.308 win - reloading same brass for bolt action and an AR-10

dzz

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Minuteman
Jan 11, 2023
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I have a .308 win BA rifle and an AR-10 rifle and my questions is, because fired brass forms to the chamber, should I keep brass fired in bolt action rifle separate from AR-10 and vice versa for easier reloading?

Is anyone using the same brass for a bolt action and a gas rifle? If yes, what is your experience with reloading same brass? Do you find that you need to trim your brass more often, or something else...?
 
Meh, it's not that it doesn't matter at all, but I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it. I use various head stamps in my AR10, full sizing and loading mag length every time, and it shoots straight.

I use Lapua in my bolt .308 and treat it just like a comp gun even though I don't shoot comps with it. I just feel like with all the other variables that matter with a gas gun this is on the smaller side of things. I think you might be able to tell with the bolt but not with the gas, or maybe that's just my perception...

Try both and see how it shoots. If it doesn't matter it doesn't matter. If it does you can go more anal about it.
 
Id seperate. Your volume of shooting will be much higher in the AR10 because of the simple fact its a semi auto. Dont ask me how I know that. 🤣

My advice? Pick up 500 pieces of whatever quality brass you want for your bolt gun, you just want matching headstamps as it will remove some of the guesswork and variables. I recommend Peterson, Lapua, Starline. Ive used all 3 over the years, and they all work fine. Keep that brass segregate from your AR10 brass, do the normal bump shoulders 2-3 thou and keep shooting it. It will last probably forever unless you get real rowdy with some heavy loads. I do load all my bolt gun 308 on a single stage.

For your AR10? Same deal, but at a larger scale works better Ive found. Pick up a couple thousand pieces of Lake City if you can find it, prep it up, to include annealing, cleaning up the primer flash holes, and the obvious hassle of dealing with MG fired 7.62 with how much work it can be just to get it sized. Once that pain is over, its very serviceable brass in an AR10. One could also just run mixed headstamp if you really dont care, but if you want the best odds of consistent accuracy, a matching headstamp is advised. Even LC made over multiple years is really consistent. I cant say the same about commercial brass from Federal, Winchester, whatever. Commercial stuff simply isnt as tough as the LC stuff because lets face it, semi auto rifles can be really hard on brass. 90% of my AR10 ammo is loaded on a progressive with ball or short cut extruded powders just to make life easy.

If you really are set on dual purpose? Id just go LC or Starline for all of it. Check a few fired pieces of brass, and see what the comparator says for what you need for a shoulder bump, and work from the larger number so it will chamber in either rifle. I generally bump 5 thou for semi auto rifles as they tend to get alot dirtier alot faster, and 2 thou for bolt guns as they stay cleaner.
 
You lost me at a couple of thousand pieces for the AR10. It is so true that on Snipers Hide money is truly no object.
Nah, I get it. Money is a thing. Im a single parent with 2 teenagers.

I didnt start out with 5000 pieces of LC 7.62, but Im there now. I bought it up over the course of 3-4 years, 500 here, 1000 there, type deal. Right now? Im seeing an average price of about 35ish cents a case, so its not a huge investment to buy 500 or a 1000 pieces to get you started. Why do I have so much brass? Because I hate, with a capital "H", brass prep. So now I only do it maybe once a year and then its all done on a progressive with an RT1500 trimmer.

The 500 pieces of Peterson I bought for my bolt gun? That was a stroke of luck where a friend who had a dealers account with Grafs caught a good sale and I picked it up cheap. A guy could buy 200 pieces and be just fine. Its all about how often you want to do case prep because of how much you shoot.
 
If precision is a goal, you absolutely have to segregate brass by chamber. If you’re not into chasing the precision rabbit down the hole then just full length size all the brass to SAAMI min and go.
 
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I have a .308 win BA rifle and an AR-10 rifle and my questions is, because fired brass forms to the chamber, should I keep brass fired in bolt action rifle separate from AR-10 and vice versa for easier reloading?

Is anyone using the same brass for a bolt action and a gas rifle? If yes, what is your experience with reloading same brass? Do you find that you need to trim your brass more often, or something else...?
Be honest, what are you using each gun for?
 
Biggest issue is that the AR10 is going to chew up your brass. Also, you'd likely find out that the load for the AR10 may need to be a little hotter if you are trying to keep the velocities the same or similar. (Do not attempt to keep the velocities the same for an M-14 type rifle, that's a bad idea.)

Definitely separate it. I'd go so far as to mark the brass using a brass marker...
 
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You absolutely can run the cases in two different rifles but it comes with a price. Since one of the chambers will require more sizing than the other you will be oversizing the case for the larger chamber. This means you'll be setting the shoulder back more than necessary for the tighter chamber. and trimming the cases more often. You will also likely run into an issue with base of the case at the 0.200" line becoming too large for one of the chambers. This can become a really sticky issue if the round becomes stuck in the AR. Bottom line is you will sacrifice case life as a minimum.
 
My ocd calls for segregation of brass. For a bolt gun. Buy 200 pieces of Lapua brass and 2 mtm range boxes that hold 100 rounds. That makes is very easy to track and keep detailed notes on number of firings.

For the AR 10, I prefer 1000 round lots of LC brass. I process in bulk and toss after the 3rd firing.

Bolt gun FL sizing die set to to push shoulder back 1/1000 and a bushing for neck tension.

AR loads are sized using Dillon carbide .308 sizing die so that they drop in and out of my chamber gauge.
 
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You lost me at a couple of thousand pieces for the AR10. It is so true that on Snipers Hide money is truly no object.
I’ve got a bunch of .308 brass, but there’s such a huge variance in what all I’ve got. The bulk of it is still loaded in factory ammo, bought a 400 round case of 175 SMK in LC brass and a 500 round case of Fed T308T. I’m mostly shooting in 120 Hornady cases, bolt gun. I just prepped some Federal brass, most of it shot in my bone stock 700. That rifle has a much sloppier chamber, press worked hard and had to do a lot more trimming.

Going to build some hunting loads for the 700, and no way am I swapping brass back and forth. Not sure how I feel about what I’m doing to do for shooting the Spanish Mauser I just got.