Anybody shoot surpluss ammo out of a custom?

[dmr400]

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here. If you want to shoot a lot and save money I would find a different way to do it. My route was to get setup to put remage barrels on myself. After the initial outlay for tools and a barrel nut for each action I can change my own barrels for about 350. Saving the gunsmith fees buys a lot of components to reload. Another thing i'll say, cheap brass, isn't cheap. Not if you factor frustration and time into it. For 223 norma brass is pretty readily available, and pretty affordable. If your ammo shoots 2-3 moa, how do you get to be a better than 2-3 moa shooter?

Take care of it by not overworking your brass and you'll get plenty of firings to offset the slightly higher cost, especially if you aren't running too much pressure.

 

[Brewer]

Thank you for all the good comments and experiences. I should probably write a little more about what my goals are here.

So I have been looking for a stainless 223 remington 700 at a reasonable price for some time. Basically I've been looking for a sps or otherwise base model because I plan to outfit it as a really solid truck gun. Right now I'm using a 17hmr which is way more gun than I ever thought it would be but I'd like to reach out more than 150 yards.

I do some local gunsmithing on the side and most of my tooling is for the 700 action. I planned the thread the barrel and bolt handle, replace the trigger, add a brake and an aluminum chasis. I was not planning to do build thinking 300-500 yards is plenty for what I want right now. Being middle age and having 4 boys at home, my shooting and reloading time is limited.

So I have used some of the lake city 7.62 brass for 308 reloads and resizing for a 260 we have. I really like it becuse its heavy and sizes well. I'm guessing if you anneal the necks, the stuff would last an eternity. I also tend to load on the lighter side with a heaver bullet because I'm a tight wad and just get a really warm-fuzzy feeling when I save ~10-15% powder and only lose ~5-7% of my velocity! I don't have a facenation with speed per se.

So then then I have 1000 rounds of 5.56 lc brass from the 80'S that is sitting around from my ar and its just super cheap to reload and purchase outright. I can go to the store and buy ammo if I don't have reloads... it seemed like a really solid, handy rifle that my sons would continue to be able to shoot whether they wanted to get serious or not.

So then on gunbroker, there have been some stripped ss short action reminton 700 recievers going for a little over $300. https://www.gunbroker.com/item/1082780537

I bought one!! I have never chambered a barrel yet but thought this would be a good firt one to do. I thought I would have someone else true the action on a cnc lathe since I don't have that tooling yet and I've got everything but the reamer to chamber.

Anyway, lots of really good thoughts here from you guys as usual.

 

[Tom264]

Never on a good barrel.

I have a dedicated "throw away" barrel for that purpose.

My .223 gets about 4K shots a year.
I'm trying to see how long it will last.

So far I'm around 12k rounds and it still shoots an inch at 100