Hornady 7mm-08 Brass and pressure?

[Spicerack]

Hey all! New guy here, been a light reloader for about 15 years with 7RM, 40S&W, and 44mag, and now 7mm-08. I picked up a cheap Savage Axis in 7/08 last spring then could not find any brass. So I ordered 2 boxes of factory Hornady whitetail 139g SPs and found out the gun hated them: best I could do was 4" at 50 yds (at least I got some brass out of the deal) and one of the 40 rounds split a neck on the first shooting, thought it might be a fluke. Then I worked up a coupla different loads using that brass. The best one was 40.0g IMR 4064 under Hornady 162 BTSP 2.810" OAL that yielded a 4 shot bug hole at 100yds. That load flowed brass into the ejector even though it was not quite max load per Lymans 49th. I backed off to 38.5g for 10 hunting rounds and they did the trick for now but projectile still threw the jacket on impact. Is this brass just that soft? Do I need to trash it? Could this be something different going on here? Sorry no Chrony. Barrel is 22" 1:9.5" twist.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[JGorski]

Hey all! New guy here, been a light reloader for about 15 years with 7RM, 40S&W, and 44mag, and now 7mm-08. I picked up a cheap Savage Axis in 7/08 last spring then could not find any brass. So I ordered 2 boxes of factory Hornady whitetail 139g SPs and found out the gun hated them: best I could do was 4" at 50 yds (at least I got some brass out of the deal) and one of the 40 rounds split a neck on the first shooting, thought it might be a fluke. Then I worked up a coupla different loads using that brass. The best one was 40.0g IMR 4064 under Hornady 162 BTSP 2.810" OAL that yielded a 4 shot bug hole at 100yds. That load flowed brass into the ejector even though it was not quite max load per Lymans 49th. I backed off to 38.5g for 10 hunting rounds and they did the trick for now but projectile still threw the jacket on impact. Is this brass just that soft? Do I need to trash it? Could this be something different going on here? Sorry no Chrony. Barrel is 22" 1:9.5" twist.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

That's why I hate savage to this day, had a Savage in 708 a while back, had to drop the charge several grains so the bolt wouldn't lock up after firing, plus the headspace was all fucked up, though I did get a spike buck with it at 110 paces, later sold it to my bro in law, he liked it an does very well with it, as long as I reload for it he'll be fine, I know what it takes to make it shoot w/o pressure. Yeah, it's not the brass, it's the rifle. A Salvage.

 

[BountyHunter]

7mm-08 likes H414, Vgt, H360 and IMR 4064

Generally the 120 BTip, 139 Hornady BTSP are proven bullets.

I would go to the free Hodgen website for data.

 

[Spicerack]

I know what it takes to make it shoot w/o pressure. Yeah, it's not the brass, it's the rifle.

So what are you thinking it is, excessive chamber space? And what worked for you to get yours shoot w/o pressure? I got mine to shoot well with 154g SP flat base and the 162g BTHP and groups got smaller as charge went up. I stopped at 40.0g of IMR 4064 only because of pressure signs.

Semper Fidelis

 

[JGorski]

So what are you thinking it is, excessive chamber space? And what worked for you to get yours shoot w/o pressure? I got mine to shoot well with 154g SP flat base and the 162g BTHP and groups got smaller as charge went up. I stopped at 40.0g of IMR 4064 only because of pressure signs.

Semper Fidelis

I had to drop the charge from 49grs of 760 down to 41grs with the 140 Sierra bullets, and from 46 to 40grs with 150s. Had my bro in law Chrono some of the 150s and got an avg of 2300fps, still had no problem dropping that spike buck right where he stood. Id say you might have the same issue I had with mine, too much material in the chamber area or bore out of spec, some shit like that. Gawd, I hate Savage.

 

[JGorski]

Oh, when I load for other guys 708s I use 40.5grs Varget or RE15 with the 139s, works awesome.

 

[bigedp51]

Brass hardness in the base controls "when" the brass starts flowing into the ejector. Meaning a different brand of brass would not show theses signs at the same pressure. Bottom line, Federal and Hornady are known for soft brass and switching to Remington or Winchester may very well fix the problem.

If you feel ambitious you could order some once fired 7.62 Lake City cases, these cases are made to higher standards and the brass is very hard in the base to better withstand larger diameter and longer headspaced military firearms. The down side is you will need to remove the crimp on the primer pocket, BUT you will end up with some very tough and long lasting brass.

I have two Stevens 200 rifles and they are great rifles for the price, and were the forerunners of the Axis series. Both of these rifles are very accurate and many of these rifles are modified for competitive shooting.

Buy a buy a box of loaded Remington cartridges and use them as a base line for pressure signs reading their primers and base diameter. And remember factory ammunition is normally loaded well below the rated chamber pressure for each caliber. Meaning you don't need to load to near maximum to reload accurate ammunition and your cases will last much longer.

 

[Spicerack]

JG- Thanks for the tips that worked for you. Im thinking I might hang on to the rifle at least through next summer to see if I can get some velocity with accuracy out of it. If not, no big deal, it was cheap and the accuracy did the job this year on a deer.

BH- Thank you too for the powder recommendations. I will experiment with a couple of those and use some of the .284s I have laying around from my 7RM round development sessions.

 

[Spicerack]

BigEd- interesting information on the brass. I would have figured Hornady brass to be better quality than what I experienced, even if my chamber is on the plus side. There is an unopened bag of 7-08 Rem brass in my loading room that I did not bust into yet since I was still under the impression that Hornady brass would be better. Guess I can give that a go when it warms up again here in a few months. The LC brass is pretty tempting but the thing that held me up from going that route was my lack of neck turning devices. Maybe I wouldn't need to turn necks though if indeed that chamber is that big though... hmmm. Just thinking out loud. I am still hopeful on this gun since it did produce some nice groups when working the OCW progression after some trigger work. And the gun fit the bill for my hunting needs this year: light and wieldy.

 

[JGorski]

Spice, You'll have to drop your charge about 1-2grs. less with LC brass since it doesn't hold as much powder as other brass, I didn't have to turn any necks loading for a buddy at work using reformed 308 LC brass. I'm sure Hornady makes better brass than LC, but LC is thicker and perhaps harder, the 600pcs of 6 Creed brass I've got is really good shit. Try that Rem brass you have, that's all I pretty much use for the 708s I load for. Good load for 150s is 38-39grs RE15 and either 9 1/2 or CCI200 primer, stay away from hotter primers for best accuracy, of course they do work, though.

 

[bigedp51]

Give me Lake City brass any day of the week, it is made to higher milspec standards than commercial American brass.

NO its not Lupua brass, "BUT" you get over 10 times as many cases for the same price, my second choice would be Winchester. Any commercial contract ammunition made for the military must meet these milspec standards and the brass "MUST" be harder in the base.

Soft brass is just one of the causes of the M16 jamming problem when the rifle was first introduced. And milspec standards were set for all commercial contract military ammunition.

 

[JGorski]

LC may very well be great for military type rifles, but if I had to choose from LC or this Hornady brass for the 6 Creed, Hornady would win hands down, it's very, very close if not as good as lapua brass.

 

[Spicerack]

Update:
Emailed Hornady about the brass issues in the original post and their prompt reply asked me to call the 800 number and talk with them about sending some of the brass back for testing. I will update here as I hear back.

Aaron

 

[darth_ritis]

tag for follow up

 

[Spicerack]

First- sorry it took so long to get to this phone call, but I was away on a pheasant hunt in SD.

So I called Hornady today and talked to the brass lab like the email response requested and explained what happened. Shannon said there isn't much they can do for testing since I shot all the factory loads and the explanation for the reloads extruding brass into the ejector button hole was likely due to variations in chamber/rifling/powder burn rate/etc. He did not seem like it was of high concern. He did document the circumstances with the lot number in case there is further investigation necessary.

My plans for the brass is to keep it as emergency back up, maybe save it for a managed recoil load for the wife, and switch to the Win brass that is sitting on the shelf.

Thanks for all the replies and interest. This forum is a pretty neat place and filled with sage advice, one of the better I have found and Im happy to be a part of it.