Any Success Stories Reloading 7.62 X 51 Cavim Brass

[CookieMonster]

A bunch of years ago, I use to buy Cavim ammo. I have piles of Cavim brass now, but it seems that no matter what bullet/powder/charge combination I try, I have major ejection and accuracy issues with my M1A.

I've tried BL(c)-2, IMR 4064, and IMR 3031 powders. I've loaded Hornady 150 FMJ's, 150 and 165 SST's, 150 and 165 Amax's, 150 and 165 Noslar Ballistic Tips, and Sierra 168 JHPBT. The rifle has a 1:12 Douglas medium heavy barrel, tack welded, match spring guide, free floated, glass bedded, and a NM trigger job. Accuracy seems to be the most consistent with factory ammo and the rifle has shown that it want's to shoot around 3/4 MOA even with 147gr military ball ammo. My feeling is that it will shoot better with a quality reload, but I think I may be forced to purchase some new brass.

Has anyone found a load that works with Cavim brass, or should I just melt it down into a brass dunce cap?

 

[red_zr24x4]

My M1A is just a standard w/ wood stock. Saying that, I haven't worked up a load for more than MOM (minute of man).
I would try 4895 or AA2015 with the 168gr bullet.
Did you try adjusting your seating depth? I know your limited by the mag but I would play with that too.

 

[Leo]

4064 is one of the old standby powders in the M1a. I used a lot of 4895 and also had good luck with Varget. I never tried any other powders in my m1a. I have seen CAVIM brass but I cannot remember reloading any of it. I would deprime and size some CAVIM and also some pieces of brass from ammo that shoots and functions fine. Weigh samples from both. If they way the same (+/- 10 grains or so) the same load should work in the both types of brass.

I had a tight chambered bolt gun in 6.5 X 284. I bought a package of Hornady brass, and had a lot of problems opening the bolt, even with the same load as in the brass I made from Winchester 284. I was too busy traveling for matches to fool with it, so I just stopped using it. In your case .308 brass is pretty cheap. I would just buy some Winchester or Federal and scrap the cavim. Good Luck

 

[sloughfoot]

CAVIM 7.62X51 NATO ammo is/was made in Venezuela. I think I still have a couple thousand rounds in a ammo can somewhere... It is just fine for shooting in a M1A as it comes out of the factory olive drab box.

I gave up trying to reload them after shooting out of M1A. The problem is, the brass is so soft that when the extractor pulls them out of the chamber, the head distorts. In other words, the head is no longer at 90 degrees to the case body. This is one reason why tough brass needs to be used in the M1A. The rifle is hard on brass partly because the action is tearing the brass out of the chamber before the brass has a chance to contract after firing.

I was able to get a few hundred cases reloaded but they are all relegated to be fired only out of a bolt gun. They are in a marked can somewhere in the ammo pile too.

Many were so distorted, I couldn't even get them to fit into the shellholder for resizing. They just went into the recycle bucket.

I can see why you would have extraction problems with reloaded ammo with this brass.

You might find some useful information here......http://zediker.com/downloads/m14.html

 

[j706]

I am not sure why but I was thinking Cavin brass has the European type (two holes) flash holes. I guess I an thinking of another brand. A good friend of mine new to loading could not understand why he broke every de priming pin he used on some European brass.

 

[CookieMonster]

Now that I've read these replies, I do remember loading IMR 4895. Looking back through all of my reloading notes, 15+ years worth, every attempt at reloading Cavim, I've had some issue. I've been shooting so much factory non-reloadable through it that I'd forgotten how many problems I've had in the past.

Red_zr24x4, I did play with the seating depth. Some of the rounds were not allowing the bolt to go into battery. My thought was that the bullet was not seated deep enough, so I reseated the bullets a little deeper, and there was no difference in extraction.

Leo, I have weighed the Cavim brass in the past and found that it is quite a bit heavier than the Winchester Match brass that I have for one of my bolt guns. I have plenty of 4064 and 165/168 lead laying around here. I think I will buy a new bag of brass and load up a small batch to see what happens. My guess is that it'll be fine. I've fired some Lake City and Federal brass through it in the past and didn't have any issues that I can recall.

Sloughfoot, thanks for the link. There's a lot of good information in there. Reading through the first few pages, I figured that the casing was not contracting as fast as it should to allow for extraction, as the article suggests. Over the past couple of months, I have started to apply a liberal (bad word) dose of thick lube to the rounds in the magazine to either slow the expansion of the case down, or to act as a form of mold release. I've had mixed results doing this, but overall, it is better. But it seemed like a band-aid solution to a bigger problem. One thing I didn't realize until reading that article is that the chamber on the M1A has a slightly different shape. I can see where that would really play hell with people trying to reload ammo for it (imagine that).

One more piece information... This is not the stock barrel. The original barrel was a standard weight barrel, and I had the same problem with Cavim brass. The chamber on this newer Douglas barrel was reamed to a point to where it just would accept M80 ball ammo. In other words, the chamber should be pretty tight, but not so tight that it can't shoot military loads. Now, I will say that this is the one area of my rifle that I might way off base on. I'm not a gunsmith by any definition of the word, but when I was asked if I ever wanted to shoot military ammo through the gun, my answer was "yes", but that I intended to shoot more reloads than military, so he kept the head spacing biased toward tight and still allow military ammo. Does this make any sense?

I will pick up some Winchester brass this week and let you know how it shoots after this weekend.

 

[sloughfoot]

IMO, it is not a good idea to lube the cartridges for the M1A.

My Douglas barreled M1A is chambered the same as yours. It is not possible for a 147 bullet to get into the rifling. 2.800 is the appropriate length for all bullets than can be loaded to magazine length. Jump is about .080 if I want to single load with long bullets. (OAL=2.880)

Bullet jump is not related to headspace in any significant way. Headspace is measured in thousands of an inch. Jump is measured in tens of thousands of an inch.

CAVIM is boxer primed. I just remembered that quite a few had flash holes way off center also. I was glad that I use Lee dies because it saved me from many broken decappng pins.

You will be happy with Wichester brass.

 

[CookieMonster]

So I broke down and bought 500 pieces of Lake City brass. I'm seeing a difference already. The Cavim is heavier than the Lake City. And the Cavim seems to be stickier in the FL resizer die. I've got the first 50 rounds loaded and I'll fire them off this weekend.

 

[sloughfoot]

If you are anywhere near www.fwrr.us, you could be shooting them in the Mike Gingher Memorial M1A match this Saturday.

 

[CookieMonster]

Actually, my rifle wouldn't make it as a service rifle anymore. I has an Archangel stock and a Springfield 2nd Gen scope.

 

[CookieMonster]

Range Report: The Lake City brass that I purchased earlier in the week solved all of my problems! I have no issues with cycling or ejecting. Accuracy has improved greatly! The rifle is now shooting around 3/4 MOA. I think I can improve upon that with better reloads. I was shooting so well that I pushed out to 600 yards and was easily hitting a 6" H x 12" W steel plate 100% of the time. Temp was 52F, wind at the line measured 3.5 mph gusting to 7 mph head on out to about 350 yards, beyond that 5-10 mph full value from the right. The bullet didn't seem to care very much that is was a little windy down range, as I only had to either hold a little right or dial in 1/4 to 1/2 MOA.

Thanks for the direction guys! This thread really saved me a lot of aggravation and powder!