M1A reloads

[Rich916]

I need help. My reloads are not cycling smoothly. About every third shot theyre either not extracting from the chamber or are not fully seating against bolt. I am not having this problem with store bought ammo. My loads are once fire lake city brass, hornady 150 grn fmj's, 42.4 grns IMR 8208 XBR, and remington 9.5 large rifle primers. 150 grn Hornady fmj's are loaded per HOrnady manual data, not the service rife data, I couldt find the exact 150 grn data in the service rifle section. Guns up bro's, semper fi.

Ive only been reloading for 9 months so any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

 

[Buck 89]

Move your die down a little more so your brass will be size more.

 

[signut]

Sounds like the LC brass is not getting resized enough; maybe the shoulder needs another small bump back. If this is already fired LC brass, I would make sure that it is small enough in the web area above rim to fit in chamber: a loaded round should fall into chamber and fall out if rifle held up. You do not want an M1A to fire in an out of battery condition, incorrectly resized brass can cause this and possibly hard extraction( bolt could force a round into chamber from magazine ). There are a few M1A gurus here, several are DR with the rifle and hopefully they will add some info. I am very careful about loading for this rifle, it is not very forgiving if you make a mistake.

 

[rminut]

if you are reloading for an m1a without a case gauge, you are playing with fire. It does sound like you are not pushing the shoulder back enough and that is not good. Buy a RCBS precision mic or better yet get a gauge from Mo Defina.
You can also get into trouble by having the bullet set out too far, don't just make the oal out to 2.8" because the magazine will allow it. Depending on the rifle chamber, the 150 grainers can hit the lands with the bullet set out to 2.8".
you gotta check all this stuff with the M1a, it's unforgiving of mistakes.

 

[MrMajestic]

Just a suggestion but were small base dies tried?

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Just a suggestion but were small base dies tried?

What he said it resolved my issues.

 

[CADDIE5]

+1 on small base dies-- either rcbs or forster make a small base die set for 308win. I have the forster 308win small base die set it works great with the ultraseater die.