Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 7.62 (.308 Win.) Match Brass

Help! A little "adult supervision" needed here. I want to develop some accuracy loads for my .308 Win. I have access to 7.62 Match brass at a very good price,and question it's consistency. Is Match brass held to higher quality control standards than standard military brass, or should I forget it and try (with today's component shortage)to find good commercial brass? Thanks for any and all help!! memtb

What vintage is the brass? Is it from M118 match ammo, M852 match ammo, or some other?

Really good ammo can be loaded in LC match brass, particularly if you take the time to check them for uniform case neck walls. That said, for true best effort stuff, you'll want to use Lapua.

Thanks mathman, I'll have to check and see what type, year , ect. is available. memtb

.308 Lapua in stock at Cabelas.

And on sale at Butch's. http://www.butchsreloading.com/shop/49-lapua-brass

I'm the first to admit that I'm a lazy reloader. I understand some get their jollies match preping brass, etc.
I've played with a a few batches of Lake City Match brass and I wasn't impressed at all. However, if I can grab some Federal Match brass that was shot in a bolt gun, I'm all over it.
I've also found that some of the commerical brass works alot better than I ever thought it would. Regular .308 hunting ammo brass from Federal has shot lotts of groups with match bullets in the .5 range for three shots out of my M70 Stanless Fwt. .308. And that's with a simple 4X scope. The latest Remington brass seems to work as well. Hornady's "Match" .308 brass also seems quite good.
I'd skip the military stuff. E

Most rifles, most bullet makers, most loaders and, more importantly, most shooters can't realize a difference between match grade brass and the cheapest brass avail.
To many other variables they need work to focus in the wrong direction.
More specifically...
If you own a rifle that is capable of a zero group at 100 yards, and you own a rest capable of holding the rifle with sub millimetre movement between shots, and you can produce ammunition that is absolutely identical... the difference between 0mph and 5 mph is .5".
So that's going to factor in. Shot1 0mph, shot 2 5 mph left- right, dot 3 5 mph reverse gust = 1" 3 group.
so weather or not you use match grade components or not, you have factors that play more into accuracy that you cannot control and them factors you may not consider that you need to control.
work on trigger control, rifle crown, scope mounts, breathing ect.

What if the OP has a rifle like a couple of mine that quite easily show the difference?

Then he is a heck of a shooter with a very accurate rifle. Not only they, but, he had available a calm area, stable platform and near perfect set.
a true conversion of factors that rarely happen.
buy a lottery ticket.

You don't need to be a lottery winner to see the difference via a Rem. 700 5R or 40X.

You can't spend enough money for it to matter.
like I have said on record, excellence doesn't come wrapped in cellophane.

That wasn't my point.

My point is I have those two rifles, and their shooting qualities allow me to demonstrate fine differences in handloads. Of course I've made a few laps around the loading and shooting benches.

I'm not saying Joe Public can buy a half moa ten shot group off the rack.

I would suggest that you should buy these 7.62x51mm cases and work up a few loads, unless the price is too high. That's your call.

WRT military brass generally, they shoot just as well or better than commercial brass, but because they are once fired, can be had cheaper. For std mil brass, I'd suggest that you get ones that are already processed. The crimps are removed. They're resized, washed and trimmed. In effect, all ready to go.

There are several businesses that sell these. gibrass, top brass, and more. You have to look around, but they can also be had at some gun shows. If you get the mixed headstamps, you can sort it yourself, or just weigh them. US made cases like Lake City, are created according to a specific standard, to minimize differences lot to lot. Nothing is perfect, but a quick weighing can help a lot.

Having been in the service for many years, I prefer them to commercial cases because they are thicker and more consistent. As a result, the maximum loads will be less than listed in most manuals - unless the loads were developed specifically with milspec cases. That's because the internal volume is less in these cases than with std commercial brass from Win or Rem.





Here are a couple of targets I shot using once fired military brass, from a completely stock Tikka 308 rifle. These were 100 yd targets. I was testing Berger 135s. The first target measured 0.488 using IMR3031. The second target is a 25 shot group. I don't recall the exact size but it was approx. an inch and a half.

Those cases are every bit as good, or better than commercial. Military match brass is built to a tighter spec than std mil brass, but as has been suggested, are you and your rifle able to see the difference?

For me, it would boil down to price. Only you can judge if it is reasonable. I would buy based on that, not the quality of the component - unless you be using them in a tuned target rifle.

Like I mentioned earlier, really good loads can be made in mil match brass. But it does take a bit of measuring and culling to get a batch of them as consistent as Lapua cases are right out of the box.

The nearest to lapua/ RWS I have found is lake city MATCH 66-68 and m118LR.

That's why I asked the OP about the brass vintage. The era you mention was much better for QC than ten years later.

What 10 years?
Check for availability of lake city match, post 1970.
The " match" marked is good, absolutely, but the "N M" 1964-67 marked is probably the best there's ever been from any sources.
Story goes that the scrapped2 2;1 during inspection and that every piece was hand checked.

I'm running the current protocol for match, as per the US army's training manual on small arms cartridges.
Which is 42 grain load of IMR4895 at 2.83". I'm running the CCI bench rest Primers and a amax projectile.
Loads run 2550 gives or take from my 20" steyr s.

By 1965 the National Matches were dominated by the new M14 rifle and 7.62 NM cartridge. Production of the Cal. .30 National Match ammunition at Lake City was greatly reduced and the last lot of M72 NM officially designated for the National Matches was made and issued in 1966. Sufficient stocks remained for both the 1967 and 1968 National Matches. Production of M72 MATCH continued on a limited basis to fill the few requests for that caliber and to provide cartridges for practice (LC 67 MATCH and LC 68 MATCH).

But depending on the rifle from which they were fired, you have to perform your own inspection regardless. The mil spec dictated the parameters for unfired brass, primers and bullets. If you are using processed brass, the condition has changed. That's why inpsection is more important than vintage.

Additionally, the mil spec only determined the state of an unfired round. The OP is getting spent cases.

If you measure case wall uniformity of match brass from 1967 and 1977, you will get a much higher reject rate from the 1977 production. The quality of the components and finished ammunition was higher in the earlier days.

So vintage matters if I have my choice when buying the fired brass, the raw stock from which I'll finish my handloads, and vintage matters when I decide the per piece price I'll be willing to pay.

M72 is 30-06. I'm familiar with the literature you're citing, and I believe you're confusing the discontinuation of 30-06 ammunition with the production dates of the 308 stuff.

I've shot many cans of LC Match/NM in 308 from the late seventies and early eighties. In the eighties the QC got better with the M852 version.