Impressive 30-06 Overload-- some people live right

A friend gave me a box of his old used brass. He does not reload, but some years ago had a buddy who did reload, and loaded all the ammo for my friend. The buddy is long since gone, and my friend doesn't reload, so he gave the brass to me, complete with the boxes with the loading data written by his reloading buddy. This man was loading 30-06 with 52.5-53 grains of IMR 4320 with 150 grain spitzers. (this is above the Hodgdon maximum load by a little bit).

All the brass looks to be in good shape, no splits and no indications of head separation, but a few of the cases make me really wonder how he managed to shoot these reloads without any accidents. Four cases are black around the head with the primers completely blown out of the case. They have no splits or failures, but the head is expanded so much they will not go into the shell holder. The specification for the diameter at the bottom of the head is 0.470 and these are all 0.477. The rims are 0.486 (0.473 is the specification. The primer pockets are so large you can drop a primer in the hole and it rattles. My friend shot reloads from his buddy for years, and never had any problems.

I guess some people just live right.

Wow that all I can say wow

And that's why you NEVER shoot anyone else's reloads...

That's a depriming shortcut that methinks I won't try.

Lyman 44, pg 66: 150gr Jacketed : IMR4320 Starting load 47.0gr - Max. load 52.5gr

Lyman 48, pg 221: 150gr Jacketed Sp: IMR4320 Starting load 47.0gr - Max. load 53gr

Hick, Is your friend's name "Lucky"?

I was poking through a older reloading manual... Lyman I,believe and I noticed several loads that where many grains higher on starting and max loads than my current books... 2010 and newer.
Powder changes, test equipment, liabilities?

I think you will find similar data for 8x57 with 150 gr and IMR 4320 in the Hornady manuals. The older Hornady manual shows 53 grs and newest shows 46 grs as max, 7 grs difference between max listed loads. Start low and work up makes sense.

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Originally Posted by nicholst55

And that's why you NEVER shoot anyone else's reloads...

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That is so true for how some dose it that you never know.

would be interesting to know the whole story! How did ejection go and at what point did the thought something is not right cross your mind???

Newer load data often lists a milder max load. But it sounds like those cases are scrap.

When I started reloading I bought my set up from the newspaper. A widow was selling every thing her husband had. There were hand written notes in the manual where he went over a few grains in some loads. I think this was more common before the internet.

You may get away with it for a long time. Eventually something bad will happen.

I'm a bit confused.

You are saying that these reloads were an "Impressive 30-06 Overload" yet the charge is within book maximum. Not saying that for that gun it wasn't an overload but why would brass be swelling and primer pockets enlarging with a book maximum load? We're not talking 5 grs. overload here, we're talking book maximum.

Have you checked the gun these rounds were shot in? Could something be wrong there?

Could the reloading friend have annealed the cartridges and softened the heads?

Just seems odd to me that a listed book max charge would be giving results that seem like significant overload.

Also, to consider is that if your friend the shooter didn't tell his friend the reloader what was going on then quite possibly the reloading friend was using rounds safe in his gun with no knowledge that something was wrong down the line and if within book max. why would he suspect something would be wrong? Now, if the reloading friend saw all the brass and ignored the signs, that's negligent and dangerous. More good reasons to avoid other's reloads, I agree.

I would not use those cases.

With that much expansion, the chamber is probably a little oversize, otherwise the cases should stick in the chamber.

Have you pulled any of the bullets to see if what the powder charge really is and if it is a 150 gr bullet?

Its a little hard to pull bullets on used brass (I was only given the brass, not the ammo). The boxes are labeled 52.5 grains IMR4320 (only half grain over the Hodgdon published max), but I have no way of knowing how the loader measured his gunpowder or how accurately. I'm guessing the precision of powder measurement was not very good. Don't have to worry about re-using that brass because the cases won't fit in the shell holder.

I call anything that makes cases too big for the shell holder and blows out a primer an impressive overload. That the reloader managed to do that with a max load, while all the rest fired fine in the rifle, just hints to me that he was not controlling his powder measurement very good.

I had some middle of the load window loads blow a primer in a 22-250 . Thing about is that the shooting and primer failure with the 3031/55gr load was exactly the same as the Winchester 4kfps 45 gr HP .
90 seconds per shot 6-7 primers go flat 7-8 start to show a dark circle #10-11 drops a primer . It was about 90° in full sun ...... Doesn't do that with the easy up on a 60° day ....... I guess maybe the heavy bbl on the Mark X action just holds too much heat .

I'm wondering if he thought he was using 4350?

Guardian Angels.

Shiloh

Who knows if he was weighing his charges right,some loads could have been a lot higher.

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Originally Posted by flint45

Who knows if he was weighing his charges right,some loads could have been a lot higher.

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That was the point I was getting to.

Since the reloader probably shot these in a different gun than the friend did it's quite possible they worked just fine in his rifle. Ive found there's quite a bit of difference in min/max chamber dimensions. This can change the pressure noticeablely.

When I had 2 7x57s one had a military chamber and the other cut till it just closed on a go gage. A good load in the military chamber would lock the bolt on the tight chamber.

Temperature sensitive
I once had a 25-06 that shot remarkably well when it was bordering on red line.
Worked up some loads of H380 and 75 gr V max on a cooler day. Very accurate so I loaded 50 rds.
In June I happened to be in a prairie dog town so I drug it out. I may have fired as many as 5 shots. All either blew the primers or flattened them dramatically. Later that winter I coyote hunted with the same rifle/loads. Temps would have been below 30 deg for the most part. Primers were still round in the corners. These cartridges were all loaded at the same time using a rcbs uniflow which throws very uniform charges with ball powder.
Before the advent of Varget and Hodgens extreme line most powders were pretty temp sensitive.

With my 25-06 I started at book max and worked up. If you load a book max in my 7x57 you need a 2x4 to open the bolt. With it I start at min and often don't work up very far.

As they say ( every gun is an individual)