Lake City M2 Ammo problem/question

[XLF30]

Posting on both ammo and M1 garand threads.

I have a quantity of LC 66 lot 422201 and LC 69 'Talon' (repackaged) M2 ammo, which was sold in qty by CMP in the past.
I noticed it didn't shoot as well as expected, out of an excellent barrel. I decided to get to the bottom of the problem.

I chronographed both. The 66 clocked at about 2520 and the 69 at 2420. I tried a second chronograph and got nearly identical results. I then tried some HXP 77 and it clocked at 2710 (as expected).

Bad powder or primer? Let's find out. I took a couple fired cases, put in a CCI34 primer, and dumped the powder contents of several rounds into those CCI-34 primed (resized) cases, and reseated the bullets. They clocked at about the same speed as before, indicating the original primers were still good and the powder must be going bad (it looked and smelled fine).

Has anyone else had this experience? Is there a solution? Can I pull down all the powder and re-work an increased powder load to bring the velocity back up to spec? I'm thinking of pulling down all the powder, blending it thouroughly, and working up a new load for that lot of powder. I know surplus pulldown was on the market for decades and each lot had to be worked up.

Any info/advice would be helpful.

[lyman]

from what I recall, as in remember, Talon was notorious for inconsistent performance,

it was remanufactured ammo, as in pulled, powder dumped, then reassembled and not very consistently,

I also seem to recall when CMP was selling both HXP and LC, the LC was 'slow'

I seem to recall on some forum that a lot of it was for live fire training, as in run thru 1919's but don't recall the specifics,

[jcg&jmbfan]

Was the Talon remanufactured or just delinked machine gun ammo? I can't recall for sure....

[XLF30]

I can tell this LC69 Talon is delinked because the link marks are easily seen on the cases. The boxes have the CMP logo and it doesn't say 'remanufactured' it just says 'surplus, released by the US Army.' The primers have a purple coloring, especially around the edges. The primer crimp looks intact and the primers are brass-colored and look original to me. The case mouth appears to be securely crimped in the cannelure.

Is there a known remedy, such as pooling the powder from a whole can of 400, blending it thoroughly, and just working up a new load, which would of course be a larger charge than the original? I have weighed the LC66 charges and found them very consistent. I never did that with the 69s.

[lyman]

Was the Talon remanufactured or just delinked machine gun ammo? I can't recall for sure....

talon was remanufactured, but started as good USGI ammo,

google will give you a pile of hits on it's inconsistencies as well as some folks loving it,




as far as a remedy, doubt it, other than pulling or reloading


keep in mind the LC I was referring to in my prior post was not Talon, that was USGI Ball, in cans,

[lyman]

BTW, Talon did sell delinked apparently, they also sold powder,
I still have a can or 2 (8lb) of Talon 4895

[dryheat]

Coincidentaly, I just loaded up a dozen clips with some old ammo I had that was in big white boxes labeled Gibbs. In small print it reads Manufactured under contract by Talon Mfg. Inc.
Talk about inconsistent. The cases have various stampings and dates.
One rifle shot a very satisfactory group and the next (which is a glass bedded good shooter) shot all over. I was shocked at first and thought maybe the sights were loose, then remembered this is Talon. We never expected much from it. It doesn't help that this stuff has been stored outside in a very hot shed for twenty years.

[XLF30]

Thank you. I've noticed that as a barrel wears, accuracy of the lighter bullets goes to Hades first. And when the ammo is slower than spec, that probably is accelerated even more.

I've found that when a barrel won't shoot 150s well anymore, it may do better with 168s, and successively, with 178s, if you prefer to spend a little extra on ammo to avoid rebarreling.

This particular rifle (VAR barrel) sprays the LC 66 and Talon all over the place (by that I mean 12 inche groups at 200, with NM sights). It's TE of 1 and MW of 1. I slugged the barrel and it's just short of officially worn out. It's a good illustration of why TE and MW are not good predictors of bore wear. I loaded some 168s and the groups closed up quickly (6-8 inches, with flyers) even though I didn't realize at the time the 168s were only flying at about 2350 because the powder was apparently weak.

I refurbish the ammo before I shoot it anyway. I pull and tumble the bullets, brush the sealer out of the case mouths, neck size and chamfer the cases, and stuff everything back in. It knocks a couple of inches off the groups and reduces the number of flyers quite a bit.

I'll probably just pull down the powder in a can of 400, blend it thoroughly, and work up a load of about 2650fps (150 bullet) and about 2600 (168s) from that powder, and see what happens. I can go to 178s but those are a lot more $$. With the price and availabilty of powder and primers these days (glad it was not the primers that were the problem) I'm not throwing this stuff out, nor am I likely to tolerate bad groups, when I can put in a little work and make some great improvements. I've got a buttload of this stuff.

Only in America.

[dryheat]

Thanks for that tip. The bedded rifle is a Heavy Barrel with a little history I'd guess. It has gotten good groups but this was a surprise. I will test it with other ammo and see what happens. Funny thing; I had some Danish ama and didn't use it because I wasn't at all sure of the problem and didn't want to waste that good stuff. Not ruling out my vision.
You know that CMP has issued a warning about using heavy bullets in Garands. May have been and incident. I used big bullets in my M-1917 but it was a honkin rifle. The rifle liked it

[bruce]

If the delinked ammunition was from mixed lots, this could very well contribute to less consistent on target results. Have not used Talon. From various posts, have gathered that it is not usually very consistent. Breaking it down, blending powder and reloading could very likely make a great improvement. Sincerely. bruce.