7.62x25 Questions

[Nowherefound]

Ok everyone, I am hoping some of you folks on here have been down this road and can hopefully help me find a place to start. What I am looking for is a safe place to start using Unique and or RedDot powders. The hard part is two fold...
1) I am going to start off using some plated 110 grain bullets I have laying around. These will be both sitting deeper into the case and heavier than anything my reloading manuals have load data for.
2) I just finished converting some 223 cases to Tok cases. These are supposed to be thicker brass with less volume inside, another thing that can spike pressure.
So, given this I would like to hear any recommendations of a safe place to start. I would assume below the minimum of what is listed in the books, but how much below? Starting these off in a TTC but would like to use them in a Cz52 after I get a load that will reliably cycle. I am not looking to hot rod this but would like some accuracy and full function of the pistols.
Long story short, I have two factors that by them selves would cause you to reduce a published load and work up. Combine those factors together and how much do you reduce and work up from?

[GhostHawk]

First make a dummy round with that case, no powder, no primer, and see if that combination will even chamber.

I loaded a total of maybe 150 .223 converted rounds. I cheated, I used .223 blanks that have thinner brass, and still had chambering issues.

I've tried 2 lee molds, and had nothing but troubles with the round nose. The .314 TC sized down well worked much better. But by that time I was about burned out on this project. It is FIDDLY and it can be done, but seating small bullets in small cases and if everything is not just right the bullet tips.

In my case, I know I can do it if I need to. I have the parts, the tools, the system worked out.
But sanity's sake I bought 250 rounds of Privi Partizan hollow-points and put this project aside for other more rewarding ones.

Your mileage may vary.

[Nowherefound]

Already made up 5 dummy rounds to let me check the cycling by hand and ensure that my crimp was not breaking the copper plating. Everything looks to feed without a problem at all. Hard to say what it will do during actual firing and cycling but it is looking promising.

[Nowherefound]

Its a bit of work making these cases, but fiddling in the workshop with some tunes or a podcast on is a good way for me to relax anyways. Plus, it is hard to beat the price and availability of 223 cases.

[Kilroy08]

Here's what I have so far.

For converting .223 brass I'll rough cut it and run it through the size die. Then I'll stick it in my Forster case trimmer to ream the inside of the neck and cut it to length in one shot.

If you have a Forster case trimmer, go to their website and order a custom reamer. The size you want is .300". Don't order the .308" reamer that is a regular production item, it will take too much out of the neck.

For Red Dot, I started at 3.0 grains with a 115 grain cast bullet. It seemed pretty anemic, the slide barely cycled on my Tokarev.

I need to do some more load development but have not done so yet. Hopefully that gives you a place to start.

[JHeath]

Search google for Clark's posts on this forum and others re Tok and CZ relative strength. Toks tend to have .311 -- .313 grooves but chamber necks sized for .308 or 9 bullets. I tried reaming cut down 5.56 brass and even annealed it was a problem to make work. Project been on hold for a while. Plan to just ream out the chamber necks .003 or so to match the oversize bores and use Starline and boolits without reaming. Toks are notorious for launching/losing brass. Looks to me like the overly-long ejector lug on the trigger group could be filed back in tiny increments until it tames the ejection distance. With j-words and Starline brass, case reaming would probably be unnecessary. Clark used Power Pistol behind 110 j-words in Tokavev TT33s or M57s only. Advise against hot rodding the CZ52 with the same loads so if you own both that's a consideration.

[jrayborn]

I have been working with Clark's load using surplus 110 gr (.30 carbine) bullets and Power Pistol. Say what you will about his experiments, this load works really well in the Tok.

[dtknowles]

The closest I can provide is no better than what you would find in a Lyman manual. I loaded 5.5 grains of Red Dot in S&B brass behind a 89gr. LRN sized to .311 did 1350 fps.

Tim

[Kilroy08]

I forgot to mention that I ended up shelving the .223 brass conversion project once Starline got some brass back in stock. My time is money. If it's commercially available, I'd rather go that route.

9mm Winchester Magnum brass will work in a pinch as well.

[jrayborn]

I've been fortunate, cut down .223 works for me with no neck reaming.

[spfd1903]

Don't own any Red Dot. Have been playing with this caliber for years via a CZ 52 and a Polish TT 33. Various fmj and cast projectiles, various powders. A quarter ( 25 cents) size group at 30 feet with a Lee C309 113 F. Gas checked and sized to .311. Reamed the ID of Starline brass to .311 with a Forster reamer. Acc #7, 7.0 grains. Years in the making. No chronograph, but they blast through 9 inches of wet phone books.

[Tackleberry41]

I have never messed with those type powders in the 7.62x25. Always went with the higher powered loads with XTP bullets. Or unique w some cast.

I did mess with cutting 223 down, its not alot of fun. And the donor brass has a big effect on it. I was just using a pile of mixed stuff. Some brands would chamber fine, some wouldn't. Some would extract reliably, some wouldn't. Considering how easy the brass is to lose, I went with stuff from starline. My 1911 isn't so much an issue as you can run a heavy spring and they do not go far. But my Tokarev its hard to find more than a few.

[Nowherefound]

Well guys, I know this thread is a little old but I figured I would post some initial results from yesterday as I am pretty stoked. Using converted 223 brass and Berry's 110 grain .30's I loaded 5 each of 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6 and 4.8 grain of unique. All cycled and were shot at about 8 yards (again this was just a function test) the 4.2 and 4.4 were very tightly grouped with the 4.2 putting 3 holes touching each other. the 4.6 and 4.8 both started to open up and it looked like the cases bulged up more to expand to fill the chamber since 223 is a little smaller than the 7.62x25 brass. Since this is loading for just range fun I like the accuracy potential and perfectly fire formed cases that the 4.2 had.

Case recovery was at about 50% since at my range it can be hard finding brass that gets flung too far away. That is actually the reason for the 223 conversion vs buying starline... I can sit and watch football and convert cases for cheap, the starline brass at $30 per hundred would suck to lose at the range.

Anyways that is my update for now, this brass was actually a pain to get the kinks worked out but now that I have done it I feel the next batch will not take nearly as much time or effort. I plan loading up and putting some time into really seeing what this load can do next time at the range and hopefully do a write up in the event anyone else runs into some of the problems I did.

[dtknowles]

Well guys, I know this thread is a little old but I figured I would post some initial results from yesterday as I am pretty stoked. Using converted 223 brass and Berry's 110 grain .30's I loaded 5 each of 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6 and 4.8 grain of unique. All cycled and were shot at about 8 yards (again this was just a function test) the 4.2 and 4.4 were very tightly grouped with the 4.2 putting 3 holes touching each other. the 4.6 and 4.8 both started to open up and it looked like the cases bulged up more to expand to fill the chamber since 223 is a little smaller than the 7.62x25 brass. Since this is loading for just range fun I like the accuracy potential and perfectly fire formed cases that the 4.2 had.

Case recovery was at about 50% since at my range it can be hard finding brass that gets flung too far away. That is actually the reason for the 223 conversion vs buying starline... I can sit and watch football and convert cases for cheap, the starline brass at $30 per hundred would suck to lose at the range.

Anyways that is my update for now, this brass was actually a pain to get the kinks worked out but now that I have done it I feel the next batch will not take nearly as much time or effort. I plan loading up and putting some time into really seeing what this load can do next time at the range and hopefully do a write up in the event anyone else runs into some of the problems I did.

Thanks for the update

Tim

[RG1911]

I've been playing with this round for quite some time in a Yugo Tokarev (the M57). One of the mods I had done to the pistol was to sleeve the barrel with a .308 liner. All the bullets I had measured, both commercial and mil surplus, came in at .308 but the bore was wandering into the .312 range.

I tested several brands of .30 cal bullets up to 93 grains.

To shorten a long story, I finally settled on the Sierra 85-gr soft point with 6.2 grains of Red Dot and a CCI SP magnum primer. I have not yet chronographed this load, but the recoil is not as sharp as the Bulgarian surplus ammo that ran 1500 fps.

At 25 yards off a rest, it's putting 5 shots into a bit less than 3 inches. The sights are not very good for accuracy work, so they're the next thing to be changed.

BTW, I'm using Starline brass and am not particularly pleased. The primer pockets are loosening badly after only two firings. I had one fall out, dumping a bunch of the fine ball powder I was testing into everything. As I expected, Starline says they've never heard of this problem. My interest in buying their new .30 Carbine brass has decreased to near zero.

I hate to do it because of the cost, but I may have to shoot up a bunch of S&B ammo just for the cases, which are very good.

Richard