Moorvogi
Firearm Advocate
- Dec 28, 2014
- 855
Once upon a time, I saw that the "rule of thumb" was to reduce powder charges in NATO brass by 10%.
I'm looking at 155gr amax w/ lilgun which is 11.8-17gr per hornady book. reducing that MAX by 10% takes 1.7 off making the max 15.3.
I'm loading these at 15.8 w/ mixed brass of 300blk and some 5.56 NATO (mostly lake city). the LC brass now identifies as 300blk, etc etc.
I don't see OBVIOUS pressure signs in the brass but primers are flatter than some of the factory loads we shot the same day.
Now the question(s).
1. are the SOMETIMES flatter primers an issue? They aren't flat as some i've seen at the range but they were "flatter" than expected. This might be the primers, (cci) because i get that result on NON-nato brass also sometimes.
2. someone also said the 10% rule doesn't really apply to 223,300blk because of case capacity and it's not a big difference when compared 308 or 30-06. for the sake of "do your own loads", i'm going to take all answers here w/ salt but.. what do YOU think, and why?
I'm looking at 155gr amax w/ lilgun which is 11.8-17gr per hornady book. reducing that MAX by 10% takes 1.7 off making the max 15.3.
I'm loading these at 15.8 w/ mixed brass of 300blk and some 5.56 NATO (mostly lake city). the LC brass now identifies as 300blk, etc etc.
I don't see OBVIOUS pressure signs in the brass but primers are flatter than some of the factory loads we shot the same day.
Now the question(s).
1. are the SOMETIMES flatter primers an issue? They aren't flat as some i've seen at the range but they were "flatter" than expected. This might be the primers, (cci) because i get that result on NON-nato brass also sometimes.
2. someone also said the 10% rule doesn't really apply to 223,300blk because of case capacity and it's not a big difference when compared 308 or 30-06. for the sake of "do your own loads", i'm going to take all answers here w/ salt but.. what do YOU think, and why?