy.

The A-max is a more balanced long range match or competition loading, which retains it's energy and velocity a lot better than the lighter V-max, and offers more stability and aerodynamics for long range shooting.

The .458 cal soft point is a big game load for use in a 45/70 or .458 Win Mag. Ideal for the moose around here! Hard kicking, but hard hitting on the other end too.

As of now, I am equipped to load 30-06 Springfield, 308 Winchester, 300 Winchester Magnum, 8x57mm Mauser, and 45/70 Government. Soon to add 30/30 Winchester, .45 ACP, .303 British and .30 Caliber M1 carbine to the list.

So far so good. Not only is it cheaper than factory ammo, it gives you much more control over what kind of ammo you can make, and the consistant nature coming from the amount of care you put in goes a long way in obtaining accuracy.

Here's a .308 Winchester load I am working up, starting with a Federal casing, Winchester LR primer, 45 grains of H-4895 powder and a 110 grain V-max seated to 2.800" overall length.



That's .602 of an inch at 100 meters. The rifle is a Stevens 200, with a previous best grouping of right around the 1 inch mark with factory ammo. Almost cut in half!