Berdan Primers

[psteinmayer]

Just to let all know, I secured a small supply of Berdan primers about a month ago... so I reloaded 50 of the GP-11 cases with the Berdan primers. My load consisted of 168 gr Nosler HPBT match bullets over 40.0 grains of H4895. I shot these in a CMP match yesterday (only the second time I've shot this rifle), and wound up just short of a medal - 97-3X Slow, 92-1X Rapid, and 70-1X Offhand, for a total 259-5X. I attribute the low Offhand to my being terribly unsteady. The bottom line is - even though it is a little more trouble to decap, it's really not a big deal to re-prime, and the rest of the loading process is the same... so for now, I'm going to continue loading these as is. I am thrilled with the results!!!

[butlersrangers]

Nice shooting Paul!

[reincarnated]

Paul, what was the OAL of your loaded cartridges? Did you make up dummies?

[psteinmayer]

Standard OAL for GP-11 is 77.50 mm. Madsenshooter suggested that I check my OAL because the Nosler 168s have a different profile and ogive than the GP-11 bullets. So I loaded up 5 dummy rounds and used the first to determine the OAL (I'm told that K31 throats do vary some). Once I had that set, I used the five to make sure that they fed and extracted properly without pulling the bullets, indicating that I'm just at the point of the throat. Everything was copacetic... so I set my die to that OAL. I wound up with 75.20 mm (2.960 in). As it turned out, they were perfect!!!

[reincarnated]

I used Sierra 168 gr HPs, and they have a different profile than either the Nosler or the GP-11 bullets. It has been a while, but I think the note with the 7.5 Swiss die box says 2.873. The loaded cartridges looked strange, with the case mouth almost forward of the cylindrical part of the bullet.