Power Pro 2000mr 308

[Ike Clanton]

I'm going to reload 308 for the first time and I've read about multiple types of powder and decided on Alliant Power Pro 2000mr due to its ability to meter well in a drum style powder dispenser and not being super temperature sensitive. Hornady lists a max charge of 51.2gr with a 150gr bullet. Would I be ok starting at -10% (46.8gr)? I will be using a ruger SR 762 16in. My goal is to achieve 2600-2700 FPS.

[Don Fischer]

H335 meters like that too. Also W748!

[ed308]

Start lower if forming new brass. .308 is easy to load. Not familiar with that powder. I'd start a little lower and ladder up. Not all brass is the same. Some has higher case capacity that other brass.

[Ike Clanton]

If I use thicker brass like starline will I not be able to reach the velocity I want due to capacity and pressure issues?

[VoodooMountain]

If it's something like new LC brass I'd go even lower.

40gr of H4895 gets me 2600 fps in my 22" barrels with LC brass.

If your looking for a mild load start near minimum, work up in .5 grain increments and you will start to see patterns emerge where your groups will shrink and then open back up as your charge weight increases. Somewhere near your 2600 fps mark I'm sure you can find a decent load but it may require trying more than one powder.

Thicker brass means less internal volume which in turn means higher pressures.
Unlike 223 LC brass their 308 LC brass is actually thicker. Using a warm load with commercial brass and then switching to LC can put you over saami max with less than desirable results.

[Marco Califo]

308/7.62 Varies considerably between brands, and military is thicker and heavier, reducing case volume, but it still varies quite a bit in certain other parameters.
In a nutshell, I recommend you buy one brand of commercial brass. Starline would be good. I have used Rem, too.
But unless you have a lot of experience in brass prep, you should steer clear of military for these reason:
1. All available military 7.62 brass was fired in machine guns. These tend to have sloppy and generously sized chambers, and the brass will come to you "puffed", crimped, and with huge variations in case length. There are exceptions and long Range or match brass can be found, but cost more.
2. They take a special materials, techniques, and skill set to size: very strong O type press, excellent lube (Lucas White Lithium grease is all I will use), crimp needs to be removed (I use a countersink drill bit).
3. They must be trimmed to a useable length.
4. You will want/need to anneal them very soon, because of the hard use (machine gunning puffing and then re-sizing).
3. You WILL want small base dies if feeding an auto-loader. I remove the neck expander from one of my FL sizing dies. Some folks use a 30-06 sizing die as a half step (working the base) die.
4. Breaking the work into steps helps me isolate where something is an issue, then I deal with that issue.
5. Then you should sort them by weight and measure the capacity of each case. The goal is to get a set of very similar brass for consistent results.

Or just buy a batch of quality commercial brass.

Military 7.62 has its uses. I prefer using military 7.62, for auto loading rifles like an FN-FAL, or other gas gun. These guns are a lot harder on brass than bolt guns, and consistency is less critical.

[Road_Clam]

During the post 2013 powder scare I picked up severall lbs of 2000MR. Use the 168 nosler cc . And for my 26" varmint R700 308 my accuracy load was 43.5 gr and shot about 2520 fps and about .7 moa at 200 meters. Very user friendly metering powder. Not a lot of real world data out there as it's not really a popular choice.

[Ike Clanton]

Great responses thank you. I bought the hornady custom dies that have a full length resizing die. Should I buy an alternative die for use with new starline or hornady brass?

[Marco Califo]

No. That should work fine. I bought the RCBS X die because it is supposed to eliminate trimming after initial prep, but have not tested that aspect. My X die is also small base (because I have auto too.)

[Metal god]

Would I be ok starting at -10% (46.8gr)?

No start at the books minimum of 41gr . This does not mean you must load 5 rounds at 41gr then 5 rounds at 41.5gr etc etc . You can load just one or two rounds at those lower charges just as tester rounds making sure the thicker brass is not effecting the pressure . There is an added benefit when doing this . You not only are starting low making sure you're not at max pressure at the start . You also can use those first tester rounds to foul the maybe clean barrel and sight in the scope to make sure this load developments POI ( point of impact ) is hitting your POA ( point of aim ) spot .

FWIW I have loaded this powder in 308 using LC-10 cases and was unable to get to the manuals max charge by 1.5gr due to pressure signs so work up slowly if you know you'll have less internal case volume . I've also used Fed case and PPU cases and was able to get closer to the books max charge . This was using the Hornady 9th edition manual .

Here is a load development I did when using all new components . I knew I was unlikely going to want anything at the lower charges do to the needs of the cartridge . How ever because I had never used this combination of components before in my rifle I wanted to be safe and start at minimum charge .

So I only loaded one or two rounds at the lower charges while loading 5 rounds at the charges I expected to find my OCW ( Optimum charge weight )

[Ike Clanton]

Well I finally got around to testing my rounds. I did exactly what Metal God recommended and loaded 2 rounds of the lower charge rounds starting at 43gr’s. All went well and I got all the way to 51 grains without any pressure signs. Just off principle I plan on staying at 50 gr’s for a safety margin. It gave me an average of 2601fps with a 150 gr interlock.

The first few rounds were very deformed from being extracted. I’ve attached a photo. I turned my gas block down and the problem went away. Any explanation on this?