6.5x55 Coyote Loads

[vintage hunter]

If you buy the wooden training rounds and pull the wooden bullet and (safely) discard the powder, you will then have sized and primed brass that just needs the right charge and a bullet.

It's not a good idea to use blank cases for loading live ammo. They may not handle the higher pressures. No sense in taking chances when good quality 6.5x55 brass is readily available.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

According to my copy of the 2003, 5th Edition of the Sierra manual, IMR-4064 is listed for the 85gn bullet

Using a M96 Rifle with a 29.5" barrel and Federal 210 primer:

ABSOLUTE MAX is 46.3gn for a velocity of 3500 fps.

MOST ACCURATE load is listed as:

41.7gn IMR-3031 with a MV of 3200fps.

Check the bullet and powder maker's websites for more up-to-date information.

part of the problem will be that the Swede barrels have a twist-rate of 1:8.5 inches; VERY tight twist. This is because they had to stabilize the old, LONG and heavy (>160gn) round-nosed ball bullet.

Thus, the lighter bullets, traveling at "ludicrous speed" (3200fps), will get VERY hot and be spinning at insane RPM from that fast twist rate. Hence: GREY MIST in front of the muzzle.

If you are intent on challenging something like a coyote, take a look at 100gn bullets as the lightest useful weight.

[Funktastic]

It's not a good idea to use blank cases for loading live ammo. They may not handle the higher pressures. No sense in taking chances when good quality 6.5x55 brass is readily available.

Actually, the brass is once fired, quality mil brass that Sweden remanufactured into the "blanks" (with wooden bullets to help them feed reliably). That leaves plenty of case life to judicially use this brass for normal published loads. The only gotcha would be for subsequent reloads because they are verdant primed, requiring a lot more work and creativity to deprime, and the need to find the right Berdan primers to reload. I've run nearly 100 rounds without any issues. I use a pare of vice grips to gently crush and remove the wooden bullet without damaging the case neck, then I dispose of the old powder, full length resize, chamfer/debur, and then load. I haven't used a chrono to record velocities, but I've used the published Lyman loads for 140 gr HPBT (Sierra Match King), and worked from the lowest through maximum recommended load using 4064 powder. No irregularities, and the only limits on the accuracy of my 1916 M96 out to ranges AF 330 yds are my fundamentals and the open sights. I just haven't found a suitable decapping process for the spent cases or a Berdan primer source so I can resize, clean, anneal, and reload again. Which is too bad because it really is high quality brass.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Hi thee to your friendly Gun Shoppe and order the RCBS / Lachmiller Berdan decapper. These are a VERY nifty tool and, once set correctly for the particular case-head / primer size, will cheerfully dig out any lightly crimped primers with ease, without mangling the all-important anvil in the primer pocket.

MUCH less messy than any of the "hydraulic" methods. Hydraulic " is, however, about the only way to fly with anything heavily crimped in. Once you have the primer out, it is a simple matter to cut or swage the remnant crimp out of the way and "re-throat" the primer pocket.

In the only video I could find on line, the "presenter" is doing it all wrong, hardly a good a "wrap-up" of the equipment. Most of the comments are fairly snarky; "why would you bother", etc. One answer is cost, the other relates to really eccentric types who ONLY have Berdan-primed brass for their exotic British and European Big-Bore hunting rifles.

The RCBS decapper is not exactly a cheap piece of gear, but what is these days?

I am half-way through "re-cycling" yet ANOTHER 4-gallon drum of BERDAN primed 7.62 NATO cases (Singaporean, I believe), A bit boring, but the price of the brass (scrap-prices) was too good to pass up. A lot of the Australian-produced (MF / AFF / ADI Berdan primed stuff is LUDICROUSLY heavily crimped and the RCBS tool will have a very short life on a steady diet of them. However, Swede primers seem to be relatively lightly staked / crimped in. Un-crimped primers like you find in a lot of steel-cased ammo are a walk in the park. Given the extortionate cost of ammo and components over here in Oz, a lot of us will go to what seems to our 'merican cousins, a ridiculous amount of effort. It has ALWAYS been that way.

As for primers, you will need a .217" job. Vihtavouri / Kemira (No. 3) make one, as do our Russian cousins at Murom (KVB-7). Some quiet little shop MAY still have some of the excellent RWS 5608 or 5627 in stock.

I've been doing this sort of thing for over forty years; you too can be a true eccentric among peers.