5.45x39 reloading

[biffj]

Played with quickload a bit and came up with a couple starting loads. 22.5gr of 8208XBR and 23gr of IMR4895. The 4895 seemed to be the lower of the two for recoil and blasting a chunk out of the soggy earth where I fired the test rounds. The 8208 was a little more snappy. I realize these fail to quantify anything but both loads left the cases nice and no pressure signs on primers or hard bolt lift. The rifle is an SSG82 and I loaded the 60gr hornady Vmax bullets to about .010 off contact with the lands. That puts them about 40 thousandths too long for the mag but I don't really care. I'd rather have good accuracy and shorter jumps seem to help. I can single feed. Hopefully I'll get to the range in the near future and see how the accuracy looks and velocity too. Quickload has both loads at mid 2900's and 43,000 psi. I'll work things up a bit as I go on. I doubt much of this will be good for the AK's since I'm loading over mag length but it might give a starting point.

Frank

[attila]

Hi all!

I loaded some 5.45 on Monday the 15th and thought it might help someone here.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found any in-stock brass and haven’t bought a 5.45 shell holder yet, so I formed my 5.45 brass from once-fired 350 Legend. This led to an arduous process: anneal, trim, form, decrimp primer pocket, turn the necks, trim to 1.55”, deburr/chamfer. I’d definitely like some proper brass eventually, but I have around 60-70 pieces of 350 Legend brass and no gun in that caliber, so I don’t mind using them up for this.

I loaded some of the 5.45-specific 60-grain V-Max to 2.265” over 21.5 grains of Shooters World AR-Plus (similar to Accurate 2230) with Wolf SRP.

When fire-forming them, I was expecting 2600-2700 fps from my 16” Huldra (Adams) Arms upper, but this load averaged 2744 fps with no pressure signs. That’s about 100 fps higher than I expected and only 25 lb-ft of energy shy of the 7N6 I chronoed yesterday. I plan to pressure test them with the AR-Plus in the near future.

I also measured the average case capacity in grains of water. The once-fired 5.45x39 converted from 350 Legend brass averages about 26.9 grains of water, while 7N6 cases have a tad more, with the one case I measured being 27.3 grains of water.

Anyone here measure their Hornady brass for case capacity? I’ve heard reports of what it’s supposed to be, but don’t recall seeing anyone who’s actually checked.

Lastly, I just talked to Hornady yesterday, asking after 5.45 load data, and the rep told me the following combination:
Hornady brass
60 grain V-Max
22.5-25.5 grains CFE223

I don’t have any CFE223, but it’s good data, nonetheless.

[attila]

I performed a short pressure test yesterday:
60 gr V-Max @2.265”
Wolf SRP
Shooters World AR-Plus
One load each at 22.0, 22.3, 22.6, 22.9, and 23.2 grains

No pressure signs on any of the cases, and max velocity I saw was 2940 fps! I think 23.5 and a few more smaller steps are in order, and I have high hopes of safely reaching 3000 fps. I’ll probably load 10 of the 23.2 to check for average velocity of a long string first.

The only issue I see is that the 5.45 bolt doesn’t fully engage the case rim, causing a little bit of damage during extraction.

Also, I’m only working with iron sights at present, so accuracy testing wouldn’t show much, but I might still try.

[biffj]

That seems like a lot of work but its interesting to see an alternative. I finally got out to test the factory brass and bullets in my SSG82 rifle. It has a 20in barrel and I was using 23.5gr of 8208XBR with the 60gr Vmax bullets. I was getting an average of 3016fps with no sign of pressure on primers or brass. No difficulty opening the bolt either. I may go a bit higher on the load to see how it goes. Might have to run a few rounds through one of the AK's too just to see how it works with the semi and shorter barrel.

Frank

[attila]

Just in case if anyone is in need, MidwayUSA has 4x 100-bullet packs of the factory seconds 60 gr V-max.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010918025?pid=399673

[Greg S]

Abit spendy but check Lapua. Was looking for some for an East Germany Steyer Border Patrol rifle about 5 years ago.

Brownells has Hornady bullets in stock. I thought the 220 Russian case was the parent case but no joy.

[akajun]

Way back when I made my 545 brass from split neck 223 and 222 cases.
Cut off .1” too long, anneal, run through the size die only, trim to length and anneal again, then put the expander / de primer back in the die and size as normal .
Iirc I used blc2 ammo and blem 60 gr v max bullets
Ran through all my ak74’s fine, but the back of the case did bulge out some, I simply reloaded the bulged cases, never had a problem