Reloading: M1895 Nagant (part 2)

Reloading
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Little bit of excitement today… After some research, actually a tone of research and cross-referencing and actually finding videos of guys shooting milsurps ammo through a chrono, 100’ish gr milsurp round should be travelling at around 1000fps +/-50fps.

Fiochi factory ammo claims 850fps, which is load of shit, it’s more like high 600s fps low 700s, with barely felt recoil, which is saying a lot for a feather weight M1895.

Last night I (did some loading) estimated around 3.6gr of Trail Boss as max charge. Given how I seat and where the max charge line is, I feel like there’s at least 0.5gr reserve. Anyway, passed the ‘shake’ test and tonight I gave it a go.

102gr cast bullet with 3.6gr of Trail boss gets me to mid-800fps range. No signs of pressure and cases fall out freely. Most excellent!

I don’t think half a grain of TB will get me across the line, which is expected, but I wanted to give it a go. At 15 yards it’s actually quite accurate for what it is and feels really good. Having the load process down, I just banged out a cylinder worth to run through the chrono. While there are no pressure signs, you certainly feel it and feels good, just the right level of recoil with TB.

Next, I will keep working with AP70N. I stoped on 2.8gr, just learning about the cartridge, next workup will be from 3gr to 4gr in various increments. I have a feeling, I will find the right velocity just shy of 4gr.

Part 3 I think this week.

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“Part 3 I think this week.”
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Make it happen ! Lol.

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And the mofo adveture continues. FMD!

3gr of AP70N through to 4gr.

avg sprd
3 687.00 0.00
3.3 757.80 57.00
3.5 808.10 129.00
3.8 915.89 101.00
4 975.00 34.00

I didn’t bother recording 3, I knew it would be fine, but quickly did mental arithmetics and…

Not sure what i did to get double the spread for 3.5 and 3.8gr charges. Maybe mixed up my cases, maybe everything was hot from shooting and in 30C, probably more like 33 in the sun, who knows, but it is what it is.

So doing a bit of powder to velocity correlation, we have:

charge velocity diff
3 --> 3.3 = 0.3 70.80
3.3 --> 3.5 = 0.2 50.30
3.5 --> 3.8 = 0.3 107.79
3.8 --> 4 = 0.2 59.11

Goal of 1050fps - current average of 975fps = 75fps, so I am half a grain short, give or take.

I was convinced, I’d get to 1000 - 1050fps range, 993fps is the closest I made it to date. Anyway, that’s what I got, that’s what I’ll play.

Recoil on this featherweight at 4gr (AP70N) is still negligible, at least it feels like the mic is on now, but still less than what I am used to and cases are still not showing any signs of pressure, falling out freely from the cylinder. This asshattery is getting a little meh, but at least I am on the home stretch.

Will try 4.3, 4.5 and 4.8gr next.

Once I get to the goal, I think I am going to shoot some potatoes. Literally.

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Shoot the potatoes, then make vodka from them.