What is a good load for 6.5x55 in Swedish M96, M38?
Richard Chapman
I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
Richard Chapman
Daniel A. Lacoretz
Richard Chapman wrote:
#
# I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
# Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
#
Hi Richard!
Try calling Sierra. Their 140 Grain Match bullets are fantastic and they'll
also give you the loading data if you ask for it. They have an (800) number
but I don't have it here in the office. Try calling (800) 555-1212 for info
on their 800 number.
Their stuff works!
Good Luck
DAn
Chad Leigh @ The Electronic GunShop
In article <1996091020...@python.viper.net>, Richard Chapman
<cha...@python.viper.net> wrote:
# I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
# Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
# and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
# near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
# of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
# every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
# H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
# powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
# Richard Chapman
I used VV N165 with magnum primers and Hornday 140grain match and got
pretty good accuracy. I didn't shoot or test a lot. This was with an M38
military stock etc with Leupold 3x9 Vari-X II on super high rings.
My brother tried 4350 and kind of liked it.
I know, we are kind of vague here but I haven't done this (swede mauser
shooting) for awhile. My brother has been casting and shooting 140 grain
lead in his swede lately.
Chad
student
Richard Chapman wrote:
#
# Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
# and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
# near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
# of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
# every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
# H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
# powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
# Richard Chapman
Rich,
I tried testing a few loads in my Swede M96 this past summer. I found
that I didn't have much luck with any 120gr bullets. My best load was a
140gr Speer w/ about 44gr of RE22 (I am going on memory here so check
your load book!)
Also, try several loads w/ equal charges but vary the seating depth for
the bullet. IMHO the load books list length-over-all figures which are
too short for the Swedes so that someone with a modern gun which has
less freebore will not get into a pressure problem. I found that
loading the bullet closer to the lands improved accuracy considerably.
Good Luck
John
Don Merritt, SGM
# I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
# Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
# and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
# near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
# of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
# every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
# H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
# powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
# Richard Chapman
Dear Sir;
A few years back, Handloader's Digest published a table of loads for the
6.5 Swede M 94 Carbine (The 17 inch barrel one) and I have obtained
excellent results using 45 grains of IMR 4831 with Rem 140 grain Soft
Point, CCI 350 primer and commercial Rem Brass. Although the powder sticks
as a fact do not meter well, a grain or so difference shouldn't make that
much difference in the accuracy. The load works equally well in an
Oberndorf M96 Swede. I tried to scan the table into a Word Document but
couldn't do it. My daughter says I can scan a "gif" of it and possibly
transmit it like that. I will keep playing around until I find a way,
otherwise I may just "type" the article up.
Sincerely
Don Merritt
K9BNF
Just last Sunday I did a chronograph study of thr 6.5 Swede using the 140
gr.
Speer bullet. Started out with 33.0 grains of Varget with Winchester large
Rifle
Primer. Went up to 35. 0 grains Varget.
At 33.0 gr. Varget in the carbine.,
Average MV 2217 Low 2201 SD 13.7 [forgot to record High]
At 33.5 gr. Varget
Average MV 2261 High 2283 Low 2240 SD 12.1
At 34.0 gr Varget
Average MV 2288 High 2302 Low 2272 SD 8.4
At 34.5 gr Varget
Average MV 2321 High 2349 Low 2302 SD 13.9
At 35.0 gr Varget
Average MV 2366 High 2390 Low 2347 SD 12.5
First test with Varget Speer 140 Grain SP
MV should be heigher in the long rifle. All results are my recordings and
all
diclaimers apply. All shot at 100 yards Groups moved to the left as powder
charge went up. Did not make any corrections in sights during test to keep
results stable.
All rounds remained in the black. nothing outside the 8 ring on a National
target
# TQ-4 (P)
Best group was at 33.0 gr Varget . 1-X 5-10 4-9.
With sight adjustment at heigher grain charge similar results would have
occurred..
All tests are my own and nothing sceintific. Just my way of having a goo
day shooting.
Chronograph was 12 feet in front of muzzle. All results recorded and
targets in hand.
Make sure your Swede is in good shape and your re-loading is accurate.
PLEASE.
John.....K9BNF.....Milwaukee
Francis Difulco
#<, Richard Chapman
#<cha...@python.viper.net> wrote:
## I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
## Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
## and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
## near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
## of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
## every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
## H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
## powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
## Richard Chapman
You may want to do two things, switch to reloader 22 powder, it is
very close to the NORMA MRP in pressure for the swed. It has given
great results in 160 and 140 SP gr -bullets by Hornady. I used WIN &
REM brass, with uniform primer pockets and flash holes duburred. I
also weigh each charge, and WIN primers. Consullt a loading manual
for a starting range.
The second thing would be gettting a stoney point chamber all to get
the coal on the ogive of the bullet and back off .020-.30...please
read all the instructions with the stoney point.
`````````````````````
Frank DiFulco
Fdif...@bigeasy.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D. Douglas Smith
Good Powder choice. I use varget in my 243 ackley for bench rest
shooting. N3-DGQ
Seth Leigh
Hi all. First off, to reply to the post below, according to the reloading
books I researched this in, RL 22 powder shows the best performance of any
powder with bullets of 140 gr. weight. With bullets of 120 gr. weight, I
don't believe that Hodgdon 4350 can be beat. If so, then it will be 4831
or RL-22 that does it. I haven't yet tried the Vihtavouri Oy powders, but
I hope to soon. I have loaded some Hornady 129 gr. SP bullets with H4350,
and they seemed to shoot very accurately, but I have no hard data that I
can publish at this time.
Now, the powder I have used most frequently is Hodgdon Universal Clays, a
fairly quick pistol/shotgun powder. Please read the rest of this post
before going out and turning your nice Swede Mauser into a stick of
dynamite! Being interested in shooting my Swede a LOT, and not being able
to afford full-house jacketed loads to shoot a lot, I decided to try out
cast lead bullets. I have only been casting for less than a year, and had
thus far cast only .357 bullets. I bought the Lyman 140 LRN GC (gas
check) bullet mould (supposed to cast out to .266"). I have cast a few
hundred of these bullets now. I went over to Loren Randolph, my casting
mentor's house recently and sized, lubed, and applied the gas check to
some of these bullets. I need to get my own furnace and lubrisizer. If
anyone has a used one they don't want, let me know. I am interested in
either the Lyman 450 or the RCBS. I also want to get the Lee 20 lb
capacity 4" height furnace.
I have fired only 108 of these bullets so far, but I will be shooting a
lot more, believe me! I just went shooting yesterday (Saturday the 14th),
and shot 68 rounds through my M38 Swede. Now get a load of the ranges I
shot at: We started at more than 300 yards away! Now the load I chose to
use consists of a gas-checked Lyman 140 gr. LRN bullet lubed with 50/50
Alox lube, sized to .266", over 10.0 gr. of Universal Clays and a CCI
Large Rifle primer. I estimate that these rounds have a muzzle velocity
of between 1300 and 1400 fps, but I have not yet been able to chrony them
to know for sure. So, firing these fairly light loads at more than 300
yards, I had to set the M38 Swede's to way over the last mark of 600
meters, I estimate if there were a mark there it would be something like
950 meters or so! Boy, do these bullets drop at more than 300 yards!
Still, I got the height set right, and started hitting a steel gong I had
placed at the target area. It was very gratifying to fire a round, have
time to look up and see the impact, and then hear the steel gong make its
trademark sound. I fired maybe a dozen rounds at the gong after getting
the height set correctly, and when I went to look at it there were 9 lead
splotches in about a 12" group. Pretty satisfying, and surprising to me,
given the light load I was using and the Swede's iron sights. I was
shooting off the hood of my friends Jeep with a tight sling hold.
We moved closer, to about 260 yards. I continued to hit the gong, and
then started firing at the milk jugs and orange juice jugs we had set up
(water-filled). I had to readjust the sights again (a lot, too), and then
I hit a couple jugs. We moved to a distance of 205 yards away (paced off
twice), readjusted my sights, and started getting bottle hits again. From
this range I hit a 64 ounce Tropicana container three times in a row, once
in the neck, once at about the shoulder, and once half-way down the jug.
Cool. These slow thin bullets don't make the jug explode, but will shoot
some water out the top. In fact, I was chuckling the whole time because a
friend of my friend (I barely know this guy) was shooting a scoped Howa
1500 based .223 with normal loads, and I was hitting things better with my
iron-sighted Swede and my light lead load than he was hitting! I had to
laugh. I stopped shooting when I got down to only 20 rounds left.
I paced off (twice to double-check) a 25 yard range to a target I set up
(accurate to however good my pace is, probably reasonably close). I fired
2 targets at this range. One grouped all five into about 1/2" (not
measured with a micrometer or anything, just a crude ruler). The other
group had all five in about 3/4" due to a flier. The other 4 shots were
actually grouped into about 1/2" or less.
I paced off 50 yards, and fired the remaining 10 rounds at this range.
One group was about 1", and the other group was just slightly more than
1". Next time I go shooting I will measure off 100 yards and shoot a
whole bunch of groups. I estimate I ought to be able to hold all five
shots at this range to about 2", but again I haven't tried it yet. I had
fired a group at a target sillouete at the 205 yard distance earlier, and
it measured more than 4", at about 6" or so, but I thing there is a good
reason for that. First off, I was shooting at center of mass of a big,
black sillouete, and didn't have anything definite to aim at, so my point
of aim probably was a little different each shot, secondly, I noticed that
the holes in the cardboard were not perfectly round, indicating that the
bullets were wobbling a bit when they hit the target. I think this is
because the bullets were crossing the boundary from supersonic to
subsonic, and hitting the turbulence. I can't prove that, but considering
that the muzzle velocity is only in the 1300 fps range to begin with, I
can easily see these bullets going subsonic at 200 yards or so. I don't
know what the BC of these bullets is, but it can't be that great.
Next time I will bring my brother's sandbags. I think that will
definitely help keep a steadier shot, and I might see some improvement in
my group sizes. I would like to see a 1" group at 100 yards with these
bullets, and even though for a cast bullet that sounds like an awful lot
to ask for, I have gained a lot of faith in the accuracy of my Swede, and
think I can get there.
My judgements of this load. It was very quiet for a rifle, probably
slightly louder than shooting a .22. You could be tempted to shoot these
without earplugs, but I probably wouldn't do it. There is still the sonic
boom from the supersonic bullets. Even though these loads are cast
bullets with Alox lube, they don't smoke very much (unlike cast pistol
loads, which smoke a LOT). Also, looking down the bore, there is
absolutely NO (none, not even a little bit) visible leading , and in fact
the overall residue level is pretty low. Universal Clays is a VERY clean
burning powder, and in a 24.5" barrel I am sure it is completely burned up
at high pressure, leaving little residue. I cleaned the barrel after the
40 shots I fired the previous weekend, and it was a snap.
After talking to a couple people who believe that at this velocity range,
a gas check isn't really necessary, I have decided on the following test.
Next time I load these, I am going to load a bunch of bullets with and
without gas checks at each of the following powder charges, 10.0 gr.
Universal, 11.0 gr. Universal, and 12.0 gr. Universal. I believe that
increasing the charge a little might make the rounds more accurate at the
longer range, perhaps getting enough velocity to stay supersonic up to at
least 250 yards or so. I also might be able to set my sights a little
easier. I will look for accuracy and potential barrel leading to test
between gas checks and no gas checks. Whichever of these loads gives me
the best accuracy I will stick with. I will then load some rounds up at
.2 or .3 grain intervals around this load, and see if it can be improved
on. I will definitely be shooting these loads from a sandbag rest, so the
testing ought to be pretty good.
I also will load up some gas-checked bullets with XMP 5744, to see if I
can get a good, accurate load at about 2000 fps. I haven't found any data
for this powder in 6.5x55, but looking at data for other cartridges and
cast bullets, I think I will start with a 20.0 gr. charge. I believe that
if anything, I am erring on the side of lower pressures and not higher,
especially since all the cast rifle data I have seen generates low
pressures compared to normal jacketed loads. Can anyone else offer
suggestions for loading this cartridge with this powder? I doubt this XMP
5744 load will become my standard plinking load, as the cost will be
higher than the Universal Clays loads, but I might use them for longer
range (greater than 150 yards or so) shooting if they work a lot better
out there. The one downside of the Universal Clays loads is that they
drop like crazy out past 100 yards, and shooting at targets of variable
range past that is tricky to estimate. A faster load would probably be a
lot easier to use at these ranges.
I estimate, given the cost of the components I used, that I can load up
one 6.5x55 cartridge with my current 10 gr. charge with gas check, for
about 4.8 cents. That makes about $2.42 for 50 rounds. I like that a
LOT, as I can now afford to do lots and lots of shooting with my Swede.
If I decide not to use the gas check, my cost drops to about 3.7 cents
apiece, and if I use no gas check and use the 11 or 12 gr. charge, my cost
will be about 4 cents a round. This means that I can shoot my nice,
center-fire rifle for about the cost of 2 .22 LR rounds.
Sorry to be so long-winded about this, but I thought other happy Swede
owners would be interested in this info. If anyone has done similar
things and would like to share data with me, please email me, or post to
the net. I don't know if I can answer any questions yet due to my fairly
limited experience with cast rifle loads to date, but feel free to ask if
you'd like. As a side note I also bought a (crappy quality) Lee mould to
cast 155 gr. .312" bullets for my SKS. I have only tried one experiement
with these bullets so far. It didn't work too well, but I don't think I
did things right with these load, so I'll try some more and let you know.
(I shot _very_ lightly lubed (a very thin film of Lee Liquid Alox), non
gas-checked bullets at high velocities with XMP 5744 loads, and got tons
of barrel leading.)
Seth Leigh
se...@pengar.com
In article <51ai21$d...@xring.cs.umd.edu>, Fdif...@bigeasy.com (Francis
Difulco) wrote:
# #<, Richard Chapman
# #<cha...@python.viper.net> wrote:
#
# ## I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
# ## Swedish M38 and M96 Mausers. I've been using Speer 140gr bullets
# ## and IMR 4895 powder, but just can't get anything that comes anywhere
# ## near as accurate as the factory ammo. One problem was inaccurate metering
# ## of the powder by my RCBS Uniflow powder measure, but even if I weigh
# ## every single charge I still don't get good accuracy. One person recommended
# ## H4831 powder (found that via Deja News). What bullet? What weight of
# ## powder? For M38 or M96? Thanks,
# ## Richard Chapman
#
# You may want to do two things, switch to reloader 22 powder, it is
# very close to the NORMA MRP in pressure for the swed. It has given
# great results in 160 and 140 SP gr -bullets by Hornady. I used WIN &
# REM brass, with uniform primer pockets and flash holes duburred. I
# also weigh each charge, and WIN primers. Consullt a loading manual
# for a starting range.
#
# The second thing would be gettting a stoney point chamber all to get
# the coal on the ogive of the bullet and back off .020-.30...please
# read all the instructions with the stoney point.
#
# `````````````````````
# Frank DiFulco
# Fdif...@bigeasy.com
# ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--
Seth Leigh
Don't try to ban guns. It doesn't work. We've already banned drugs,
but you can get those just about anyplace, right? Why will bad guys
care what the law says if we ban guns? Think about it!
sho...@ns.utk.edu
I may be able to offer some insights on your SKS problems.
In a manner not too dissimilar to your planned experiment with non-
gas checked rounds in your Swede, I first tried loads for my SKS using
the Lee bullet with light loads of pistol powder (2400), liquid Alox, and
no gas check. My bayonet was extended while shooting (so the point
wouldn't gouge my support hand) and a film of lead rapidly coated it.
The barrel also showed evidence of some light leading. Also, these loads
were rather conspicuous in their lack of accuracy.
When I added an inexpensive Lee sizer in .311 (mainly to seat gas
checks, since I chose the 160g TL bullet and wasn't worried about sizing)
and some Hornady .30 caliber gas checks, the leading went completely away.
This was despite my having used a very hard alloy for the non-gas checked
bullets.
FWIW, when shooting brass cased loads in my SKS, I remove the piston
from my upper handguard and cycle the action manually. This way I don't
risk losing my somewhat scarse and expensive 7.62x39 loads by spraying
them all over the landscape. Because of this feature, my SKS gets fed all
of my best loads, while my (seldom fired) MAADI subsists on a diet of that
expensive (compared to home loaded) steel cased crap.
Good shooting,
ajgilde...@gmail.com
# I reload, but have had difficulty coming up with a good load for
This is what has worked for me:
42 grains IMR 4831
Nosler Partition 140 gr #16321
Win brass
Win large rifle primer
COAL = 3.03
My best 5-shot group at 50 yards = 1.1"
I don't shoot my M96 as much because the rear sight is getting fuzzy with old age
I have transitioned to rifles with peep sights.
Good luck!
J. Gildemeister
Gunner Asch
I load for (5) various Swedes, my best accuracy is in the 3/4" 100 yrd
range (with a scope). Ill dig out the log book today and post some
loads...but you use them on your own head. Shrug. Caviats and all
that.
Gunner