Finding load infomation
 

This will be my first dive into the reloading pool
I just bought a RCBS reloading kit. It came with a reloading manual and it does show quite a few loads that i could use.

I am starting out by reloading for my 7mm Rem Mag

A buddy of mine gave me Hornady Interlock 154 g SP bullets (He sold his 7mag) He also gave me a pound of IMR 4831.

I would like to find a load using these 2 items just to start with since they were free.

First. Does anyone have a starter load for this combo that i could try out

Second, Since i already have a the Speer manual which came with the kit, what manual should i now look at that will give me additional diversity in loads?

bullets of different constuctions create differnent pressures, so you really want to do with the mfg reload data for the bullet. In other words, if you loading speer bullets, then speer manual is good. But you wouldn't want to load barnes or trophy bonded bearclaw's with a nosler manual.

Some bullets you can get by with, thin walled typical cup bullets. Like interbonds, or sierra, nosler BT's, I lump these together. But you got to be careful with a few solid shank bullets like barnes or thick walled bullets like swift.

Thanks BC.
i'll be able to get to the store and pick up a copy of the Hornady manual next weekend.
I'd like to tinker with the press this week if anyone has a load out of the Hornady manual using the above bullet and powder combo that i can go with for now.

The local shop usually carries Hornady, Sierra and Nosler. I'm going to pick up a few different Hornady bullets and put the manual to good use when i get it

I got the hornady manual. I will look it up tonight.

Thanks again BC.
Pretty excited. I built the bench this weekend. Got a lot of the stuff ready to go.

Danny D.....You might also want to look at the Lyman loading manual. They are not product-specific, and offer loading info for various bullet manufacturers per bullet weight. Nosler, Sierra, Hornady, etc. give good info in their own books, but like bc said, you're not gonna find Hornady info in a Nosler manual, etc.....

Ok Danny, my hornady manual says for a 154gr bullet fired from 7mm RemMag, with IMR4831

Starting: 54.8gr 2600fps
Max: 59.1gr 2800fps

Pretty weak load if you ask me, but kills deer dead I would imagine. Everybody has ideas of what a certain caliber will do, and if it was me I would expect at least 2900fps for a 154gr-160gr bullet. I would expect over 3050 for 140gr bullet. Which most of my friends can get MOssyoak on here shoots 67gr of RL22 with 140gr BT and gets 3100fps.

I myself would look into Reloader 25 Or RL22 with that bullet. I have always had good luck with RL22 out of 7mm mags.
For RL25
Starting: 63.1gr 2600fps
Max: 71.3gr 3000fps

For RL22
Starting: 56.6gr 2600fps
Max: 63.4gr 2900fps

Just a little help in a different direction.

If you plan to full length size every time, try to just bump the shoulders back enough so the round loads easily. Brass will last much longer. I started out with the 7mmRM too and learned that lesson the hard way.

Please don't see this as stepping on your toes. But I disagree. I have been down the partial FL sizing road quite a bit and came up not happy. Its ok if you have some gauges to see what your doing. See how much variance you are getting in your shoulder measurements. But one thing I found out is sometimes a die not cammed over can cause runout and shoulder measurements that are all over the place up to .010". If I go that route, I suggest folks by some lee collet dies or redding bushing dies and do it properly.

I know John Barshness is big on this, and I have debated it with him online before. Turns out he never knew what the shoulder length measurements were or the effect it has. He said he just keeps backing up until its tight to chamber. Might as well have a varying headspaced rifle IMO.

Danny D go to midway and look at the complete reloading manuals for a specific caliber if you are just going to do the 7RM for now it will give you most of the information from just about all of the manuals in one book for about 8 bucks.

Thanks again Guys.
So i went home last night and practiced loading 2 bullets on empty cases. I did it exactly as prescribed by BC (no crimp). Everything went well and was actually pretty easy.

However. I loaded the bullet mouth to the top of the cannelure where i could barely see it anymore. When i compared it to Federal and Winchester factory rounds that i have the overall length was about 1/16th inch higher than both of those

Is this a problem?
What is the maximum overall length (including bullet) for this round?

My manual only talks of case length which was the same

Well, there are SAAMI specs for max COL for 7mm Rem Mag. I think its 3.29". But it doesn't really matter. What matters is pressure signs, and does it fit in your magazine and will it chamber without shoving yourbullet into the rifling. Reason for the max SAAMI specs (IMO) is to make sure your not shoving the bullet into the rifling. Most companies these days cut the throat so long, it doesn't matter. They do it for pressure reasons IMO.

There are a few tricks to find out what is the max you can load a bullet in your gun. Bunch of tools out there to measure it like stoney point's and I think hornady bought them. I like em, not totally necassary. But another cool toy.

But you can take a sized case, take a dremel tool and split the neck and little into the shoulders on one side. This way you can insert a bullet and it will hold but will also move. Chamber it in your rifle, and carefully, ( I mean carefully) remove the brass/bullet combo. And measure the total length. Do this for a few bullets and a few times. This will tell you how far you can load too. But then you need to make sure it fits in the mag.

If you get a lot of variation, don't be alarmed. The ends of bullets vary due to being lead. Proper way to measure a bullet like this is at the ogive. This is where the bullet makes contact with the lands and groove. And again, lots of tools out there to measure at the ogive. But right now just keep it simple.

So BC. using that Dremel trick what we would be looking for is how far the bullet gets pushed back into the case? Then i can use that as my max length?
provided it also fits in the mag and feed properly of course

You got it. Just cut one side of the neck down to the shoulder. If you cut too much in the shoulder, then it won't hold the bullet tight enough.

If after doing a few times the bullet gets loose,just take your thumb and bend the neck in to retighten. Every gun I got, I have a dumby brass for this purpose.

I keep wantign to make a few videos on this and other reloading topics, but I dont' have a decent camera to do it.

I did some tests comparing split case to having a stoney point tool. Its fairly accurate, but you need to factor in about .005" for the jamming in teh rifling.

http://huntingnet.com/forum/reloadin...l-results.html

I wouldn't call it partial FL sizing, but maybe it really is. What I was trying to get at, and what happened to me, is don't over do the FL sizing. When I started out, I was doing exactly what Lee's directions stated. The brass loaded fine, shot fine, but after 3 or less firings, brass began to separate. I found out that I was sizing them way too much. When I finally got the tools to determine the amount I was sizing, I understood the problem that I was running into. Since then I have been carefully measuring the amount of sizing being done to my brass I am now on my 5th firing of my last 50 pcs. of brass for the 7mmRM.

All true. No doubt. I neck size or collet size every caliber. I can get 7 firings if I do this, even with 300RUM.

OH Heck!!
So, ok i load 56g of IMR4831, 154g Hornady interlock bullet. all seems to go well.

PRIMERS!!! Before I started I went to the shop and i told the guy what i was loading and he gave me a box of CCI 200 primers.
Well now i read a few articles and it says i need to buy large rifle magnum primers not just large rifle primers.

So, i have 5 cartridges made in the above specs but have used CCI 200's rather than CCI 250's.

Shoot them ?
disassemble ?

You can shoot em with 4831. You really want mags for any powder with burning rate above IMR4350. But you can get by with 200's. If you told me you were shooting RL25, definately mags. Or if you said you were hunting Alaska, go with mags.

Sometimes little mistakes like this pay off big. I didn't have any Varget or 4064 on hand for my 7mm-08 and I wanted to go shooting, so I loaded some IMR4350 adn was shocked how good it shot. I am talking sub0.5MOA. And its not an ideal powder for 7mm08 but go with what works.

Its been great for me. When I say it was not ideal, I mean its extremely compressed, and over 100% load density. I doubt I am getting even close to pressure limits. Where everybody considers Varget ideal for 308 or 7mm-08.

You run Fed210's with ball? You don't mean Fed215's?

Thanks again BC
Well. I'm off to the range this weekend. Looking forward to seeing how it goes

there you go Danny. RR shoots some serious power, if it works for him, it will work for a rem mag.

Thanks to both of you.
Its odd. I was able to look at Reloader Magazine (09 annual addition). it showed that the test loads listed in there, including the IMR 4831, for the 7Mag used a Winchester Large Rifle Primer. Yet in the 2 manuals i've seen so far they all recommended a Magnum primer.

So,
I've already loaded up the 5 with CCI 200 primers. I bought the Winchester Large Rifle primers and loaded up 5 using them.
I still can't find any magnum primers locally

We will see what happens this weekend when i try them.

OK
Got to shoot the first few loads this weekend. The best news of all... I didn't blow up myself or my gun. Pulling that first trigger was actualy pretty scary.

Anyway. I loaded 5 bullets of each 56.5g, 57g 57.5g and 58g IMR 4831 154g hornady bullet

Not very impressive grouping. Ranged from 1 1/8 to 2 2/8, 5 shot groups.
The funny thing was that each group was horizontally almost perfect. The groups were always strung left to right.

Another note. 3 of the 4 groups were under an inch with 1 hole outside the tight grouping obviously expanding the overall spread.

Lastly, each spread increased with the powder charge increase.