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Hi guys ive been given 168 rounds of 30-06 they are hollow point and I'm assuming they are military surplus? I've been told I need to replace the primers as they will be corrosive. what primers will I need to purchase ? i also need to buy some lee dies for the bloke whos going to be reloading them for me, cheers allAttachment 137817Attachment 137818Attachment 137822
Just shoot it. It won't melt your barrel but clean it after you use it. Changing out primers will be a cluster
Changing primers means you basically got given brass. Dont worry about it. Make sure you clean it after using the ammo as kiwijames stated above. I thought Mil Surp would be FMJ so not sure about the hollow points. Looks to be a decent hole. Could be quite a hitter....
Greetings Blisters,
Looks like Military M2 rounds that have been drilled by someone. That it is a pretty big drill hole and there is a danger that the jacket could be left in the barrel if you fire them. The lead core will be exposed at the base, not like a earlier hollow point. The best option would be to pull the projectiles and dump the powder. The powder may or may not be something similar to the original Hodgdon surplus 4895. Have a good look inside the cases for any corrosion, common if the cartridges have been stored in too hot conditions. If all is well you can fire the primers in your .30-06 But remember to pour a jug full of boiling water through the barrel immediately afterwards. The primers are corrosive and normal cleaning will not remove the salt from the barrel. Rust will follow. The cases were made in the Des Moines Ordinance plant in 1942. There may be more info on the other side of the packet. The primer pockets will need to be reamed before re priming with standard large rifle primers. Annealing the case necks before reloading would be wise. I have used WW2 surplus .30-06 and Canadian .303 cases in the past with good results.
Regards Grandpamac.
thankyou very much for the info I really appreciate it!Quote:
Originally Posted by grandpamac
They may be a few click bangs in that lot. About 1 in 50 of the 42 cac 303 I've chewed through did that, it lets you see if you are flinching.
Yes the primers will be corrosive us military ammunition except 30 m1 carbine used corrosive priming up till about 1954, so a barrel rinse with hot water is a good idea.
Unlike the poms the yanks didn't use fulminate priming so the brass will be good to reload.
I don't think the hollow pointing is so extreme as to jacket strip but pull a few to see, the crimp cannelure helps hold the jacket to the core and the jacket base will be rolled over the lead cored slightly which also helps.
Pulling a few will also let you check the powder and case interior.
You’re right re jacket stripping, I read an article (probably Guns & Ammo) where they attempted to replicate jacket stripping, they cut the full metal jacket projectiles shorter and shorter until they cut one off flush with the top of the cartridge neck, when fired all projectiles left the barrel complete with jacket.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Henry
In the end they had to push a projectile up the barrel and use a gas torch to heat the barrel and melt the lead out of the jacket.
And when they fired another round the projectile just swaged the empty jacket into the rifling.
I'd do what James says and just shoot them. Get used to the recoil then deal with the primers and any dud primers later.
yeah I'm going to blast these down the range at akarana long range club out near orere point then build up hand loads for huntingQuote:
Originally Posted by Russian 22.
sooooo....only 0.8 of a bullet?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Henry
True though. had a couple of misfire on the military stuff myself with out shooting many at all-I'd say 2 in 20 of the 15 I fired lol.
One was definitely CAC too
@Blisters 50 years ago milsurp 30-06 was my main source of ammo for my 308W. At the time 308W was a prohibited import and only CAC factory was available. The govt of the day protected the local industry (CAC) by not allowing imported 308W. Once CAC folded imports began.
At the time you could buy milsurp 30-06 for 2 cents a round. I had a vast quantity of it, mainly TW, DEN, and FA head stamps. I used to pull the projectiles, recover the powder (IMR4895), punch out the existing primers (about 1 in 20 went bang). The primer pockets needed the crimp removed for which I made a fluted parallel cutter. I believe you can remove the crimp with a deburring tool. The cases were shortened and FLSized for 308W. The necks ended up being a tad thick but it didn’t cause me any problems in my old Sako.
As an aside I remember having a session stripping the ammo and tipping the powder out of a case into my container of already pulled and noticing a totally different powder to the 4895. On inspection I found I had just pulled an orphan tracer round which used ball powder not 4895. I used a pretty aggressive inertia system to pull the projectiles. Maybe young and silly, who knows.
The projectiles were then hollow pointed, same as in your photo, using a wee jig I made. I then reloaded up to 308W specs and used them to cull goats. The projectiles were very effective once hollow pointed. IIRC they were boat tail 150gr but could be wrong about the boat tail.
Many years later I trashed the remaing powder after it went off.
The issue of lead core stripping was seemingly a 303B issue, but also may have been largely an urban myth, don’t know. The 303B FMJ had a much more exposed base/lead core to the 30-06. The stories at the time were the cullers used to file the tips off or cut them back with pliers to increase their effectiveness.
I wouldn’t even bother to fire them. There is a risk of a squib load and maybe a projectile part way down the barrel. The brass should be OK once the primer crimp is removed and neck annealed. Also depends upon the condition inside them. Is it worth the bother? Just buy some new brass.
Pity they have been hollow pointed otherwise they would have collector value particularly if you have any intact boxes.
legend cheers for the info, I just threw out 10 boxes.......Quote:
Originally Posted by zimmer
I recall being told the issue was the .303 rounds where you found red plastic inside tip....some had alloy some cardboard...if you trimmed too far they could seperate and leave core behind.....like finwolf...not sure if its a real thing or a one in couple of thousand occurance...maybe in worn bore or very nickled up barrel.....I would shoot them off at range being cautious of any that didnt sound/ feel right....
and yes a quick twirl of the inside case mouth deburring tool qill remove crimp from primer pockets and allow the new primer to seat with ease...I presume these arent berdan primed...
That'll be good practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blisters
How much is it to join? I want to get into long range shooting
50 bucks a year man, they have a hunters class too https://www.sporty.co.nz/akaranacity/Quote:
Originally Posted by Russian 22.
expect to be on target at 800m on the day! I was shooting 223 to 600m after 5 rounds
Wow. Sounds awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Blisters
Haha impressive. Exciting times
That is true an old gunsmith friend of mine showed me a pile of .303 barrels he had pulled and replaced all with bullets suck up them, This was back in the 60's when everyone hunted wth a .303Quote:
Originally Posted by Micky Duck
a replacement barrel was about 20 pounds fitted and took 10 minutes to do the job.
ShooterNZ,
I have read the same story about projectiles Separating in the bore over here. I also know the practice was widely adopted by every roo shooter in Oz post ww1 until rifles in commercial loading s become widely and economically available to reduce skin damage and downgrade. Have never seen or heard it happening from anyone first hand and my father and his 3 brothers would have used more than 10 000 rounds of tipped .303s a year shooting for skins to pay their properties off.
We used to use the emery paper grinders in the shearing shed to tip them, a ice cream bucket stock a time as a kid.
how much was a roo skin worth? what were they used for? cheers
Blisters,
'how much was a roo skin worth? what were they used for?"
The last time I sold roo skins was back in the mid 80's. We used to get paid by size. ranged from about $3.50 for small or skins with holes and tears up to about $8.00 for really big greys and reds. we would salt and fold them and when dry pack them up in boxes on pallets and send them to the skin Buyer (ME Humfress & Co) in Brisbane. Humphress and Co would sell you rifles, brass, projectiles etc at wholesale rates and claim it on your tax etc. The skins went mostly to Europe to be tanned for shoes. Adidas was a large user in their football boots and sandshoes. Other shoe companies also. Kangaroo leather is the toughest leather for its thickness, not stretching too much and very even grain so stains well. It is really nice to work with.
The roo industry changed from skins driven to petfood orientated (meat) and subsequently changed in operations. It is now a shadow of its former self due to the political lobbying of PETA type groups who have shut down the market for roo skins and pet meat from Roos overseas and here. If you get tags now for roos and can sell a carcass you get paid by the kg for a gutted roo minus the head, tail and with arms and legs removed at the elbow / knee joints. A really big roo carcass treated as per this way weighs up to 45kg and was worth 25 - 30c /kg. You have to drop them into the refrigerated boxes (shipping containers) before 6 am in the morning. It's all late afternoon shooting and spotlighting.
@Blisters the primers might be berdan so impossible to reload with normal reloading tools
Greetings All,Quote:
Originally Posted by 300CALMAN
There were a few specialist military target loads in .30-06 but to my knowledge all of the M2 ball ammo was boxer primed. The domed shape of the primer was common at the time. Had a look in the shed and all of the M2 odds and ends were boxer. Some had been necked down to .270 and re primed with standard boxer primers. All original had the domed type primer.
Regards Grandpamac.
Yes, the .30-06 M2 should have been made with a boat tail but was in fact a flat-bottom spitzer... even though the advantages of boat tails were well known at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by zimmer
The M2 was deliberately made flat-bottomed to decrease its maximum range, allowing it to be shot safely on certain US Army shooting ranges. This inbuilt handicap goes some of the way to explain why the .30-06 M2 goes transsonic at less range than the .303 Mk VII, the Mk VII in fact overtaking the more powerful .30-06 M2 downrange when fired simultaneously. The heavier, longer tortoise vs. the short, light, faster hare, but a friendly match.
The 8mm Mauser would take them both in that comp, only goes transsonic after a kilometre or more, but I have decided to disqualify it because it hurts your shoulder... )o:<
would shooting the m2 that i have be reasonable at 800m on the range? cheersAttachment 138101Quote:
Originally Posted by Cordite
Half the answer is in seeing how accurate it is at 100m.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blisters
How consistently were the tips filed and drilled?
And do they clickbang?
Also as bullets are lightened with a slightly blunter tip, so BC must be less.
Who knows. Probably OK, but if they go off fine you definitely have a small shoebox of mighty fine bush hunting rounds.
Greetings All,
The story about how the US got to the M2 30-06 cartridge may be of interest. The US adopted the 150 grain load in 1906 replacing the original .30-03 220 grain load. This followed the Germans adopting a 154 grain load for their rifle the previous year. The original claim for the maximum range of the 150 grain load was 4,700 yards. The US came late to WW1 woefully under prepared and with no machine gun. Initially US troops used either .303 Vickers or the French Hotchkiss machine guns which worked fine. Eventually Browning .30-06 machine guns turned up but were notably lacking in range. Later the maximum range of the early .30-06 was found to be between 3,300 and 3,400 yards or about 65% of what they had been using and more importantly what the Germans were using.
After the war a M1 .30-06 cartridge was developed with a 174 boat tail projectile and a maximum range of 5,500 yards. This round had more recoil and shot past the danger areas of many ranges so the US reverted to a 152 spitzer flat base projectile for shoulder fired weapons which is the M2 ball we have been talking about. Julian Hatcher covers this in his book Hatcher's Notebook for those interested.
Regards Grandpamac.
Grandpamac you forgot to mention that the 174 grain rounds caused functioning issues with the recently adopted m1 grand so back to the little 150 they went.
Ironically the longest case full power round used in shoulder arms during the war was throttled back to where a case 2/3 of the size would have produced the same ballistics and been much easier to configure a semi automatic action around.
The 300 Savage would have been a prime candidate in my opinion.
You are actually correct -300 Savage was the initial start for the 308 -straight from Wikipedia. found some other articles that backed this up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Henry
During the 1940s, the .300 Savage became the basis for experiments on behalf of the U.S. Military that resulted in the development of the T65 series of experimental cartridges. The original experimental case design by the Frankford Arsenal was designated the T65 and was similar to the .300 Savage case, but with less taper. The experimental cases were made from standard .30-06 Springfield cases which gave a little less capacity than standard .300 Savage cases because the Frankford Arsenal cases had slightly thicker case walls. The later T65 iterations were lengthened compared to the original T65 case and provided a ballistic performance roughly equal to the U.S. military .30-06 Springfield service cartridge. Over forty years of technical progress in the field of propellants allowed for similar service cartridge performance from a significantly shorter, smaller case with less case capacity.[2][3]
Winchester saw a market for a civilian model of the late T65 series designs and introduced it in 1952, two years prior to the NATO adoption of the T65E5 experimental cartridge iteration under the 7.62×51mm NATO designation in 1954. Winchester branded the cartridge and introduced it to the commercial hunting market as the .308 Winchester
I don't think the projectiles have been drilled, there are some marks on the end of the shown ones where I had put them in a drill to polish off the crap on the outside of the cases, will put up pic of an untouched one later on
Attachment 138142Attachment 138143
these were the worst of them and I'm not sure if it's the done thing, however it worked and I got to hide away from my 1 and 4 yr old for a couple of hours.....
Ha ha, I've done that in the past a tub of 40s manufacture 303, brasso and cloth. They looked so pretty when they were finished.
Should this not be in the "what do you do for a crust" thread? (-;Quote:
Originally Posted by Blisters
Pretty corroded, do wear shooting glasses. And yes, they clean up nicely. Let's know how they shoot.
