Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Mostly 223 loading

Manuals have separate sections for bolt rifles and service rifles . I am burning lots of powder to nail down a first 2 shot sight in . I love this crazy rifle and have mostly settled on a load . Wacked a mule buck the other day and I do not think I could have bagged with my 06 . Where does the mini fit in ? service or bolt ?

5.56 or 223?

556

What weight of bullet do you like ??

kwg

What is the chamber designation stamped on the rifle? 223 or 556? Go with whatever the designation is.

drover

Drover bingo it is 556 so you are saying use the service rifle data in the manual ! Makes sense now .kwg it likes 60 grain VMax .It is getting down to OK accuracy for my area ,mostly timbered . I think I have finally got all the components to match a box of reloads I got from a reliable source .24 GR of H335 WW case and primer 60 Gr V Max Thanks for your replies

A friend of mine uses 24.5 of H335 when he reloads 62 grain FMJ's. Between 24 and 24.5 gives you a bit of room to find an accurate load. You used the word "mini". Like in Mini 14 or Mini Mauser ?

Either way, 24 to 24.5 for a 60 grain bullet with H335 should be safe enough. You just need to find the accuracy point to get the best out of it.

kwg

Or Mini Howa?

Mini 14 AKA the scatter gun of the rifle world !

There are several tricks to getting a MIni 14 shooting well. But, if you reload you can start with the powder and the case resizing. Is the rifle an older series rifle with the skinny barrel or a later version (580 and later) ?? You need to give us more information.

kwg

It is a584 (new ) stainless.It is down to about and 1 inch now after lots of education and powder . All the easy and cheep stuff has been done ,buffers ,bushings ,lousy trigger job ,some bedding . I have nearly worn out the Perfect Union Site on the mysterious Mini ! I do not think I would ever part with it .I wish it was elk and wolf capable so I could sell some bolt guns .I killed quite a few gophers with it last summer ((missed some too ) I have not heard of sizing tips re.the Mini .Tell me please.

My guess is you know a good portion of this information but I'm passing it on so you can use or eliminate any information you don't need.

I have a Hornady Comparator. You use it to size your fired ammo and then copy the dimensions to your case resizing. One of the problems with the Mini is excessive head spacing. You fix that excess head space with how you resize your brass. You will need a set of calipers and the Hornady A330 bushing and the comparator body.

Take one of your fired cases and using the bushing you find out the amount of stretch in the fired case. You then use the fired case size to duplicate the dimensions. I did not buy the whole kit. I just bought the A330 bushing and the comparator body. I didn't need the whole kit. I put a video link down below. But, the whole idea is to fill the chamber with cartridge case to limit any non concentric loads. By non concentric loads I mean loads that are slightly crooked inside of the chamber.

I also standardize my primer hole and primer pocket. I use a #46 drill bit which gives the primer hole a size of .081". This is slightly larger than SAMMI specs but it cleans up 99% of the primer holes. I use a K&M primer pocket reamer. This standardizes the depth of the primer pockets. I do both of these processes on my drill press.

I also use brass that is pretty much the same length. I actually try to use brass that is 1.760" long and then seat the bullet out to 2.230" long. If you are using bullets with a cannelure this will many times seat the bullet outside of the cannelure. This requires measuring brass and then trimming it to the 1.760 dimension. Or whatever length you like but keep it consistent. I have grown to like a total length of 2.230 for Hornady 55 grain soft points.. The long pointy bullets I take out to 2.250. Those dimensions fit well in a Mini 14 magazine. Both numbers will leave the cannelure exposed. You may want to crimp your bullets in or you may not want to. That's up to you to decide.

Most of the time it's hard to find brass that long but if possible make the brass all of the same length. The advantage of the longer brass is you can seat the bullet closer to the lands and still have plenty of brass to create consistent bullet/case tension. Brass under 1.740" in length I put in my recycle can. I don't want to mess with it. It's easy to find Lake City brass 1.760" or longer. But, most of it is in the 1.750" in length. Just make the brass all of the same length, especially if you are using the crimping groove in your seating die. It's all about the same neck/crimp tension on the bullet.

I have some favorite powders as well. IMR 3031, AA2015, AA2230 and AA2460 or H335. They all go through the powder measure well. My max load for the AA2015 is 23.2 grains. This is .2 grains above book max. Keep that in mind. RL10x and H322 are pretty much in the same burn rate. As for the 3031, you have to hand measure those loads because it's really course stick powder and does not go through the powder measure well. I also prefer to use Federal Match primers. But, as we know getting the primers you want may be difficult. But, Federal Match are my favorite primers.

I have not bought or use a concentricity gauge. If I were doing some real long distance shooting I would probably invest in one but I'm not ready to make that jump.

Anyway, start with this video. Using the Comparator has made a difference in how I resize my ammo for different rifles with different head spaces.
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Here is a video link to the Comparator.

kwg I really appreciate the time effort you spent to help me out . A sincere thank you . I will be headed to the city soon and have a bit of birthday money to spend and the comparator will be checked out fully . During the ammo crunch I bought a couple boxes of reloads from a reliable source . I pulled a few bullets and measured the H 335 as labeled 24 Gr 60 gr Vmax and WW cases and primers I seated them a bit deeper to fit the mag . The result was WOW a 5 shot group about 1 1/4 I was amazed .I finally rounded up the exact components and have only got to shoot 2 shots .Your sizing has me very interested as it might tighten things up . Nasty weather and today was the end of elk season will get me in mood to inside reloading. Though not the textbook rifle for wolves this rifle rarely leaves my pickup and and I am in wolf country 24 7 . The season closes Mar 15and even a 74 year old guy could get lucky ! It sure is handier to get in action compared to my Hawkeye 243 which is the other wolf medicine .Keep your powder dry and have a Blessed Christmas . Will report soon.

I have sized up factory ammo using the comparator and found that in order for the ammo to work in any chamber they squeeze it down a long ways. You want your brass squeezed down just enough to reliably feed. I don't recall the exact numbers you will likely see off the top of my head but in the A330 bushing you are going to see factory ammo squeezed down to around 1.446 or somewhere in that neighborhood.

After it comes out of the chamber it will be something like 1.459 or maybe a bit more. That's minimum of .013 of "play" in the chamber. Keep in mind that there is going to be some shrink in the case after it has been fired. Once it has been fired the case has to grow to fit the chamber and that shrink is what allows the case to be extracted.

kwg