First time reloader!

[Jason312]

So just getting into reloading and have a safety concern with the set up I am starting with! Any help would be great!
I am reloading .308 with once fired Hornady brass. I have the cheap lee reloading kit and it seems to work great. However, going from 150 SST to the 178 eld-x it seems that the bullet grain increase is to much.

I am using IMR 4064 and a lee 3.1 dipper(41.6 grains). So when setting the bullet I went to 2.785. Book calls for a COL of 2.800 but rounds wont feed or load into mag. at this length. I shortened by .015 to get everything to feed correctly.

My concern....


It appears that the bullet is so long that it is hitting the powder most certainly compacting the powder as I drive the round home to the correct depth. Can anyone tell me if I just made a bomb? I have not fired these and wont until I can get from feed back. I am leaning towards it being ok because the eld-x is used in .308 guns and it has to sit low in the case but again I'll wait to get some opinions before I go and shoot these rounds.

 

[270WinDude]

So just getting into reloading and have a safety concern with the set up I am starting with! Any help would be great!
I am reloading .308 with once fired Hornady brass. I have the cheap lee reloading kit and it seems to work great. However, going from 150 SST to the 178 eld-x it seems that the bullet grain increase is to much.

I am using IMR 4064 and a lee 3.1 dipper(41.6 grains). So when setting the bullet I went to 2.785. Book calls for a COL of 2.800 but rounds wont feed or load into mag. at this length. I shortened by .015 to get everything to feed correctly.

My concern....


It appears that the bullet is so long that it is hitting the powder most certainly compacting the powder as I drive the round home to the correct depth. Can anyone tell me if I just made a bomb? I have not fired these and wont until I can get from feed back. I am leaning towards it being ok because the eld-x is used in .308 guns and it has to sit low in the case but again I'll wait to get some opinions before I go and shoot these rounds.

I am no expert, in fact new to this as well. I do have some questions though. Are you measuring to your lands at all or just going by case overall length from bottom of brass to top of bullet? I had a similar issue and have completely ignored the Lee books COL recommendation as it state "minimum" howver I believe they mean "maximum" length. Also compressed charges are not bad at all with proper loads. Could be a good thing in my mind really.

 

[270WinDude]

Als

So just getting into reloading and have a safety concern with the set up I am starting with! Any help would be great!
I am reloading .308 with once fired Hornady brass. I have the cheap lee reloading kit and it seems to work great. However, going from 150 SST to the 178 eld-x it seems that the bullet grain increase is to much.

I am using IMR 4064 and a lee 3.1 dipper(41.6 grains). So when setting the bullet I went to 2.785. Book calls for a COL of 2.800 but rounds wont feed or load into mag. at this length. I shortened by .015 to get everything to feed correctly.

My concern....


It appears that the bullet is so long that it is hitting the powder most certainly compacting the powder as I drive the round home to the correct depth. Can anyone tell me if I just made a bomb? I have not fired these and wont until I can get from feed back. I am leaning towards it being ok because the eld-x is used in .308 guns and it has to sit low in the case but again I'll wait to get some opinions before I go and shoot these rounds.

also regarding seating depth, read the last page on my thread here... This info helped me out even with the llooonnngg neck on a 270, same probably applies with the 308.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/cartridge-accuracy.3953623/page-4

 

[retired]

what rifle do you have ?
std length for 308 is 2.800
the gun should function there.
i have a bunch of lee hand loaders,
my suggestion is buy a hand priming tool
beating primers into place always leads to
one going off

 

[spife7980]

That charge in the low 40s shouldnt give you any issues. Should be a pretty close to minimal load.

Im more curious what rifle youre shooting out of that 2.8 wont fit in a mag. It should fit with plenty of room to spare on everything Ive ever seen.

 

[Falfan2017]

Rounds that compress powder aren't necessarily a problem. Just make sure you start on the low side of the powder recommendation and go up from there if you want more speed. You will use less powder for a heavier bullet in most cases. I would also recommend weighing powder charges and not depending on the dipper. Frankford arsenal has a decent and affordable one.

 

[hogpatrol]

What make and model of firearm? New or used? Modified or unmodified?

Plenty of info on the '08 here:

http://www.accurateshooter.com/cartridge-guides/308win/

 

[vahena]

Jason,
You are weighting the power on a scale correct? Not depending on the Lee scoops.
Rob

 

[22BRGUY]

On loading with the boat tail or bullet base going in the case PAST the neck/ shoulder junction into the powder room it will not NECESSARILY increase pressure to an UNSAFE level, BUT IT COULD!! you don't want to find out the hard way before. Once you have more experience, you can try that sort of thing IMHO. My suggestion would be to create a dummy round for YOUR RIFLE. One way to do it is to take either an unfired piece of brass or a once fired piece and cut the neck of the case on 2 sides opposite each other down from the case mouth to just the neck/shoulder junction of the case.. Then take that unloaded un-primed case and start your particular bullet in the mouth of the case with your fingers. Then slowly carefully chamber and extract dummy round in your rifle chamber and measure it. Repeat that again 3 to five times, each time pulling the bullet out to just about falling out with your fingers after measuring. If you measure accurately, you should see a repeating measurement of at least 3 of the 5 times which is the max loaded length of that particular bullet in YOUR RIFLE. IF you can see that the base/boat tail part of that bullet is pushing past the neck/shoulder junction, you might want to wait awhile on loading that combo. Sometimes chambers of rifles are cut for lighter/shorter bullets because the rifling is too slow to stabilize the heavier longer bullets. It's important to find out the twist rate of your barrel also.

 

[divingin]

However, going from 150 SST to the 178 eld-x it seems that the bullet grain increase is to much.

I shoot 175 SMK's in my R700 (1-12" twist.) It's getting towards the "too heavy" mark, but not there yet. If you run a 1-10" barrel, you'll have room to go heavier yet.

I am using IMR 4064 and a lee 3.1 dipper(41.6 grains). So when setting the bullet I went to 2.785. Book calls for a COL of 2.800 but rounds wont feed or load into mag. at this length. I shortened by .015 to get everything to feed correctly.

Wait a minute. A COL (Cartridge Over-all Length, also abbreviated COAL) of 2.800" means from the base to the tip of the bullet is 2.800". That's pretty standard for a SAAMI spec .308 round. This in itself has nothing to do with the shape or weight of the bullet, but is an absolute. What does you magazine measure from front to back?

Now if you are loading a short bullet and a long bullet and measuring from Case Base to Ogive, then yeah, longer nosed bullets will result in a longer COL. I suspect we have a mis-measurement or a mis-naming of terms here.

What you'll find, though, is that long bullets and magazines don't mix well. My 175's are single-load only (max COAL for my mag is around 2.87 or so, if I recall correctly. My loads measure 2.93 if I'm trying to get close to the lands.) Don't recall offhand what my 4064 load is, but I believe it's around 43gr.

It appears that the bullet is so long that it is hitting the powder most certainly compacting the powder as I drive the round home to the correct depth. Can anyone tell me if I just made a bomb? I have not fired these and wont until I can get from feed back. I am leaning towards it being ok because the eld-x is used in .308 guns and it has to sit low in the case but again I'll wait to get some opinions before I go and shoot these rounds.

Compressed load should be OK as long as you're not near max. Hodgdon (or IMR, if you prefer) lists max charge with the 175/180 at about 45 and change. At 41.6 you should be fine, even if you do compress the charge.

In any case, you can drop a charge into 2 cases, seat a bullet in one, hold an unseated bullet next to the loaded round with tips even, and see how far down the case the unseated one extends. Bounce that against how far down the case the powder is in the unplugged case. Not exact, but will give you an idea whether or not you are compressing.

Good Luck!

 

[retired]

i hate to break the news to you guys, but scoops work.
are they target quality...depends on your target.
back in the day i loaded for a 222 with a lee loader.
today i have close to 100 of them.
for a beginner, scoops are just fine.
( essentially 90%+ of factory ammo is loaded with a "scoop")

Jason,
You are weighting the power on a scale correct? Not depending on the Lee scoops.
Rob

 

[vahena]

i hate to break the news to you guys, but scoops work.
are they target quality...depends on your target.
back in the day i loaded for a 222 with a lee loader.
today i have close to 100 of them.
for a beginner, scoops are just fine.
( essentially 90%+ of factory ammo is loaded with a "scoop")

Retired
Well how about that, I guess you learn something new everyday and that's always a good thing.
When I saw in my alerts that you had posted, I thought oh boy another negative harsh attitude post, I just didn't know it would be at me. Every post you do has a negative tone to it. I have not put anyone on the ignore list as of yet but I had about enough of you and your negative remarks and high almighty attitude, bye Ignore list

 

[retired]

if you thought that was negative good to see you go.
you posted a negative, i said the opposite.
bye

Retired
Well how about that, I guess you learn something new everyday and that's always a good thing.
When I saw in my alerts that you had posted, I thought oh boy another negative harsh attitude post, I just didn't know it would be at me. Every post you do has a negative tone to it. I have not put anyone on the ignore list as of yet but I had about enough of you and your negative remarks and high almighty attitude, bye Ignore list

 

[Mark W]

if you thought that was negative good to see you go.
you posted a negative, i said the opposite.
bye

I agree! That was a pretty good post coming from you.

 

[Rsadams]

He got added a long time ago... Don't think we are the only two..lol

 

[FFEMT]

Jason312, I'm not going to comment on your question, you have already had some very good suggestions. What I want to say is that I commend you for being man enough to realize that you are getting into something that has some inherent dangers and you did not hesitate to ask questions to help you gain knowledge and understanding. I have seen a couple of pretty bad injuries from mistakes made by somebody that thought they new what they were doing. (30+ years working with street level EMS)

 

[alinwa]

So just getting into reloading and have a safety concern with the set up I am starting with! Any help would be great!
I am reloading .308 with once fired Hornady brass. I have the cheap lee reloading kit and it seems to work great. However, going from 150 SST to the 178 eld-x it seems that the bullet grain increase is to much.

I am using IMR 4064 and a lee 3.1 dipper(41.6 grains). So when setting the bullet I went to 2.785. Book calls for a COL of 2.800 but rounds wont feed or load into mag. at this length. I shortened by .015 to get everything to feed correctly.

My concern....


It appears that the bullet is so long that it is hitting the powder most certainly compacting the powder as I drive the round home to the correct depth. Can anyone tell me if I just made a bomb? I have not fired these and wont until I can get from feed back. I am leaning towards it being ok because the eld-x is used in .308 guns and it has to sit low in the case but again I'll wait to get some opinions before I go and shoot these rounds.

Jason, this is TO YOU specifically...... It is not to add to nor subtract from any other posts.

Congratulations on your attitude. The cheap reloading kit is FINE, and you're RELOADING!!

Welcome.

Now, that said, it is important to realize this RULE, "As Bullet Weight Goes Up, Powder Weight Goes DOWN!" (until you switch powders of course)

It seems that you've indicated that you are using dipper 3.1 for both bullets, wts of 150gr and 178gr. I'm not saying that in your case it's dangerous because you're running moderate loads but once you start raising pressures, making the components WORK, you can get into trouble if you're not aware of this curve.

And another RULE, never change any component without backing down and starting over. I've been guilty of this more than once. I once got into trouble simply from changing brands of primer....... AFTER getting away with it for tens of thousands of rounds.

As far as bullets hanging down into the case, don't fret. I've got accurate 600yd and 1K loads that hang down well below the n/s junction. Just remember to start over, safe and low and work up.

Please just don't get into the habit of switching components without verification.

 

[Ccrider]

He got added a long time ago... Don't think we are the only two..lol

Some of you guys are sooooooo sensitive. Retired’s post was in no way personal or condescending. He just stated an opinion different than Vahen. I thought his perspective was helpful.

To the op, work up and watch for pressure signs.

 

[jds holler]

I also started my reloading hobby with the Lee Loaders. My first one for rifle was in 243 Win. I'm looking at it right now, and the price tag says $10.99.
This may be shocking to many folks, but back in those days, most reloaders paid no mind to COAL, except to duplicate a factory round, or to provide good fit and feed through your magazine and action port. Indeed, the instructions in the Lee Loader kit tell you to simply duplicate a factory round when setting your seating depth.
I produced many great reloads with this kit, and soon improved my equipment with an Ohaus scale, and a verneer caliper - and a growing library of reloading manuals.
One can only assume that if you follow the recipe card in the kit that you will be safe with the charge weight (or volume) with the proper powder and bullet weight listed.

My recommendation would be to get a good manual such as the Lyman, with which to learn more advanced techniques, and ways of improving your reloads. You will soon advance to higher tech and higher volume equipment, but I'll bet that like me, you will always look upon your Lee Loader days with fondness. jd

 

[Fotheringill]

IMHO a scoop is essentially the same as using a manual powder drop.
With a drop and using a hard to meter powder such as Varget, you might get more of a variance from drop to drop (or scoop to scoop) than with a very fine powder. One way to cheaply know is to spend about $25 and get a portable digital scale. If the scoop (drop) method is giving you accurate, consistent powder measurements, you are good to go. If you are a very long range shooter looking for benchrest accuracy shots, you might not be satisfied. If you are looking for minute of squirrel ate 200, a smallish variance in load ain't gonna ruin your day. If you are competing for money or bragging rights against others, there needs to be a discussion way outside the parameters of your original question.