Making MEXICAN MATCH loads our of M2 ball

[CENTEX BILL]

I have 3 cans of CMP purchased M2 ball ammo. Can I safely pull the 150 gr bullets and substitute 155 gr match bullets. Would the 5 gr heavier bullets cause pressure problems. I would plan to shot a 03a3 and a M1 Garand.

I would appreciate your input.

Bill

[Outpost75]

We do it all the time. Works fine. You may need to resize the necks to hold the Sierra bullets tightly enough, because the Ball M2 bullets are of larger diameter. We pull bullets, dump powder, neck size, inside deburr, and weigh powder charges before seating Sierra bullet straight using Wilson chamber-type seater.

A bit more trouble, but ammo is VERY accurate this way.

[Larry Gibson]

+1 on NSing to hold the Sierra's better. I remove the decap pin or back it out so it doesn't hit the primers. It depends on make of dies which I do.

I also pull 10 bullets and weigh each then average. I set the powder thrower to the average weight.

[GhostHawk]

I was doing some mexican match on 20 rounds of Tulammo in 7.62x39.

Decided to weigh each powder charge as it came from the case.

From low to high was 4 grains difference! And the middle was not small jumps, more like .8 to 1.2 grains up or down.

So for me, in that situation, I'd pull the powder, remeasure. Possibly lower it a grain just to be safe.

Some of that cheap ammo is cheap ammo because it is CHEAP ammo. IE there is no quality control, no consistency. Most of us are capable of making much better ammo if we work at it.

[bruce drake]

I support Larry and Ghosthawk on your Mexican Match plan. No problems with the 5gr difference in bullet weight but the powder charges on the surplus ammo should be checked and drawn for the average weight for further consistency. I did the same approach on two spam cans of Russian 7.62x54R ammo. It made a huge improvement in the accuracy of the rifle once it was shot with known quality bullets and a uniform powder charge.



Bruce

[Gray Fox]

Just out of curiosity, what type/brand of bullet puller have you folks been using? GF

[GhostHawk]

Some of the ones I did I used a FA kinetic puller, but with a shell holder instead of the 3 collet ****.

Some of them just got ran up in my press, grab the bullet with a pliers, vice grip, and pull the lever down pulling the bullet.

Some of those I did run through a sizing die and shot later with minor marks in the copper jacket. With no issues.

But the majority of those have a steel penitrator which means I can't use them at my range.
Which means I did not care about reusing them. They were reloaded with my cast boolits in most cases.

Once I had enough brass I could just make ammo I did exactly that.
But sometimes when your first starting, money is tight, well you do what you have to do to get by.

[Outpost75]

Just out of curiosity, what type/brand of bullet puller have you folks been using? GF

Hornady Cam-Lok

[LIMPINGJ]

Any suggestions for a less expensive bullet to substitute for the FMJ without going to the expense of match bullets in the 7.62x51? Will be shot in M1A and bolt action.

[leebuilder]

Any suggestions for a less expensive bullet to substitute for the FMJ without going to the expense of match bullets in the 7.62x51? Will be shot in M1A and bolt action.

I have used a Hornady 150gr flat base soft point with good results.

I use the rcbs kenetic bullet puller and the rcbs collet puller. All milspec ammo is run through the bullet seating die just enough to break the seal.
Be well

[Larry Gibson]

The Speer, Hornady, Sierra and other commercial 150 SPs should work fine. If the exposed lead points get beat up on the feed ramp just snip them off with side cutters. If you can find any the 150 Remington coreloks with the spire point flat tip with little lead showing are also excellent.

[JMax]

When I was on the ROTC rifle team we would take our white box NM 06 ammo, seat the bullet back about .010" and then pull the 173 gr bullets and replace then with Sierra 168 gr match bullets for big matches.