Mexican Match with Steel cased ammo ?

[Wolfdog91]

Anyone tried making mexi match with steel case ammo ? Being you'd pull the original bullet and powder remeasure Evey thing even and seat either a better bullet or the same bullet but longer or shorter. The way things are going it's looking like it may be something I wanna do

[porthos]

i tried it several years ago with greek HXP 30-06 ball. only about 10 rounds. but, i was impressed. i have a pre 64 mod 70 match that is scarey accurate. i shot the regular hxp; then the mex. match that i used sierra 155 match bullets. after that i scored 500 of the same match bullet that i intend to do the same with , but go farther and dump the powder and re meter it. haven't gotten around to it yet. i don't see why the steel case should make a difference,

[Winger Ed.]

It shouldn't be a big deal.
Some say steel cases are a little harder on your extractor than brass, but it takes a long, long time to wear it out.

Sizing a steel case to reload it might be problematic, but that would be about the only thing.

[ShooterAZ]

I have done it often with Russian 7.62x54R ball FMJ, replacing the bullet with Hornady 312 diameter 150 grain soft points. It worked quite well, and was way more accurate than I expected. Makes for really good hunting ammo.

[Texas by God]

I did it not that long ago with a Savage m10 Trophy Hunter in .223. I tried Wolf fmj- not that great, but when I pulled the bimetal bullets and seated Hornady flat base 53 grain in their place the groups shrunk by more than half.
I'm recollecting that the Mexican Match term came from the Silueta Metalica shooting competition in the 1970's. I could be wrong and frequently am but hardly ever care

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[cwtebay]

I have definitely done that with 7.62x39 and 5.45 steel ammunition with good results.
As a good friend says: if the rifle can't handle the steel, it doesn't deserve the brass

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[GhostHawk]

I did it with some 7.62x39. Replaced FMJ's with cast lead. Weighed each bullet and powder charge as I pulled them, I was shocked.
10 + grain differences between bullets, charge was about an 8 grain range from low to high. And you never knew when you were going to get a big charge on a lite bullet or a lite charge on a heavy one. I stopped buying ammo for my SKS, I knew I could build better than that.

I did it so I had 20 legal soft point rounds if I wanted to go hunting deer. And as it was steel cased tuleammo no need to chase brass in the woods.

[nicholst55]

I did it not that long ago with a Savage m10 Trophy Hunter in .223. I tried Wolf fmj- not that great, but when I pulled the bimetal bullets and seated Hornady flat base 53 grain in their place the groups shrunk by more than half.
I'm recollecting that the Mexican Match term came from the Silueta Metalica shooting competition in the 1970's. I could be wrong and frequently am but hardly ever care

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I'm thinking that it was around before that, used by High Power shooters pulling down either USGI Ball ammo or Lake City Match ammo, and dropping a Sierra 168 grain OTM bullet into the case.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I used to pull down that old Turkish 8x57 ammo, and reduce the powder charge by around 15%, to shoot in a 88 Commission Rifle. It shot very well, and I even tried a few .32 Special FN bullets also. Making hunting ammo out of the old Chi-Com 7.62x54 sounds like a good idea, might have to try that.

[Larry Gibson]

I did it not that long ago with a Savage m10 Trophy Hunter in .223. I tried Wolf fmj- not that great, but when I pulled the bimetal bullets and seated Hornady flat base 53 grain in their place the groups shrunk by more than half.
I'm recollecting that the Mexican Match term came from the Silueta Metalica shooting competition in the 1970's. I could be wrong and frequently am but hardly ever care

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Actually it came from the International Games (300 Meter rifle matches) held in Mexico City back in the early '60s. The US shooting team pulled the 174 FMJs from the XM118 7.62 and replaced the bullets with the Winchester 168 Match bullet [ a very accurate FB'd match bullet made expressly for the 300 meter competitions]. Some say it was the Sierra 168 MK that was used but it was shortly after the International games the US teams began to "Mexican Match" M118 with the 168 MK for use "across the course" in the NMC as the M14became the predominant match service rifle.

[rockrat]

I have done it with some steel cased 6.5 grendel ammo and it worked very well

[shooterg]

I'm thinking that it was around before that, used by High Power shooters pulling down either USGI Ball ammo or Lake City Match ammo, and dropping a Sierra 168 grain OTM bullet into the case.

Doing that in the 80's for sure - no remeasuring, just pull and replace bullet . GI ball ammo was still cheap, may have spent more on bullets than the loaded rounds ! Wish I'd kept the pulls though.

[cwtebay]

My brother reminded me that we pulled down a few thousand 7.62 NATO tracers in the early 90's and replaced them with pull down 168gr fmj's (wasn't it amazing when army surplus stores still carried such things?).
I'm unsure of the powder charge, but they definitely weren't impressive for velocity or accuracy. And apparently we left behind a bit of phosphorus, because you could see little sparks from some of them. He thinks there is still a can or two left in the bunkhouse - I may have to look into that.... .

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[higgins]

I've done exactly what ShooterAZ (post #4) did with 7.62x54R so I can use up the military ammo to shoot the metal targets at my range; military steel core bullets are not allowed. for the sake of consistency, I did equalize the powder charges at a grain or two below the original load. Bullet weights were the same. I confirmed that velocity was near the original load, and the Hornady bullet cut group size, which wasn't bad with the bxn86 Czech ammo to begin with, by about a third.

[45DUDE]

A 125 Sierra Spitzer makes the 7.62x39 very accurate in a .308 barrel. I had a Ruger 7.62x39.

[0verkill]

Send me the pulls y'all throw away