Military .308 brass in Commercial .308 Rifle

[OBIII]

For those of you who may not know this, (I know I didn't), trying to FL size Military .308 brass (fired from a machine gun), a couple of extra steps need to be taken. A friend was attempting to load mil brass for his Savage .308, and was having problems with chambering and bolt seating. This thread helped him out, and maybe anyone else running into this problem: http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=42&t=311189 Mods, if this is a dupe or in the wrong place, please feel free to do as you see fit. Thanks.

[NickSS]

I have been using mil brass in a 308 for years and it generally is tight the first time you shoot it in a bolt gun. This is due to the oversize chambers in military rifles and machineguns. Generally the shoulder gets pushed forward a bit more with them and the brass is a bit thicker than most commercial brass so it tends to spring back a bit when full length sized. Most are a bit stiff to cloase the bolt the first time but after that will work just fine in your gun.

[Hang Fire]

The only 7.62x51 mil brass I have is LC match, it is almost like commercial .308 and the primers were not crimped. About 25 years ago I got a 5 gallon bucket of the once fired LC match for 15 bucks, must still be half of it have never reloaded.

[chboats]

30 years ago I got about 200 lbs of WRA 69 brass. Some shot in machine guns and some in M14s. I full length size, clean up the primer pocket, trim to length, and fire form. From there I neck size only. Have been using it for all these years. Shooting boolits I am not sure I have ever had a case fail. I do anneal when the necks start to get hard.

Carl

[bob208]

i have been using .308 mil brass for a long time had alot of trouble getting it sized. then i bought a small base fl sizing die. first trip through that end of problems.