Loads for Socom 16

[Jeff A]

I have a friend who has a Socom (.308) and has had some initial handload problems due to insufficient gas to operate the action. Does anyone have some good starting loads for this rifle? He is using LC brass.

 

[Forum Boss]

I have a friend who has a Socom (.308) and has had some initial handload problems due to insufficient gas to operate the action. Does anyone have some good starting loads for this rifle? He is using LC brass.

The problem may be as you say (low pressure)... or it may be mechanical. My Springfield M1A would not run reliably, and it was tossing metal shavings off the op rod. It went back to Springfield three times -- and they kept using the ammo as an excuse -- even though I was using Federal Gold medal match and Hornady match ammo. Springfield never remedied the situation in three tries. Gun was sent to Fulton Armory, which put in a genuine GI bolt and genuine GI op rod, and some other proper internals. Gun now runs 100% with all types of ammo and bullet weights, perfect extraction with no FTF or FTE. The problem was bad factory parts. Really bad factory parts. I would tell your friend to put 10 rounds of Fed GMM through it. If you still have an issue, get Springfield to fix it...

 

[Jeff A]

My friend was shooting a stout load of 2520 without problems. He did some moderate or greater loads of 4064 and Varget and then had problems. No metal shavings were noticed.