I acquired an AHR 500J earlier this year and am looking to work up a load for elephant. The rifle was regulated for Norma 570 gr Woodleighs.

Components are hard to come by (surprise, surprise) but I have been able to grab some and bought some Corbon loaded 535 gr FN solids (Barnes, I think) in Jamison brass. My rifle likes them just fine, but I'm losing about 25-33% of the brass on the first shot. Splitting vertically in the lower half of the case. If I can manage to retain enough brass, I was thinking of moving up to a larger solid.

Options so far for reloading (will target ~2200 fps):
- Woodleigh Hydro 570 gr
- Barnes banded FN solid 570 gr
- CEB safari solid 510 gr OR 570 gr
- Heard good things about NF and GSC, but can't find any

Want a true solid and not FMJ since I'm going after elephant. I'm pretty new to reloading and this will be my first DG hunt. Would appreciate any thoughts on solid bullets. Bonus points for any favorite load data.

Thanks in advance

Surprised to hear of the high attrition rate of your Jamison brass. What are you meaning by "lower half of the case", shoulder neck area or more towards the case head?
Shoulder neck area splits can be prevented by annealing the cases in this area before firing even if it means dismantling the ammo before use, decapping the primers as well, annealing the shoulder neck area and then reassembling the cartridges using the same components pulled from the ammo. I would even use the same primers that were decapped however if you felt 'safer', especially on an elephant hunt, use new primers.

If splitting the case walls towards the case head area then that is final as far as those cases are concerned but does raise the question of chamber out of spec (oversize) or cases too much out of spec.

I wouldn't be comfortable using a rifle and or ammo on a dangerous game hunt where 25-33% of the cases split. You will not want a case head separation in the field on DG.

Do a chamber cast and compare dimensions with the ammo.

quote:

Originally posted by Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy:
My rifle likes them just fine, but I'm losing about 25-33% of the brass on the first shot. Splitting vertically in the lower half of the case.

Options so far for reloading (will target ~2200 fps):

This sounds like bad brass.
Reloading is not an option for you with your initial firing experience, I would look into good factor ammo to salvage brass for reloading. Or use factory ammo.

Eagle - it is towards the case head and appears in the same area on each cartridge. These are new brass and don't see other signs of excessive pressure on the primers, etc.

bigbull - I think that it is the brass. Was able to get a few factory loads (Norma PH softs and Nosler FN solids, both 570 gr) and some new Bertram brass. Comparing the Cor-bon loads to the Bertram brass and two factory loads: the rebated rim is more shallow on the Bertram/Jamison brass and more pronounced on the other two (believe they're both Norma brass). Overall case length is the same and shoulder looks to be the same too. I wonder if the angle on the rebated rim is the cause of the splits. I'll shoot some more to confirm. Might only be able to reload the Norma cases.

Hello TSF:

I recently acquired a CZ 550 in 500 Jeffery and spent a fair amount of time getting it to work to my satisfaction. The rifle was not a problem and was the one constant throughout the process. After "perfecting" the system, I took it to South Africa in April and killed a nice Cape.

I did buy some Norma factory ammo--both softs and fmj Woodleighs. At the time it cost $12.00/rnd; now it's about $20.00. I also bought some old Jamison brass from a friend who'd started building his 20 years ago and never finished. Dies are from C&H/4D, with an expander/flare die I modified to prevent bullet set-back under recoil.

The Norma cases have been loaded two times each with no problems. The extractor grooves in Jamison brass had been imperfectly cut, and had a "ledge" interrupting the angle from the body diameter of the case to the bottom of the groove. I had to re-cut the grooves to allow consistent extraction and ejection.

The Jamison brass is 20-25 grains heavier per case, with less internal capacity that requires 2 grains less powder for equal velocity with the Norma cases. Using the Norma load causes pressure signs and 75-80 fps higher velocity.

The CZ magazine has about 5/16" clearance between the bullet nose and the front of the mag. Because of recoil, the bottom round in the mag would be pushed back in the case .100" by the time the bottom round reached the top. Soft noses were also distorted from hitting the front wall of the mag.

To prevent the bullet from moving under recoil, I removed the expander from the F/L die and gradually polished down the expander/flare die so as to provide the greatest possible bullet pull. A heavy crimp on cases trimmed to the same length also helped eliminate bullet movement under recoil.

This didn't prevent distortion of the soft nose, so I switched to Woodleigh's SN "Protected Point", which eliminated the problem. This was the bullet used on my recent Cape and it performed wonderfully--recovered, it weighed 487 gr from the original 535.

For solids, I use Woodleigh's steel-lined fmjs. Whereas the Woodleigh softs are a full.510", the fmjs measure .509" in order to keep pressures down because of the greater force required to engrave the bullet's steel under-jacket. In theory, this allows the same powder charge to be used for both softs and fmjs. My fmj load is 1 grain less than my soft load, and velocities of both overlap, so the concept works pretty well.

Scope movement in the rings is also a problem. Recoil destroyed a VX3 1.5-5 in less than 30 rounds. I switched to an older 1.1-4.5 Swaro, with a 1" tube and it's still together after more than 100 shots. I used a 1-layer wrap of aluminum foil between scope and rings to keep it from moving under recoil.

The rifle works the way I want it to now, but I'm constantly checking tightness of rings, action screws, etc. because the recoil can cause all sorts of mischief.

Hope this helps; good luck with your project.

Dave Manson

Good to hear from you again, Dave. Luckily, I have been able to get a hold of dies, brass, and bullets since we last spoke.

Appreciate your insight. That does help. I may end up shooting factory loads, even though they're not cheap. I'm lucky to get out to shoot once or twice a month and only have a few more months before heading out.

I wondered if that wasn't you, Texas. Sounds like you're making progress and should be ready for the hunt.

Best regards, Dave

Sounds like to me you were sold some brass that has probably been shot many times, the other option is the load in question is too hot, these are the usual consequences to buying used ammo from a less than honest source,or perhaps a rifle with a different chamber, just a coupld of possibles, and not knowing all the facts..Id suggest annealing regardless of the facts..Might take it up with Jamison, I got some brass like that from another brass maker 100 rounds, talked to them and they said the coloration of the brass and color of the primers was a give away and product was a recall back then and happened was during first days of business years ago..sent it to them and got 300 new cases, 200 for my grief, and they work great..I will forever do business with them..