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Old April 4, 2011, 12:59 AM   #11
medalguy
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Join Date: August 31, 2009
Location: New Mexico
Posts: 1,033
I purchased almost 20,000 30-06 cases many years ago that someone had pulled the bullets from and salvaged the powder. All I got was unfired primed brass.

Well these sat in my basement almost 20 years before I decided to load them up. In the interest of safety I decided to remove the primers and reprime the brass. I had no problems removing the old primers, and had only one detonate in the depriming process. I reloaded with new components as you have done and I still have quite a bit of this ammo left.

As far as the variance in the weight of powder, keep in mind the military uses bulk grade powder not cannister as we buy commercially. They make up a large lot of powder and test it for burning rate, then vary the charge to yield the desired velocity and accuracy they want. Thus, every lot of military ammo may have a slightly different charge of powder. It doesn't matter to them, just the result.

This is one reason so much work is required when reloading with pulldown surplus powder, The powder that comes from 30-06 ammo or 7.62 NATO ammo is all bulk grade, and the reloader needs to work up a charge for every different lot of powder. Once that is done, it yields as good a degree of accuracy as any cannister grade powder available.

As far as accuracy, keep in mind most military ammo is not match grade and the mean accuracy is generally 2-3 MOA at 100 yards if I remember. We used to call it "minute of torso". It's good enough for their needs.
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