ReSizing AK47 brass for the Grendel

[Lbjennings]

[lazyengineer]

Looking forward to see what others have to say. I'm playing some with it now. My take is I wouldn't spend any money buying the brass, but if you have it laying around, or range pick-ups of such, why not? Though I wouldn't use this for anything serious, or anything pushing the envelop on pressure.

So far, I've found it resizes really easy into 6.5.

My biggest pause on the whole project is if I'm just making plinker ammo, I can just buy Wolf Steel for cheaper than I can reload, so why am I bothering with this? Eh, I'll probably keep playing with it though. If nothing else, I'm guessing this route will let me make cheap but decent hunting ammo, with brass I don't mind going into the weeds.

[Warlock]

I think I remember reading somewhere that 6.5 brass made from 7.62X39 empties still need to be fire formed to get the shoulder/neck to the proper angle.

Hopefully someone will come along and verify one way or the other.

I was going to use 7.62X39 brass reformed to 6.5 when I first got my upper for Christmas but after reading about fire forming I figured I would just buy commercial brass instead of spending the money on extra powder and slugs for the forming.

[Lemonaid]

Here is my one cents worth (on a budget
For my 6PPC most of my cases are reformed Lapua 7.62x39. The process is to use the Redding form die #1, Redding form die #2 (I never got that one as I think its just to trim to length), then inside ream, full length resize, trim and the rest of normal case prep.
6PPC brass is around $1.00 a case so there is savings to be had if you don't count your labor and tooling costs. With Factory Hornady brass at around 40 cents a case I am not bothering to do this for Grendel cases.
In my 6PPC it shoots better with this brass than with factory (norma) due to I think using large rifle primers.
And yes, you need to fire form the case to get the shoulder to form correctly, so factor that into costs. First time rounds are considered either varmint rounds or for practice.

[LRRPF52]

With the vast availability of Grendel brass and affordable brass-cased ammo, it's a waste of time that doesn't yield value.

[maxxmojo]

Had a buddy that tried that at first when we both got into Grendel stuff a few years ago. If I recall correctly he was having issues after the second reload; necks cracking and/or loose primer pockets. We both eventually figured it wasn't worth the hassle, and that was before all the stuff that's available today.

[Djgrendel]

Not worth it. Been there done that. Don't waste your time. Yes, it is easily done. In my experience, I was lucky to get 3 loads before the cases were junk. I had new brass to start with. You are basically wasting your time.

[RiverRider]

I watched a video about using AK brass for the Grendel. What do you guys think about this work around, to save a little money.
I used to have a 6x284, you had to make all of your brass from 6.5x284. The problem I had with this caliber was, after 3 or 4 times reloading, the necks would get too thick and had to be reamed out before using the sizing die. If you didn’t, you couldn’t get the die pulled out of the case.

Huh???

I load 6-284 and use 6.5-284 as the starting point. I have never experienced this problem. Are you saying you had problems getting the case out of the resizing die? And if so, why would neck thickening have anything to do with it?

[LR1955]

http://www.65grendel.com/forum/search.php?searchid=3114348

[Lbjennings]

When the neck gets thick, there’s not enough space for the button that spreads the neck to be pulled through

[Randy99CL]

To add a little information; there were a couple of videos made a few years ago when it was hard to find any Grendel ammo or brass. People were desperate and resized brass was better than nothing.
I'd bet that even the guys who made the videos don't roll their own anymore.

[lazyengineer]

I think the perception of Grendel availability and cost-effectiveness might be a little dated. Today, brass cased Grendel ammo is nominally $1/round if you try really hard. That's a lot. Brass casings are close to 50 cents a piece, if you can find them (usually more), that's a lot too. Building a stock of 6.5 Grendel casings is an expensive proposition, as an inventory of 1000 casings, basically is a $1000 worth of ammo, or $500 in just bare casings. Grendel bullets themselves are also overpriced, but can be found at 20 cents a bullet if you try. Wolf steel can still be had, but is getting more scarce I'm seeing, and is eeking up to 30 cents a shot now. That, and it's not appropriate hunting quality ammo, nor would I necessarily run that at a distance match.

I'm the new guy here, but I'm not so sure that today picking up off the ground and running free 7.62x39 brass casings is quite the waste of effort and time it may have been a couple years ago; so long as it shoots half-decent. The effort to resize is a non-item. One can reload that into a hunting capable round for around 32 cents. For hunting and (maybe) accurate quality ammo, that's 1/3 the price of retail. If one only shoots about 60 rounds a year, it doesn't matter - but I shoot 60 rounds an outing (at least), so to me, it adds up.

Only caveat I see is one has to value that first fire-forming shot, or it all falls apart. In my own experience, 50,000 PSI swells a casing to proper volume before peak pressure hits, and is a non-item from a safety standpoint (from my own purpose-focused-tests using .223 at least). I'm not going to use this route as primary, but as a side project, I don't know, kinda seems like a a fun little project!

[PPCLI-JIM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrlC7BzsCxQ&t=1s heres 1 of 4

Shape it, load it conservative, shoot, inspect, anneal,resize, treat as 6.5 gren. Up here in small town Canadaland I have 2 "sports" shops, aWalmart and a Canadian Tire. Not one stocks Grendel, so the theory its easy to find isn't universal.

I find it easier and cheaper to roll my own.

[centerfire]

My landed cost on 500 pieces of brass was $.38ea. Between new brass and once fired factory brass, I have 1k pieces. I can see how availability would affect other countries though.

[LR1955]

I think the perception of Grendel availability and cost-effectiveness might be a little dated. Today, brass cased Grendel ammo is nominally $1/round if you try really hard. That's a lot. Brass casings are close to 50 cents a piece, if you can find them (usually more), that's a lot too. Building a stock of 6.5 Grendel casings is an expensive proposition, as an inventory of 1000 casings, basically is a $1000 worth of ammo, or $500 in just bare casings. Grendel bullets themselves are also overpriced, but can be found at 20 cents a bullet if you try. Wolf steel can still be had, but is getting more scarce I'm seeing, and is eeking up to 30 cents a shot now. That, and it's not appropriate hunting quality ammo, nor would I necessarily run that at a distance match.

I'm the new guy here, but I'm not so sure that today picking up off the ground and running free 7.62x39 brass casings is quite the waste of effort and time it may have been a couple years ago; so long as it shoots half-decent. The effort to resize is a non-item. One can reload that into a hunting capable round for around 32 cents. For hunting and (maybe) accurate quality ammo, that's 1/3 the price of retail. If one only shoots about 60 rounds a year, it doesn't matter - but I shoot 60 rounds an outing (at least), so to me, it adds up.

Only caveat I see is one has to value that first fire-forming shot, or it all falls apart. In my own experience, 50,000 PSI swells a casing to proper volume before peak pressure hits, and is a non-item from a safety standpoint (from my own purpose-focused-tests using .223 at least). I'm not going to use this route as primary, but as a side project, I don't know, kinda seems like a a fun little project!

LG:

So, you are going to try to make some Grendel brass out of range brass someone blasted out of their AK or SKS and decided to leave on the range rather than police it up and sell it for scrap?

Go for it! After all -- what could possibly go wrong?

LR55