SmallCaliberCentral

How many reloads do you guys keep loaded? Hard as I try I can never get all of my brass reloaded at one time. I'm not even sure how much brass I have anymore. I stopped setting a goal for myself as I always let myself down. My bread and butter work takes the steam outa me, so when I get home, I'm just not always in the mood to sit down and put together a few loads. Right now I'd guess I have around three hundred rounds loaded between the 221, the 204, and the 223. I'll be knocking that down today as I'll be out giving skippy flying lessons, then tomorrow I'll likely go out to the range to punch some paper.

The part about,not knowing how much unloaded brass I have,applies to me.LOLNot sure yet how many loads I need to finish before my spring PD hunt,But I know it's a couple thousand,204 (2guns)and a 20AB.Will probably shoot 300 rounds between all guns before I go.I feel for you.I'm retired,so can spend time in the cave.

Guess it depends on how much you shoot. It's always a real bummer to be out in the field with lots of available targets, then run out of ammo that you know is sitting on a shelf at home.

Always good to have more than you'll need, but a real pain to put a rifle in the truck when you have targets you'd like to be shooting........

With the situation with our Government and it's agencys now days, it is best they do not know who and how much ammo is around. Have you noticed the news reports lately. Some person is checked out and nothing related to it brings the authorities into the house and they find a cache of ammo "Thousands of rounds of ammunition found" makes major headlines. Nothing wrong with it, but they sure try to make it into something. So, with that said, I do not disclose my ammo needs. Personal choice and fellows I retired from Law enforcement after 28 years. The officers of today, are not the same mindset as we were. We grew up with firearms, shooting, etc. So be cautious and careful.. Nuf said. Bill K

I am trying to load as much as I can. My big hold up is cost of brass. I have close to 1000 rounds to us but no brass. I have about 300 loaded up right now, but never can have enough loaded be fore the man tries to stop it all. So I say do as much as you can, you never know when you will not be able to load up!

Bill K wrote:With the situation with our Government and it's agencys now days, it is best they do not know who and how much ammo is around. Have you noticed the news reports lately. Some person is checked out and nothing related to it brings the authorities into the house and they find a cache of ammo "Thousands of rounds of ammunition found" makes major headlines. Nothing wrong with it, but they sure try to make it into something. So, with that said, I do not disclose my ammo needs. Personal choice and fellows I retired from Law enforcement after 28 years. The officers of today, are not the same mindset as we were. We grew up with firearms, shooting, etc. So be cautious and careful.. Nuf said. Bill K

Well said. I just hope we have lots of Americans that think this way!

As a competition shooter I never have any loaded ammo on hand.
That fact got me to thinkin a couple months ago. All these purty bench guns but if I need a work tool theres nothing to grab.
So I built a Huge lightweight 204 Ruger out of spare parts hanging around just in case Zombies attack.

A 6.5X284 norma shooting 85gn bullets at 35-3600 fps is nothin but a 204 on steroids.
Still doing load development on the 85's. Breakin in the barrel with 140's and HBN after finding the 85's copper like mad naked.
In my defense it did start life as a 204R but the walking varminter profile barrel just was'nt as light as I wanted.
I also wanted more ooomph and pizazz for the bigger Zombies.

I'm shooting the 85gn sierra varminters out of 6.5x55 sporter.. the accuracy amazes me everytime!!! I shot a 300y (3-shot) fouler group with that round before range testing another recipie. Trying to work up a 1000y load with the 140gn SMKs!

Oh yeah... what was the question,?? Sorry about that jrwoitalla', just couldn't resist the urge to publicly display my love for that rifle, LOL!!

Anyway, the answer is: never enough for me always too much for the sick idiots that think more than none is too many

Seein as I live in Kondork country I gots to shoot lead free ammo. So I just ordered up some Barnes 26gr 204cal to try out. Have any of you shot them out of the CZ 204? I also ordered the 36gr in .224" but noticed after the fact that they are for "hornet." How do you think they will shoot in my 223?

jrwoitalla wrote:Seein as I live in Kondork country I gots to shoot lead free ammo. So I just ordered up some Barnes 26gr 204cal to try out. Have any of you shot them out of the CZ 204? I also ordered the 36gr in .224" but noticed after the fact that they are for "hornet." How do you think they will shoot in my 223?

JR
Seeing as I jumped into your post with no info of value I did a little checking.

According to Midway the 30gn pill is for the hornet. The 36gn you bought should be good to go.

Either way the bullet is listed as .224 caliber which is correct for your application. Gotta watch that close as some hornet bullets are actually .223 cal.
A little confusing but your 223 Remington is actually a .224 caliber. The 223 caliber is old and some old hornets are .223 cal and the newer are .224.

If you actually have a bullet designed for hornet velocities in .224 it will cause no trouble in your .223 Remmy until velocity gets up there.
The hornet bullets are very fragile being designed to explode at slower velocities. Quite possible a hornet bullet may never make it to the target at 223 Remmy velocities.
Hope this made some sense Never toyed much with the 22 cals in either denomination even though I own both.

And just for Ha Ha's

How fast you shootin them 85 Sierras in your 6.5x55 bowshot?

I've got a bunch of discontinued 85gn Bergers I bought dirt cheap to burn up some factory barrels that could'nt shoot well with normal fare.
After seeing my first ladder test with 85's in one of them tubes I ordered a sporter for the Zombie cannon.

Ssshhhhh I've had em up too 3800fps but accuracy seems to be at 3550 or so in both the target and sporter tube.
Such a long jump to the lands it is just like a 204

I don't shoot anything bigger than a 223. So I'm wondering-wouldn't an 85gr pill zippin along at 3800fps give your gun just a wee bit of a kick to it? Sorry to change the subject.

jrwoitalla wrote:I don't shoot anything bigger than a 223. So I'm wondering-wouldn't an 85gr pill zippin along at 3800fps give your gun just a wee bit of a kick to it? Sorry to change the subject.

Good question JR
BTW(by the way) its forum edicate that you and only you can steer your posts in any direction you seem fit. Its a loose rule but its I that went off on a tangent first.

I've never done this before but I ran the numbers through JBM's recoil calculator. At 3800fps that 85gn is giving me 16.6lbs of recoil energy in a 7lb rifle.
By comparison an old but slow accuracy load for me in 204R was 40gn at 3500fps which nets 3.1 lbs of recoil.

I'm not sure how much I trust JBM's recoil calculator. Seemed way too simple leaving many parameters unexplored.
But those are the answers it gave me.

I do know this. I fired a Winchester pre 64 featherweight in 308W just a few months ago and that baby had quite a bit more wallop at the shoulder.
If JBM is correct and I have my doubts 16.6lbs ain't all that bad at all.

Sir Isaac Newton said it best. "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"
Let the Zombies put that in thier pipe and smoke it if they're ever foolish enough to stray onto my property.
Dem little 85's are chewing my backstops to smithereens. Nuthinn splits an oak log that well.

I'm gonna toy with that JBM a bit more now. Interesting, maybe not conclusive but interesting.

jo191145 wrote:And just for Ha Ha's

How fast you shootin them 85 Sierras in your 6.5x55 bowshot?

I've got a bunch of discontinued 85gn Bergers I bought dirt cheap to burn up some factory barrels that could'nt shoot well with normal fare.
After seeing my first ladder test with 85's in one of them tubes I ordered a sporter for the Zombie cannon.

Ssshhhhh I've had em up too 3800fps but accuracy seems to be at 3550 or so in both the target and sporter tube.
Such a long jump to the lands it is just like a 204

Pushing those 85 grainers a little aren`t ya? You`re claiming 400+ fps more then I see in my manuals for the 6.x55 and 200 fps faster then Hodgdon says a 6,5x284 will drive them.

Ol` Joe wrote:

jo191145 wrote:And just for Ha Ha's

How fast you shootin them 85 Sierras in your 6.5x55 bowshot?

I've got a bunch of discontinued 85gn Bergers I bought dirt cheap to burn up some factory barrels that could'nt shoot well with normal fare.
After seeing my first ladder test with 85's in one of them tubes I ordered a sporter for the Zombie cannon.

Ssshhhhh I've had em up too 3800fps but accuracy seems to be at 3550 or so in both the target and sporter tube.
Such a long jump to the lands it is just like a 204

Pushing those 85 grainers a little aren`t ya? You`re claiming 400+ fps more then I see in my manuals for the 6.x55 and 200 fps faster then Hodgdon says a 6,5x284 will drive them.

Joe. Yep 3800 is pushing it but not that hard really. I'm using the 6.5X284. Absolutely no pressure signs using Ramshot Hunter. A very slow burn rate for that application, perhaps too slow but ya gotta start somewhere.
Summer may be a different story but now I know I have a large buffer at 3550.
Now if I used a fast burn rate like Varget and tried to acheive that velocity even I would get worried
The 3800 was in my long target barrel at the tail end of an Audette ladder. One shot per charge weight in .3gn increments.
I routinely push the edge in my Audette tests. No better way to find out where the edge is. Never found the edge in that test but learned theres no reason to go looking. No more nodes up there.
I don't think the 24" sporter could ever acheive those velocities. Just larger fireballs.
From my limited testing in both barrels I've not seen any accuracy nodes above 3600 so now I know I need not go there when firing groups.

It also tells me I'm not on the edge of bullet breakup which is common when shooting very light bullets in fast twist barrels.
Gives me added confidence that if I ever needed to use this gun as a tool I would get a little penetration before the bullet explodes.
A neighbor recently spotted a Mt Lion crossing my property. Very,very,very rare occurence in my neck of the woods. I'm willing to live and let live but it had best intend to restrict its diet to venison and rabbits.
Might explain the deer carcass I found behind my house this winter. Even though it was probably a month old I could tell it had been killed in one spot and disemboweled then dragged into a thicket and consumed down to the skeleton. Obviously every critter in the woods helped with that.
I stood there for at least half an hour wondering what we had in this woods capable/willing to pull a 2pt spike buck around like that. Coyotes probably could but why bother?
Dang I'm way off topic again.