Reloading the 6.8 spc

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  • Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Hi all,

    this is the first time I am reloading. I wasn't planning to, but since I built my 6.8 spc and experienced the price of ammo I decided to teach myself to reload. I did my calculations and based on the cheapest 6.8 spc ammo I will brake even my initial equipment investment after I reload my 250 or so saved brass 4 times.

    I will use this thread to describe my experience as first-time reloader and to get tips and from you-all that have been reloading for a while.

    Here is the draft outline of the post:

    • Summary of first reloading attempt
    • Reloading equipment
    • Powders and bullets
    • Reloading experience
    • Range report with chrono data
    • My favorite loads


    Feel free to check out my thread on the 6.8 spc built.
    http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=139167
     

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    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Summary of my first reloading attempt

    My greatest worry as a first time reloader was that the rifle would blow up in my face. It didn't, but I did get a popped primer from excessive pressure.

    I chose the Hornady v-max 110 gr 6.8 mm bullets for varmint (see ground hog) and Speer soft point boat tail 130 gr for deer. After testing different COAL, and different amounts of powder I settled on H322 and 28 gr for both loads with a COAL between 2.295-2.300 using the CCI 41 primer. Regarding brass I tested S&B, Federal, Hornady.

    My rifle is custom-built with a bison armory upper with a 20 inch hbar and rifle length piston system. It is chambered using the 6.8 SPC II standard with 4 grooves and 1:11 rifling twist rate. It has an 11 degree crown.


    The Hornady V-max 110 gr 270 cal in an S&B 6.8 spc cartridge had a mean velocity 2590 fps with 0.65 inch precision at 100 yards.

    The Speer SPBT 130 gr 270 cal in a Federal 6.8 spc cartridge had a mean velocity 2550 fps with 1.2 inch precision at 100 yards.

    Environmental conditions: 44oF, 65% humidity, 30.41 in Hg, alt 880 ft, no wind
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    I was surprised how similar the velocities were even though there is 20 grain difference... I did notice higher pressure in the 130 gr bullets that could possibly explain the similar velocities.
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Speer 130 gr SPBT ballistics table screen capture from my rifle scope's smart phone app, Nikon SpotOn
     

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    stu929

    M1 Addict
    Jan 2, 2012
    6,605
    Hagerstown
    While I havent used 322 28gr feels a bit high.

    I believe most of my best loads for 6.8 were in the 26 range YMMV of course but I tend to stay away from max and just pick whatever shoots the best im my rifles.

    Ive never had a blown primer, are you working up and checking your primers for flattening?
    Good luck and safe shooting
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Ballistics table for the Hornady V-max 110 gr screen capture of the Nikon SpotOn smartphone app.
     

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    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    While I havent used 322 28gr feels a bit high.

    I believe most of my best loads for 6.8 were in the 26 range YMMV of course but I tend to stay away from max and just pick whatever shoots the best im my rifles.

    Ive never had a blown primer, are you working up and checking your primers for flattening?
    Good luck and safe shooting

    For the Hornady bullet, pressure at this COAL and 28 gr was really low, the primers didn't flatten at all, even less than factory loads. I think the increased COAL allowed the pressure to drop. I will give more details below as I worked the loads up. I chose the loads based on group size.
     

    jimbobborg

    Oddball caliber fan
    Aug 2, 2010
    17,112
    Northern Virginia
    What brass were you using when you popped the primer? The only head stamps I saw on your threads was the Hornady ones, and they're not the best brass to use if you want to go heavy. I've used 28.5gr of RL10x behind a 110gr Accubond loaded out to 2.300" COAL. Work up to that (I'm REALLY serious about this part), with SSA brass, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the result. Do not use this load with Remington or Hornady brass, they don't have the internal volume the SSA brass does.
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Reloading equipment

    The choice for my equipment was dictated by total cost and convenience. I live in an apartment so all this equipment can fit in a small portable tool case I got from Home depot. The leeman digital scale I purchased refurbished on ebay for $160. Total cost including powder, primers and bullets was about $500 including shipping.


    • Reloading press: Lee breech lock hand press. I chose this one as I live in an appartment and have no place to mount a benchtop one. I am very happy with its quality and performance as well as ease of use,
    • Hornady full length resizing die: very happy with the quality of this die. Very smooth surfaces. It decaps, full lenth resizes your brass to saami cardridge specs. Easy to setup. I also got the Hornady shell holder for increased compatibility.
    • Hornady bullet seating and crimping die. Can seat and crimp in one step. So far I havent used the crimper of this dies because the bullets I use dont have a cannelure, but for bulletts with cannelure I suspect it would be a very convenient feature.
    • Lee factory crimping die. This is a great tool if you want to crimp the boollet for example when you feed with a magazine.
    • Lee universal decapping die. This is handy when decapping primer crimped brass such as the Hornady or Federal, or when you need to decap without resizing.
    • Forster bullet puller die. This is usefull when you make mistakes and sit bullets too deep, or forgot to add powder, or the load is too hot to shoot.
    • Willson calliber gauge: I use this one to check that I trimmed each brass to specs, and that the shoulder was pushed back to specs.
    • Lee ram primer: useless. I messed up a good number of primers with this one. It came with the press as a kit and thought I could save money and not buy an auto primer. The brass would not always allign with the ram and so the primers would sit sideways. This might be because I used the Hornady case holder instead of the Lee, but after I got frustrated I bought the
    • Lee auto priming tool and all my problems went away. This is a must have tool as it makes my life so much easier. The primers go in always uniformly.
    • Leeman case prep tool: this is an aluminium handle with a chamfer, deburring, primer pocket uniformer, and pocket cleaner. The handle/container comes with the same threads as your bore cleaner so you can also attach bore brushes to clean stubborn cases or your rifle chamber.
    • Lee case trimming tool with wooden spherical handle and shell holder that can be mounted on your electric drill. It consistently trims cases to 1.675-1.678
    • For cleaning/polishing brass: As I live in an appartment I had to optimize and get something small. I bought a 2 Liter ultrasonic juellery cleaner from Amazon. The brand is Kendal, it has a heating to 80 degrees function as well as 8 minute automatic timer. I use it with tap water and 2 teaspoon full of Blitz jwellery and gem cleaner. I stack 250 cases mouth basing down before resizing or decapping and run for 16 minutes, rinse with water, and cook in the toaster oven at 200 F for 30 minutes and the brass looks as good as new. I run a second time after I resize to get rid of the resizing paste and to clean the primer pockets. The second time the mouth is facing up. It is impressive how clean the brass looks after that, even the primer pockets.
    • Lyman 1200 DPS 3 digital scale and automatic powder dispenser and trickler. This is a time saver, it measures every load, it has a trickling mode, it is very accurate, it makes reloading simple. By the time I sit the bullet the next load is ready for pouring into the case.
    • ncn universal loading tray
    • Lee plastic powder funnel
    • Leather gloves as the press and auto primer is hard on your hands
    • 6 Lee breech lock thread adapters for mounting each of the dies to the press for convenience. This allows you to set all your dies once, lock them in place and echange them on the press without having to readjust.
    • Digital callibers for comfirming lengths.
    • Many Hornady plastic ammo holders leftover from factory ammo.
    • Distance to lands guage: I stole this idea from the internet. I took an unprimed case and cut a slot with a dremmel, polished inside and out and seat each bullet you want to load at say 2.5 inch. Load in the chamber and carefully close the bolt. Remove carefully and measure COAL. Repeat 3 times. Use this to estimate how long you can seat the bullet.

    In the image below you can see the COAL gauge I made. This is also very useful when you are setting up your seating die as you can easily remove the bullet by hand.
     

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    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    What brass were you using when you popped the primer? The only head stamps I saw on your threads was the Hornady ones, and they're not the best brass to use if you want to go heavy. I've used 28.5gr of RL10x behind a 110gr Accubond loaded out to 2.300" COAL. Work up to that (I'm REALLY serious about this part), with SSA brass, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the result. Do not use this load with Remington or Hornady brass, they don't have the internal volume the SSA brass does.

    I wanted to save this for later to keep the suspense going, but here it is:

    The primer that popped was on a Hornady case using CCI 41, Speer 130 gr SPBT bullet, COAL 2.308 inch H322 30 gr (corrected from 30.5 stated earlier). That was after I shot about 10 rounds of that ammo and observed partially flattened primers. The load was really hot but I also think that I might have enlarged the case too much. Hornady brass was a pain to deprime and uniform. They crimp their primers and it takes a lot of work to uniform and reprime without a primer pocket uniformer tool.

    Later tonight I ll describe how I worked up these loads and add pictures of the case heads as a surrogate of pressure measurements.
     
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    coopermania

    Banned
    BANNED!!!
    Aug 20, 2011
    3,815
    Indiana
    I wanted to save this for later to keep the suspense going, but here it is:

    The primer that popped was on a Hornady case using CCI 41, Speer 130 gr SPBT bullet, COAL 2.308 inch H322 30.5 gr. That was after I shot about 10 rounds of that ammo and observed partially flattened primers. The load was really hot but I also think that I might have enlarged the case too much. Hornady brass was a pain to deprime and uniform. They crimp their primers and it takes a lot of work to uniform and reprime without a primer pocket uniformer tool.

    Later tonight I ll describe how I worked up these loads and add pictures of the case heads as a surrogate of pressure measurements.

    For a newbie with reloading you are playing with fire sir.
    You need to work up your loads SLOWLY so you don't blow out primers.
    In your list of reloading equipment number one should have been Richard Lees reloading Vol2
    And the ABC's of reloading should be number two.
     

    stu929

    M1 Addict
    Jan 2, 2012
    6,605
    Hagerstown
    For a newbie with reloading you are playing with fire sir.
    You need to work up your loads SLOWLY so you don't blow out primers.
    In your list of reloading equipment number one should have been Richard Lees reloading Vol2
    And the ABC's of reloading should be number two.

    Agreed! We are trying to save you rifle at a minimum your fingers eyesight or life potentially. As mentioned hornady brass is not the best but also im wondering what are you pushing the limits for? This isnt a speed race shoot till you find acceptable accuracy theres no reason to push things to dangerous levels.

    The comment about suspense puzzles me a little, reloading isnt a game and you could be risking things greater than your rifle if you treat it that way.
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Agreed! We are trying to save you rifle at a minimum your fingers eyesight or life potentially. As mentioned hornady brass is not the best but also im wondering what are you pushing the limits for? This isnt a speed race shoot till you find acceptable accuracy theres no reason to push things to dangerous levels.

    The comment about suspense puzzles me a little, reloading isnt a game and you could be risking things greater than your rifle if you treat it that way.

    You are right guys, I shouldn't make light of my mistakes. I wanted to come out clean with the results of my carelessness and share what I learned from this. I am planning to include lessons learned at the end of my story, but one important one is when there are no published loads for a bullet (like the SPEER130 gr SPBT) start low and work up and look very carefully for pressure signs.

    As a newbie I obviously couldn't read pressure signs very well, and also using the CCI 41 primer didn't help either (military, harder primer).
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Powders and bullets

    Its really hard to find powder and primers at gun stores and paying the hazard material fee online doubles the cost. So I got whatever was available at the recent Nations Gun show in VA.

    I got a pound of H322 and a pound of Benchmark and 2 boxes of CCI41 primers. Based on my reading H322 is slightly faster than Benchmark.

    Regarding bullets I was looking for low cost to begin my reloading training. I was looking for 2 types of bullets one for varmint hunting and target practice to 200-300 yards and a heavier bullet with high BC for deer again for 200-300 yards.

    Based mainly on cost I chose the Hornady 110 gr V-max, and the Speer SPBT 130 gr both .270 cal.

    The Hornady 110 gr V-max measures 1.0350-1.0385' in length with 0.37 BC
    The Speer 130 gr SPBT measures 1.0800-1.0905' in length with 0.449 BC

    The soft point on the speer is really soft and deforms very easily. When the ammo is loaded into the magazine and fired the soft points get partially flattened due to recoil. Although I chose this bullet because it is the shortest bullet with the highest BC at the given weight, it might not prove to be the one for deer hunting in this rifle.
     

    stu929

    M1 Addict
    Jan 2, 2012
    6,605
    Hagerstown
    Its really hard to find powder and primers at gun stores and paying the hazard material fee online doubles the cost. So I got whatever was available at the recent Nations Gun show in VA.

    I got a pound of H322 and a pound of Benchmark and 2 boxes of CCI41 primers.

    So far ive seen nice results from RL10X and 2230 as well as benchmark as well. But none of my charges were that high all were in the 26s with a 110gr pill some even lower.
     

    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Reloading experience

    Cases used:

    All cases were once fired from factory loads:
    1. Hornady once fired from 110 V-max factory load
    2. Sellier and Bellot once fired from 110 FMJ factory load
    3. Federal 90 gr flat point military factory load

    Both Hornady and Federal have crimped primers and a pain to reload. The S&B brass is not crimped, much easier to reload and is a bit tougher.

    The cases have been trimmed, chamfered and deburred to between 1.675 to 1.678.
    Both Hornady and Federal primer pockets were widened with the Leeman uniformer tool. Effectively the tool works by cutting the crimp and chamfering out the primer pocket.

    Determining COAL:

    I use the PRI magazines which measure 2.324 length, however, because of the angulation of the round due to the follower maximum COAL is 2.308.

    Using the distance to lands gauge the distance to lands of the Speer 130 gr SPBT is 2.4045 inch and for the Hornady V-max 110 gr is 2.370 inch.

    Through trial and error I discovered that when using the Lee factory crimp to crimp the load it elongates the bullet about 0.005 to 0.007 inches. Also the bullet length varies +- about 0.01 for the Speer and 0.004 for the Hornady. Now my understanding is that for internal ballistics what really matters is not the COAL but length to ogive. As I don't have a way to measure that for now I can only hope that it is more consistent than the length of the bullet. This fluctuations in the bullet length and elongation during crimping determines the tolerance in the COAL.

    For my loads I tried 2 COAL for the V-max 2.292-2.298, 2.295-2.301 and 2 COAL for the Speer 2.291-2.99 and 2.303 to 2.308.

    For the V-max 110 gr I used the Hodgdon reloading data for the H322 and started from 28 up to 29.5 gr.

    For the Speer 130 gr I couldn't find any published data for the specific bullet, but found some data for the flat base Speer 130 gr. For this one I loaded from 28 gr to 30 gr.
     
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    Glock357

    Active Member
    Oct 18, 2012
    111
    Rockville, MD
    Range report

    I will continue this section later but here are some pics of the fired brass.

    1st image is about reading pressure signs for the Hornady V-max in in S&B brass. The first 3 on the left are once fired Hornady 120 SST factory loads for reference. The rest are H322 28, 28.5, 29., 29.5 gr from left to right respectively.
     

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    coopermania

    Banned
    BANNED!!!
    Aug 20, 2011
    3,815
    Indiana
    Where did you find the data for the 130 grain bullet that you used ?
    The data that I have using H322 powder has a max of 28.5 grains and all the independant Ifound on the
    web people are loading to a max of 27.9 grains.

    Data you used For the V-max 110 gr I used the Hodgdon reloading data for the H322 and started from 28 up to 29.5 gr.

    And then you used more powder with a heavier bullet ?

    For the Speer 130 gr I couldn't find any published data for the specific bullet, but found some data for the flat base Speer 130 gr. For this one I loaded from 28 gr to 30 gr
    .

    Dude you are heading for a huge KABOOM.
    I suggest you stop what you are doing and pull all the ammo you have loaded.
    Then read.read and read some more. And look for a basic reloading class to take.
    Or find someone who lives near you to teach you how to reload safely. JMHO
     

    photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    Where did you find the data for the 130 grain bullet that you used ?
    The data that I have using H322 powder has a max of 28.5 grains and all the independant Ifound on the
    web people are loading to a max of 27.9 grains.

    Data you used For the V-max 110 gr I used the Hodgdon reloading data for the H322 and started from 28 up to 29.5 gr.

    And then you used more powder with a heavier bullet ?

    For the Speer 130 gr I couldn't find any published data for the specific bullet, but found some data for the flat base Speer 130 gr. For this one I loaded from 28 gr to 30 gr
    .

    Dude you are heading for a huge KABOOM.
    I suggest you stop what you are doing and pull all the ammo you have loaded.
    Then read.read and read some more. And look for a basic reloading class to take.
    Or find someone who lives near you to teach you how to reload safely. JMHO

    Ditto on this. First find out what the max recommended load is then find out what real shooter/reloaders are using, then start out less than they did and work up to their numbers. You may find that the best load is not the max load. And never put the same amount of powder behind a heavier bullet unless it is a reduced load. You can't have read any good reloading data if you don't see this fact. That will cause unacceptable pressure spikes that could prove deadly. Regardless of whether you see any indications.
     

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