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Interesting finding with PRVI brass

1K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  Hummer 
#1 ·
Yesterday afternoon I decided to rebarrel my 1911 Swiss carbine as I had just got a new 7.5 Swiss reamer from PTG and a GO Gage. I threaded it all up and was chambering it. Was getting right down to the last couple of thou for the GO and something told me to get some of the PRVI brass and check it.
WOW, it was like .008" under a GO gage ! ! ! I figured this is not going to help brass life to have it stretch .008" just to get up to GO dimension so I bumped the shoulder up and headspaced much tighter on five cases which varied a little.
I like the brass, it is stress relieved leaving the color on which I like to see and I read the primer pockets are nice and tight. Looking forward to loading it in the Swiss rifle. Tomorrow I guess I will mount a scout scope on it and rebed the first inch of the barrel channel and free float the rest.

Oh yeah the flash holes are all nicely centered.
 
#2 ·
I like the Prvi brass too Hummer! I got a lot with 10 firings on it and one annealing! Primer pockets still as tight as the first firing! I been loading my 7.5 with the 155 Palma and man does it shoot! Switched over to RE15 with it and its killing me! The switch from 4895 to RE15 dropped my groups by about half and the SD's dropped from 15-20 to 10-15's.

200 meter targets have been looking good with it! I know that a couple of my shots with the 4985 was pulled at the gust point which I did not allow for! However, the RE15 loads seems to give me better vertical stringing!

Keep me up with how it shoots!

Terry
 

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#3 ·
It definitely likes the RE15. Might have to get a jug of it.
I fired 10 more rounds yesterday starting to work up load. Shot 43.5 4895 with Winchester 168 Match bullets at 200 at the little man target (rubber stamp I described on another thread) and got him five out of five and he is 2 3/8" wide and 4 1/4" tall (to top of head). I had all five in lower left quadrant including a sight change.
Problem is seeing him with the 2" scope. The cross hairs completely cover him at 200 so I don't really know where I am aiming. I kind of centered up the whole white card.
When I go to 300 I guess I will staple a little man over the V ring of an "A" repair center just so I have a aiming point I can see.

If this thing shoots like I think it will I guess I need to get a 6X pistol scope and Burris Z rings with offset inserts so I can zero it at 600. I would take this thing to a any rifle any sight match at 600 and maybe a 1000. I could really terrorize some guys showing up with this thing at 1000 cause it is definitely not a pretty rifle haha. Imagine a M1911 with a sporterized military stock and a pistol scope mounted in front of receiver about eight inches.

I would post some pics but my scanner uses too many megapix it says.
 
#4 ·
Finally got around to making a case gage for the 7.5 Swiss today. I realized there would be no case gages (MO/RCBS Precision Mic) so I decided to make my own. I used a MO micrometer head and made my own female portion of the MO Gage using the same reamer I chambered the rifle with. Had a section of 1903A3 barrel so used it and it was the only piece of steel I could find without cutting off a section of good barrel.

After I got through I took the 40 cases I just tumbled cleaned in the steel media, the GO Gage and some new PRVI cases unfired. I qualified the new combination by checking five new unfired cases and used that location as the "0" mark.

Next I checked fired cases and found they averaged 4 to 5 on the micrometer reading. Took a while but I adjusted my 7.5 Swiss die so they would size at 2 to 3.

Basically what this means is a new case shoulder moves forward .004" to .005" when fired and I adjusted the die so the shoulder would be moved back .002" to .003." and not take it down or back to "0" as with a new case.

The base dimension on this reamer/brass combination is terrific. New brass measures .495 and my fired brass measures .4952" to .496".

The amazing part is I checked the GO gage and it reads 13 or .013" longer in the shoulder dimension than the new brass so I will most likely never need it again unless I get another Swiss rifle. I know a guy who has one and hasn't shot it in 20 years so I might be able to pick it up.
The shoulder opens up about .009". Wish it were less but I am happy .

The 1911 being a rear locker kind of needs FL sizing as rear locking lug rifles tend to flex the bolt a bit on firing.

I will try and get a couple of Swiss rounds that have had the bullets pulled and primers killed to measure their ammo against the gage. Also would like to get some Norma ammo with rounds pulled to measure that variation. What I would really like is to get hold of some Swiss gov't headspace gages and measure them.

Bottom line is I am quite happy with the PRVI cases. Graf's told me they are expecting a big load of 7.62X54 PRVI brass in about first week of January so will try and get some of that as well for my Finnish rifles.
 
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