Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Has anyone else had problems with military 308 brass in a 99?

Can't seem to get LC 93 to feed extract properly in my 99E.

I full length sized with a CH small base sizer feeds a little stiff and extractor slips off case. Not sure what the problem is, rifle cycles regular Federal brass slick as snot. Any thoughts?

Yup, keep military ammo and brass far away from Savage 99s. Y'all be happier.

So it's not just LC?

Military loads in .308 tend to be very hot and the brass is thick and heavy! Lightfoot is correct, just use commercial ammo.

I've had problems with Federal brass in my postmils. I stick to the green box and all is good.

Green is good when it comes to ammo.

Their boolits are purty good 2 for hand loadin'.

Yep, Winchester and Federal can get sticky in .308 caliber 99's. Never a problem with Remington, though. Hard to beat their Core-Lokt bullet, for a standard bullet, as well.

I haven't had any problem, but I haven't used any MG ammo.

I do know you probably need small base dies to resize military stuff.

i use LC match brass from the 60s in my eg with no problem at all. i reduce the loads a bit because of the thicker brass. the first thing i would do is make sure that your dies are adjusted correctly. i don't like ch dies but that is just me. put the ram of the press all the way up with the shell holder in place and screw the die in till it contacts the shell holder, then drop the ram back down and give your die 1 and 1/2 turn down. then it is set to full length size. i hope this helps.

I got my friend a 1957-vintage 99F in .308 Winchester, he's fired it with M118 (match grade 7.62 NATO) and didn't have a problem.

I also use Mil. brass in most of my .300/.308 99s, even made some .250-3000 out of them but, if I adjusted my dies per these directions, my brass would have the shoulders pushed back to the dangerous point. I take a fired case from a specific 99, measure the length form the base to the shoulder, then set my die to push the shoulder back not more than .002". This will prevent the brass from excessive stretching and premature separation.

joe i here ya,i have never had a problem doing it that way. i have been setting dies at that starting point for many years, i got those directions from the speer-rcbs die company.

The instructions given by RCBS (and other mfg's) are generic. They produce brass sized small enough so it should easily fit in any rifle that is in spec for the cartridge, even one with a minimum dimension chamber. As a result, the brass is sized more than necessary for most chambers.

Got my hands on some winchester brass, gonna give it a try.

Loaded up some winchester brass with 150gr Interlocks and 41.5gr IMR 4895. Worked flawlessly in the 99 and killed the hell out of a few pop cans. Load might be just a touch light, but I don't think any deer will notice. Thanks everybody for your help.

Glad to here you're happy with it! Keep it simple I always say.

If it does what you need then there's no reason to load heavier. But it's more than just a touch light.

For example, that same charge is a nice mid range load (~2550 fps) with a 168 grain bullet in LC match brass which has less capacity than your WW.

Yeah I know it's light...this may sound a little off the wall but...this rifle doesn't seem to function well with hot loads so I crunched some numbers. I figured that as long as I came up with a TKO value that was greater than or equal to my deer load in my 270 that I know works incredibly well I'd be just fine. After crunching the numbers I figure that as long as I stay above 2450 fps I should be good. I figure I'm probably between 2500 and 2600 fps. The rifle digests the rounds very well and they seem to have more than ample accuracy.

I'll know more when I get a chrony later this summer.

Sounds like you're loading it down to about 300 Savage specs. It'll kill deer.