Archive for the ‘Ammo’ Category
Damn you .270 Winchester!
Who was the wise guy at Winchester back in the day when they invented .270 Win? What could have possibly gone through their mind?
“Let’s make a new cartridge! Since everyone loves the .30-06 and it’s got a goodly amount of case capacity, let’s essentially neck it down from .30 caliber to .27 caliber and put a new bullet in it! Nobody would ever confuse the two. Ever. Nope. Never.”
Bastards, the lot of them.
I tumble brass based on caliber (e.g. all .30-06, all .308, all .223, etc.) or, if I lack enough of a particular cartridge to make a full tumbler load, neck size (all .30 caliber necks, all .22 caliber necks, etc.) — it keeps the cases from getting stuck together. Since tumbling is hardly a critical stage in the reloading process, I go fairly quickly when I remove brass from my “spent brass from the range” bucket and toss it into the tumbler.
Since I mainly shoot .30-06 and .223, it’s easy to tell them apart. Unfortunately, I’ll occasionally pick up a piece of .270 at the range, as it just happens to be in my .30-06 brass field. As I don’t expect them1, I don’t usually keep an eye out for them. It seems that at least one or two always get into each tumbler load of .30-06 brass, and from there into my caliber-specific “clean brass” bins in the closet.
As it turns out, a .30-06 resizing die’s expander pin can blow out .270 to .30 caliber without too much effort. I’ve created not a small number of these “.30-.270s” over the years, but always catch them when it comes to priming them, as I look at the base in detail and read the headstamp. So far, none have made it through the whole process.
Even so, the similarities between the two rounds annoy me to no end. I’m sure it’s a fine round, but it still is far too similar to .30-06 for my taste.
- No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! [↩]
On Odors
I’m almost afraid to ask what it is that foreign, mostly eastern European/Asian countries (e.g. Serbia, Russia, etc.) put in their powders, but one of the ingredients smells horrible.
I really like Prvi Partizan ammo, as it’s reliable, consistent, well-made, and easily reloadable. The fact that it’s loaded to NATO spec and is commonly available (unlike, say, Federal XM193/XM855) is a big plus. I’ve never had any practical problems with it at all…but it, like the Russian Wolf-brand ammo, smells awful when fired.
You’d think they’d figure out how to make non-stinky ammo…
Shopping Around
After spending a few days of spring break in Massachusetts doing wedding planning stuff and spending some time with the soon-to-be-in-laws (it’s cold in MA!), I’m back in Tucson.
After driving back from Phoenix (where I flew into and spent a few days with The Girl), I decided to stop at the Sportsmans Warehouse in Tucson and browse. As usual, their ammo/powder/primer supplies were depleted. A good 1/4th of their rifle racks were bare; I’m not sure if this is a result of their fun happy financial times or limited supplies from upstream suppliers. They did, however, have DPMS 30-round AR-15 magazines for a whopping $30 (not including tax) each. These same magazines sell, at retail prices, on DPMS’ own website for $18-$20. Yowzers.
On the same trip, I stopped by Murphy’s Guns and looked at their wares. Business was good, with two customers filling out 4473s for new guns, a few people buying ammo, and a bunch of people perusing the racks. They had several ARs in stock, an AK or two, the absurd-looking “Rolling Thunder” shotgun from Mossberg (photo here, press release here), and the normal selection of pistols, all at reasonable prices. There were a few higher-priced specialty rifles like the FN FS2000 (~$1,400, if I recall correctly) on the shelves as well. They were out of the Federal .223 ammo, but had plenty of PMC, Wolf, and Prvi Partizan .223 left (as well as a bunch of Prvi M193). They recently raised prices on the Prvi M193 from $9.19/20 to $10.xx (I forgot the cents), but they still have several of the old-priced stuff in the same crate, so I picked up 60 rounds of that stuff today. Get it while you can.
Alas, I ended up spending money today that I would rather have saved: one of the UPSes for my computers had been indicating that its batteries needed to be replaced for some time (its runtime could be measured in tens of seconds rather than tens of minutes) and beeping annoyingly, so I bought some replacement batteries today. So far, so good — the batteries haven’t exploded yet, and they seem to be charging well.
I also took my motor scooter down to the shop, as I’ve been having annoying failures-to-start that would suggest a dead battery, but the battery is fine according to my float charger and my neighbor’s multimeter. Most days it starts just fine, but some days the lights only come on dimly and it won’t turn over (when I press the electric starter, the lights get even dimmer, suggesting that it’s supplying power to the starter motor but not enough to make it work). Occasionally it’ll turn over once, but not fast enough to start. If it does turn over once, something happens where I can’t kick-start it (but jump starting it from another vehicle works fine). If it doesn’t turn over electrically, then it’ll start just fine with the kick-starter. Hopefully the shop can figure it out, and hopefully it’ll be under warranty — money’s tight enough as it is.
As I had mentioned in a previous post, I’ve recently been struck with some inspiration for a lengthy piece of writing (whether it turns out to be a short story or a full-blown novel is left to my muse). I’ve been reading up on tips for turning such inspiration into a coherent story, and have been outlining some of my thoughts, detailing characters, etc. No idea when the first chapter will be done, but I’ll let you know when it is.
Finally, some ammo…
I was up in Chandler this weekend visiting Sarah and her sister, Heidi. Heidi wanted to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy something as a gift for her friend’s birthday. While we were there, I browsed around the gun counter and came across a 150-round pack of Ultramax .223 factory reloads.
The price was quite comparable to what one could get for the same quantity from various mail-order sources, if they had any in stock, and I was willing to give Ultramax a shot as I had used some of their pistol stuff before and it had been fine. With the employee’s permission, I opened the box and took a look at the bagged, loose-packed ammo inside. It was all Federal (both commercial and Lake City), Winchester, Remington, or PMC brass, all polished to a high shine, and all with no split necks or other deformations. While the cases themselves may have had different neck lengths, all the cartridges had the same OAL (on the cases with a slightly shorter neck length the cannelure was visible, while with slightly longer case lengths the cannelure was covered by the neck).
When I was loading the ammo into magazines at home, I inspected each cartridge. Every one looked to be in good condition, all the primers were seated below the back of the cartridge, and no defects that I could find. I’ll let you know how well they work the next time I’m at the range.
I’m doing my part to help out the enviroment by recycling ammo, both by reloading my own and buying factory reloads from reputable companies. It’s always fun to mention that to green types. 
Now, if only the ammo companies could somehow ramp up supply to keep up with demand. This whole every-store-sold-out-all-the-time thing is getting old, fast.
Bloody Hell…
My friend Louis just got me an RCBS bullet puller today, as I have been pining for one for some time.
I can’t get the bloody thing to work. I popped the tar seal on some old Wolf ammo I had lying around, put the cartridge in the puller in the prescribed manner, and pounded the snot out of it to no avail. Even following excellent instructions such as this, I’ve been unsuccessful. (Note: I lack a piece of firewood, but I do have a 2×4 clamped to my desk to which my reloading press is attached, and I pounded the puller on the wood, as well as my lightly-carpeted floor.)
Same thing with my non-sealed, not-heavily-crimped reloads.
Any suggestions?
Perhaps a collet-puller would have been a better idea?
New Shooter Ammo Fund
The costs of running this blog are extremely minimal, about $20/year or so. Well within my meager student budget.
However, ammo costs a fair bit of money. While I wouldn’t think of asking readers to contribute money for my own personal ammo budget, I’d welcome any assistance that readers might be able to offer to help me provide ammo for new shooters that I take to the range. None of the ammo funded by such donations will be used for my personal use, though I may shoot a magazine or two so as to demonstrate things to new shooters.
I’ve put a small PayPal button in the right column where people can donate, if they wish. Of course, this is entirely voluntary, and nobody should feel the least bit compelled to donate. If you do donate, please let me know if you’d like your name (or pseudonym) and URL mentioned in posts, and I’ll gladly give you credit in the new shooter reports. Those who wish to stay anonymous will have their wishes respected.
I feel very awkward asking for donations of this type, and hope that nobody feels any less of me because of it. Unfortunately, donations to the New Shooter Ammo Fund are not tax deductible.
…..
Update: I also thought of a different option: if people would be more comfortable donating ammunition itself rather than money, please contact me and I can provide my shipping address. The top priorities are .22LR (both super- and subsonic, though subs are preferred; Winchester Dyanpoints work excellently with my suppressor, are subsonic out of a 16″ barrel, and are not nearly as expensive as purpose-made subsonic ammo) and .223 Rem/5.56mm NATO (62 or 55 grain bullets are fine — I’ll gladly take even “cheap” stuff like Wolf). For safety purposes, I’m only willing to accept factory-new or commercial reloads (like Ultramax or Miwall), not individual reloads or handloads. Cheap imports are fine, so long as they’re safe to use and meet relevant specs (e.g. SAAMI, NATO, etc.).
Lower priority but still important are .30-06 Springfield (M2 Ball spec only, as it’s being fired from an M1 Garand which has very specific pressure tolerances), 9mm Luger, and .45 ACP.
In certain quantities, I may be able to help pick up part of the UPS shipping. Contact me for details if you’re interested.
Note to Self
Bullets that are slightly flattened on one side by the military’s bullet-puller (used for de-milling surplus ammo) make things exciting. When the seating die is crimping the case neck around the bullet, it can make it non-circular.
This causes rather amusing chambering issues, like when I tried to load and fire my very first shot from my new DPMS AR today. Some swearing ensued. A total of three rounds (out of the ~150 fired today) were out-of-round enough to cause a stoppage.
Moral of the story: surplus bullets are great for range trips and fun, but do not depend on them for anti-zombie use.
Reloading Goals
I have enough powder to load 2,500 rounds of .223 and enough bullets and primers to load about 1,500 rounds. I have no idea how many empty cases I have, but there’s at least 1,000.
I also have a whole bunch of empty AR magazines. Empty magazines don’t do much good, and I’m sick of cranking out hundreds of rounds the night before a trip to the range.
Thus, I’m setting a goal for myself: load at least 30 rounds of .223 every day until all of my AR magazines are full. After that, load 30 rounds a day until I’m out of components. If my finacial resources permit, then I’ll buy more components (with the exception of brass, which I pick up at the range) as required.
It’s not much, and it’ll probably take me a month or so to load up all my AR mags, but it’s not an impossible goal. Having ammo on-hand is always useful, whether it’s for an impromptu range trip or a zombie attack.
Dear Ammo Makers
Dear Ammo Makers,
Stop crimping primer pockets. Unless you’re the military, it’s completely unnecessary.
Even if you are the military, it’s probably not necessary. How often do primers push themselves out, anyway?
Finding Remington and Federal brass in my range pickup bags is always nice, as their primer pockets allow for the easy but firm seating of primers.
Anyway, knock it off. My fingers are killing me and I can’t afford a Dillon swager.
Thanks!
-AZR
Followup: Reduced-recoil ammo works
Just got back from the shooty goodness this afternoon (pics and a write-up to come later).
Remington’s marketing department isn’t lying: reduced recoil 12ga shotshells (both slugs and 00 buckshot) are much more pleasant to shoot.
Sure, full-power loads are great, but for recreational, closer-range shooting, the reduced-recoil rounds make it much more fun. Now, if only they were less expensive…