Beating the Texas Heat!!!

[Sniper338]

104 degrees today, Looked through my scope and all I got what a blurry target this evening, not worth shooting at all...

Well since I am on midnight shift at work I am up all night so I had an idea... Went to Walmart, bought a lawn mower battery ($40) and some automotive LED lights with brackets attached included wiring ($30) and some wire connectors and stuff ($20). Rigged it all up on an three foot long aluminum panel where the lights are mounted to the panel... Went out and set it on the ground about 4 feet in front of my target stand.. BOOM! Worked like a charm, shot nice and show for about 6 hours tonight... Found a load for my 308, 45.2 grains of Varget, CCI primer, 175SMK, Lapua Brass.... Shot VERY WELL! 5 shots in half a dime at 200 yards! Looks like two bullet holes touching thats it! Shot three groups like that..

Then switched out the barrel and put a new 22-250AI barrel on the rig to start load development for this barrel, 12 twist.
Ran into some issues loading though with it though. New lapua brass, the necks were so tight it was heck to seat a bullet... I was going to just start load development while fire forming, BUT due to neck issues I couldnt do that, itd be a waste of time. (The necks were so tight on this new brass that the wilson seater die left a round dent in the bullets from the seating stem forcing the bullets into the neck... never seen that) But after fire formed brass turned out looking geat and necks opened up to .253 outside diameter so they are perfect to resize now...So I just loaded up 100 rounds and went back out and fire formed slowly all night...

Shooting at night beats the heck out of shooting during the day!!!

 

[Thud]

I found a good solution for new brass tight necks.
a. Expand necks. I use my neck cutter expander mandrel for the proper caliber. All new brass
b. Resize brass with the bushing you use in you s die.
c. Clean brass
d. Bullets won't seat hard.
Simple but an extra step
Thanks,
Thud

 

[Erik Cortina]

I found a good solution for new brass tight necks.
a. Expand necks. I use my neck cutter expander mandrel for the proper caliber. All new brass
b. Resize brass with the bushing you use in you s die.
c. Clean brass
d. Bullets won't seat hard.
Simple but an extra step
Thanks,
Thud

I do the same. It is an extra step, but you are starting out with the same neck tension as your subsequent firings.

 

[jlow]

Most people find new Lapua brass has way too much neck tension. You can in fact use a number of mandrels to expand the neck to ease neck tension. Just depends on whether you neck turn or have say the Sinclair expander mandrel. I don't do either but use a Lee Collet die to do the same thing as it too has a mandrel in it. Just make sure you lube the inside of the neck first or you may collapse the case.