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Thread: .243WSSM in an AR?

  1. #21
    Boolit Master sawinredneck's Avatar
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    I’ve already gotten an AR-10 in .308, I was looking at something lighter, but I’m not paying that price to get it.
    Quote Originally Posted by sniper View Post
    Irish Proverb: Never approach a Bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or an Idiot from any direction!

  2. #22
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    heres my take on it. Both the 243wssm and 25wsm use expensive brass and my buddy has two different browing bolts chambered for each and said he gets neck splits after two shootings so brass life is poor. I had a 300 wsm browning and had better luck but even with that gun 4 firings were about it. If it wasn't for these downsides Id love a 25wsm ar15 myself. If I were you what id look at is a ar10 in 243. There is even some lightweight ar10s out now. there not 6lbs by a long shot but they get them down to about 8lbs which is much better then my ar10 308. Its a 16 inch carbine that if it doesn't weight 10lbs it sure feels like it. At least with the ar10 you can find cheap brass (even real cheap if you size down 308 brass) and even find a box of ammo at about any place that sells ammo of any kind. Prices are much lower on them too. when I bought mine about 10 years ago I paid 1200 bucks. Cost of living has gone up since and a similar gun today can be bought for 8-900 bucks. cheaper yet if your willing to build one. Palmetto has pretty cheap lowers and uppers but I don't know if they do 243s or not. But even if you built a 308 and bought a 243 barrel youd have what you want and the abililty too to easily switch back to 308 in a survival situation.

  3. #23
    Boolit Buddy McFred's Avatar
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    Anneal the necks and you can get a LOT of reloads out of WSSM brass. This is about 50/50 FL and neck sizing a set of 50 brass. These are the first two case failures after more than 30 reloads:



    After 30 reloads, even if it were $3 a case it'd only be 10¢ each by the time the brass is toast... Doesn't sound bad to me and I'm a cheap bastard. I stocked up on brass when I wildcatted the WSSM to 7mm and considering I've almost shot out a barrel on the first 50 cases I almost think I've got too much brass in storage.

  4. #24
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    I guess youd have to buy new brass because the factory ammo brass he gave me (2 boxes) had 3 case splits on the first firing and my guess is if those 3 split the other 37 were kind of sketchy. I never got into annealing. I guess it was always some mystical thing to me and I allways worried about doing it wrong and actually making the brass weaker. I actually saw a weatherby mark V that blew up using annealed brass in a 300 wby. Anyway you look at it you must be running fairly low pressures because ive never seen any rifle brass loaded to full pressure (I'm talking 50-60000 psi guns not 40k guns) that brass lasted more then 10 shootings before you start getting thinning and separating at the base. 30 shots out of low pressure loads with cast is doing real good.

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy McFred's Avatar
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    Sure, if you never annealed the NECKS of any of your cases then you'll work-harden everything and get case failure before you ever get to 30 reloads. Your Weatherby Kaboom might have been from improper annealing of the case head among a dozen other factors. You're not supposed to anneal anything but the necks and a little of the shoulder, not the case head.

    When you FL size you only need to bump about .001" to .0015". If you have no gauge to assess how much you're working the brass then you can excessively work the brass into premature failure.

    If you shoot factory ammo and get split case necks on the first firing then I'd send it back to the factory, something's not right.

    You can claim I'm running low pressure but I'm driving 180 Berger Hybrids at 2825fps with less than 50 grains of powder out of a bolt gun.

    Annealing is not voodoo. If you work with obsolete/rare cartridges I'd suggest you research annealing otherwise stick to .223 Rem, .308 Win and .45 ACP and throw away all your brass after every shot.

  6. #26
    Boolit Master dkf's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sawinredneck View Post
    I’ve already gotten an AR-10 in .308, I was looking at something lighter, but I’m not paying that price to get it.
    Unless you have a really heavy AR10 an AR15 in .243wssm is not going to be much lighter. Depending on what AR-10 you have (and how the .243 is configured) the .243wssm could be heavier.

    Quote Originally Posted by McFred View Post
    Anneal the necks and you can get a LOT of reloads out of WSSM brass. This is about 50/50 FL and neck sizing a set of 50 brass. These are the first two case failures after more than 30 reloads:



    After 30 reloads, even if it were $3 a case it'd only be 10¢ each by the time the brass is toast... Doesn't sound bad to me and I'm a cheap bastard. I stocked up on brass when I wildcatted the WSSM to 7mm and considering I've almost shot out a barrel on the first 50 cases I almost think I've got too much brass in storage.
    They look bad ***. You are getting good numbers out of it as far as I am concerned.

  7. #27
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    I've got a 308 stripped lower on the way
    I think I will build a 358 win..
    might be a 6.5 Creedmoor though
    choices
    Last edited by white eagle; 02-22-2018 at 03:58 PM.
    Hit em'hard
    hit em'often

  8. #28
    Boolit Grand Master
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    going with the Creedmoor
    Hit em'hard
    hit em'often

  9. #29
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by white eagle View Post
    going with the Creedmoor
    Good choice, I love my encore in 6.5 CM.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check