What is a good reload option?

[GREYBEAR]

OK, guys. I know that trying to find ammo for my CETME is like pulling chicken teeth. So my question, is there any good reloads for that will work well? I have a friend who reloads, and he make ammo for his BM-59, and I'm sure he can for me also as long as I get the the brass, heads, powder, and primers. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[nevada]

The problem is finding NATO or NATO-spec brass, boxer primed. It is almost all Berdan primed, which means hand removing the primers, and finding Berdan primers to use. Time intensive even with a Berdan primer remover. Sometimes suplus bullets are available online, but 148gr FMJ should be easy to find from the major makers, Winchester, Speer, etc. .308 small base dies are recommended for semi-auto ammo.

[jfowl31]

All lake city brass is boxer primed... it comes up for sale on gunboards and here every now and then, but mostly, it has to be bought from Ebay... Luckily, once you get a decent supply, it lasts a long time.

You could always buy that expensive sniper ammo... Lake City, boxer primed, 174 gr... for the M24. Supposed to shoot real nicely in HK's and Cetmes and if you save the brass you can reload it.

I plan on just reloading the brass Ive got... Its all commercial, but Ill reload it to lower pressures, and hopefully still be able to tweak the timing of the rifle enough to get it to work well enough.

We will soon see... and there are certain makers of commercial brass that are a tad thicker than others. I know the Black Hills brass is definitely harder to resize than WWB or Federal... Thats 90% of the brass that I have, and the other 10% is Winchester either WWB or the ballistic silvertip silver cases... those are nice and hard too.

I think Ive got about 1000 pieces somewhere around here........ I saved brass for a long time before I ever started reloading, so only 100 or so have been shot twice! Once I get a place and set up the reloader again, I should be in good shape.

[TS308]

Hello

GREYBEAR

i will be posting a review in a couple of weeks on ammo , it will include several nato mfg's LC , IMI , FN ,HK and any other nato that i have on hand , as well as rounds from Win , Fed, Remington , here will be 5 rounds of each chrono'ed after i get a base on the nato and the factory rounds i will work up some hand loads and send them through the chrono .
after the rounds has been fired the cases will be cut in half and measured

im looking at a couple of weeks waiting on parts to come in so i can put the Cetme back together and temps to get in the 60's or higher , im guessing the handloads will be around the 2600 to 2750 fps range .

TS

[Geilt]

There are a couple of recpies for NATO 7.62 ammo floating around. I'll check some of the resources I have saved and post either links or documents (PDF).

As JFowl and Nevada said, the commercial hunting brass cases are softer than military brass. Someone posted a quick listing in order of perceived softness of these cases. I think Remmy and Winchester were the softest. I'd be concerned about the softer cases deforming enough to be lodged in the CETME/HK chamber flutes.

Using harder commercial brass is a good option but with the whomping the brass takes during ejection I'd be leary of putting expensive brass through it.

[GREYBEAR]

Thanks Guys, I'll try to put together the components and see what I get.

[texlurch]

Winchester just came out with some white box 7.62x51 NATO.. not sure what the brass is like, but just an FYI.

Quite a few people use Silver Bear steel case, but that isn't any good for reloading.

Just make sure that if you reload, you use the NATO spec, not the high end SAAMI pressures....

[cimmaronkid]

OK, guys. I know that trying to find ammo for my CETME is like pulling chicken teeth. So my question, is there any good reloads for that will work well? I have a friend who reloads, and he make ammo for his BM-59, and I'm sure he can for me also as long as I get the the brass, heads, powder, and primers. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Have your friend look up a load with whatever powder he is using for the BM59 and as long as it is in the NATO pressure range (52,000-55,000 psi or less) and you use milspec brass, you will be fine. I shoot Bulk bullets from Remington because they are cheap. Favorite powder is IMR 4895 which is the old stand by and seems to give good accuracy in whatever cartridge it is used in.

[XO3319]

I use Nato stamped US Military brass

42.3 grains IMR 4064 and CCI Large Rifle, Win Large Rifle or CCI #34 Milspec primers

with 147gr FMJ-BT South African pulled surplus 150gr FMJ-BT also works well in CETME and my M1919A4:sterb126: