.338 Shooters: Whats your bullet?

[specweldtom]

The tool is called a R W Hart case saver swage for large primer pockets. The Midway product # is
911104. It works by having a steel rod (mounted on a base plate) which will go up through the case neck and support the inside of the web around the primer flash hole. Slide the case down over the rod and insert the swaging punch guide pin into the flash hole and give it a tap with a hammer. It pushes a little of the pocket wall down, bulging it inward, and that tightens the pocket. Sounds crude, but ??? The instructions with the tool say that it can tighten the same pocket several times. One of these rainy days, I'm going to get it out and tighten about $1300 worth of Wby boomer brass that is otherwise in perfect shape.

Somebody's buying them! I just checked and they're on backorder status.

+1 on the Lapua brass. I sure wish they made Weatherby brass.

Tom

 

[D.Camilleri]

D.camelleri, My accuracy load I hunt with and took my elk with last year is 99 grains of RE-25 with the 225 AB. My chrono shows 3260 fps out of my rem 700 338 RUM 26" barrel. I have shot 4" groups with it at 800 yards. Just an accurized factory rifle. I noticed your load at 97 grains got loose primer pockets. I get 5+ loadings at the 99 grains. I am seated off the lands.

Angus, The 225's are fine inside 800 yards and are my choice at that range because they are a proven quality big game bullet and not a target bullet. Last year I got a lot# of them just after nosler started back production of them after crunch time hit. I saw four failures from that lot #. Others have had good success with them. I now have some newer ones with different lot numbers to try. My wife shot a very nice heavy bodied mule deer this year with a 338 Lapua at 516 yards with the 225 AB. It was one of the new lot numbers with excellent performance.

I shot an elk at 908 yards with one and last year shot an elk at 740 yards with one. They do well at those ranges. When you go beyond 1000 yards the high BC bullets start taking over though. If you want to spend the money I tried some 225 and 250 grain Rocky Mountain bullets. BC is .849 or so with the 250 with good performance on game. The 225 is in the .7's. Those are the best hunting bullets I am aware of right now for long range 338's.

My load of 97 grains of RE-25 was with new federal nickle cases and the majority of the cases has loose primer pockets when I went to reload them. I didn't notice it for quite a while since I had 100 new primed cases and I was just shooting them a few at a time.

Does anyone have an opinion on weather the Federal Brass is softer than the Remmy brass as far as primer pockets is concerned?

I also loaded up some Barnes TTSk and they seem to build a little more pressure than the NAB's and I am shooting them @ 93 grains of RE-25 with good results.

 

[Outlaw6.0]

Tom,

If you get the chance, it would be great if you could do a product review on the Midway primer pocket tool. I wouldn't hesitate to bet there are a bunch of us on here that eagerly anticipate seeing the results of such a tool. I know it would save me several hundred $$ in saved brass!

Dr. C, I was surprised to read that you are seeing more pressure out of the TSX, please tell me that was from a clean bore, as the TSK is known to fowl badly if shot out of a barrel that has seen bullets of different construction (read jacket material) previously.

 

[specweldtom]

Outlaw, I'll try to do some this weekend and post the results.

I've had enough factory ammo and brass (thank goodness) that I haven't needed to use it. The primer pockets in the Wby/Norma brass get loose after the 2nd or 3rd firing, but all my rifles have fairly tight chambers with minimal headspace. All are belted cases, most .378 based. Once they are fired, they fit the chamber perfectly and even full length re-sizing doesn't work them very much, so I started saving them years ago, intending to build a press-mounted pocket tightener. May still do it, but in the meantime this tool is worth trying.

Tom

 

[338 bruce]

My 338 rum load is a 250 hornady with 97 grns of rl 25 and I get 5 loadings out of my rem brass before the primer pockets get loose.