Can we talk about surplus ammo and reloaded ammo? Are reloads

reloading for yourself is fine. using other peoples reloads is frowned upon by some. the reasoning being you dont know what kind of standards and procedures they use, if any.
all companies can potentially fuck up. the difference is, a big name brand company like federal has insurance and procedures in place in case their ammo blows up. joe from the gun show probably does not.
in the end, its obviously up to the consumer to decide if its worth it or not, but for me, the minimal savings in price per round just isnt worth the gamble.

>>34860222
just to clarify, "other peoples reloads" refer to complete ammo they make themselves and resell, not reloading recipes, although i would use a decent amount of caution with those as well.

I've used reloads but the other guys right
In the current market you don't save enough to justify the danger

>>34860179
There is a difference between hand loads and reloads.
Handloads are precision crafted, extreme quality control, usually crafted for a specific gun. Think of it as a fine craft beer made by a single person for himself.
Reloads are a bulk way of saving money. Think of it as a wine, it can very from homemade prison quality to boxed wine, to a seasonal blend every batch will be slightly different.
I reload to save money, but I also have some obscure calibers, like 7.7 jap that makes reloading almost a necessity.
But then I handload for pure precision, knowing what my rifles like and can achieve custom levels that factory cannot accomplish at a reasonable price.

>>34860179
Depends entirely on who does the loads. Some people are very careful and some people will just watch TV while working a leaver with my foot... I MEAN THEIR FOOT.

i buy my ammo from a guy who reloads ammo out of his garage.
obviously not for home defence or hunting but if i feel like killing some plastic bottles im my backyard i would.
dude fills shotgun shells with BB pellets and sells them as "birdshot"

>>34860179
I can tell you how to be reasonably sure that certain reloads are probably good.

Grab 3-5 at random.
Feel the primer depth, it should be identical.
Place them on a table or flat surface.
The length of the brass should be the same.
The depth the bullets were seated should be exactly the same.


If someone had the skill to do the above, they more than likely, got the powder charge correct.

Or....get a bullet puller and pull 3-5 apart and weigh the charge.

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>>34860179
>What are some good reloads?
none.

the only sceneries in which i could see justifying the effort, and time consumption is if you are trying to handload extremely accurate cartridges for a particular rifle for long range target shooting. or if you are in the wilderness for a prolonged period of time pressing your own hunting loads.

>>34862837
>34.7%
I don't believe that statistic for a second.

>>34860179
here's a break down of ammo from my experience.
>surplus
it's as the name implies. ammo that was produced with the intention of supplying it to the military, but wasn't purchased by the military. examples of this would be federal selling milspec m855 or imi selling mk262. sometimes it's ammo that has been sitting for a while with no real purpose other than it's there. for example, surplus eastern block ammo or old school 303 british ammo that was stockpiled and never used. this stuff you might want to be wary of based on that it might be corrosive.
>reloaded
this is ammo that is typically once fired brass that is reprimed and loaded mechanically. most of the time it's factory reloaded so there's not so much worry behind it. other times it's reloaded at bubba's shop round the corner. either way, they're pretty legit about it as they are federally licensed to re-manufacture the ammo and sell it to you. just make sure they actually are licensed to sell it; ask if they have a type 6 ffl if it's bubba's shop.
>hand loads
these glorious babies are bundles of joy. mainly because you never know what you're gonna get. typically these are from the guy you know or the guy that a guy you know knows. most people i know that hand load want you to test out their ammo for them or will make you rounds as long as you "pay for the components." one dude i know will give someone 1000 rounds of any common pistol caliber if you "buy" the components and "give" them to him. most of the time you'll see these dudes churn out a couple thousand rounds out of their dillion press in an hour. if you're kind enough, they'll use their single stage presses and fine tune the process to give you some crisp clean precision ammo. all in all, these dudes are good to have as a friend; so long as you don't mind picking up all your brass at the range.
>things to be wary of
make sure you know if your funs can use lead bullets; polygonal rifling is a bitch. also calibers: 556/223, 762/308, etc

>>34862837
Maybe you'd have difficulty justifying the effort if you're using something like a single stage press, but load up a Dillon 650 with some goodies and you can crank ammo like like crazy. Hell, they even make automation systems for the damned thing. you load up a couple hundred cases when you get home for lunch, you turn it off after your lunch hour and bam, you have a couple hundred more rounds to play with.

Then there's the precision aspect like you mentioned. If you compete a lot, reloading does make it more economical to practice with quality ammo that yyou would use in match. By shooting the same ammo you would for your match, you're going to have better control than if you just ran cheap factory loads.

One of the guys who helped me get into reloading said, "You won't save any money reloading, you'll just shoot more."

>>34863011
I don't think I've ever seen an actual set of 5.56x45 dies. they're all .223 dies. So long as you're not pushing max load, you shouldn't have to worry about using 5.56 brass reloads in a .223 gun since everything will be sized and loaded according to .223 spec.

>>34863069
>So long as you're not pushing max load
that's specifically what i'm saying. the rounds will fit but the pressures are different. same vein as 308 and 762. i wanted to elaborate but i ran out of text.

like i was saying though, you never know what you're going to get with hand loads. i got some 75gr loads that i was going to use for distance one time. took me 10 rounds to figure out that they were hitting 10 yards short because they weren't loaded as hot as i wanted.

>>34863194
Actually, when it comes to 7.62 vs 308 case pressure, I got curious enough to measure that myself. I bought a mixed bag of brass online and got enough for 5 sets of 308 cases and 6 sets of 7.62x51 cases all, 5 of each brand. I ended up loading them with a light plinking load and shooting them all through the same rifle. I then filled all the cases with water and measured the difference between empty and full for each. What I found was Hornady match brass had less internal capacity than most of the x51 brass. MKE x51 Brass actually had the highest average case volume. PPU match 308 came in right behind it. It doesn't matter if you're using military x51 or 308 brass, the deviation between commercial 308 case volumes is greater than the difference between most 308 and x51 cases. Or at least that's what my findings have been.

>>34863329
hmm. that's interesting. do you think maybe it's because the hornady and ppu are brass casings specifically made for multiple reloads?

>>34862837
>32.5%
i'm ashamed that almost a third of my fellow floridians didn't have the good sense to lie when asked

>>34863427
that's possible, but right in the middle of the road, there was Winchester and GFL brass, 7.62 on either side of it. Honestly, the distribution by brand didn't really show a trend leaning one way or the other.

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I just bought reloaded .308

Was going to use it for my super vepr. s-should I be worried?

>>34863639
no

I shoot reloads all the time. Mostly LAX Ammo and NV Ammo.

I handloading for myself, and I am insane about double checking everything. I stack prepared brass mouth up, prime them, and then flip them and stack them primer up so I know they all got done. Then I weigh powder charges and double check every round with a flashlight to make sure there is powder in there. Then I load a bullet and crimp. The last step is to sit down in front of the tv, and shake each bullet to feel the powder inside, and check it with a Lyman chamber checker thing. Autistic devotion to safety is good when it comes to handloading.

I almost blew up my bolt action .223 shooting some old man's handloads. He didn't get the neck tension correct. I went to chamber a round, and something didn't feel right. I almost pulled the trigger, but decided to open the action. Gunpowder spilled everywhere as the bolt came back. The bullet got pushed down into the case. Very dangerous. Imagine if I was shooting a semi auto, yikes.

Tl;dr be very safe when handloading and don't trust other people's handloads

>>34863639
if shit's gonna happen, it'll happen. if not, then it won't. don't sweat it dude. if you catch a bad round, 99% it's just a flyer or the round is under powered and won't cycle the action. worst that could happen is if it squibs, but there's not a whole lot you can do about that. inspect your rounds before you shoot, and you'll be fine.

>>34862780
This is great advice for anyone who doesn't reload and is unsure about safety

>>34863194
5.56 tends to have a little thicker case walls than .223, so it is a good idea to reduce your favorite .223 load by about 5% when trying 5.56 brass for the first time, and work your way back up to your old favorite load. Just like >>34863329 said, you can test case capacity with water if you are uncomfortable using different types of brass