Reloading Indian OFV

[27hand]

When I bought 1k of Indian OFV ( 7.62 x 51 or .308), I didn't even have a rifle chambered in .308i bought a Spanish FR8 and an Indian Ishapore 2A1.

I did some reading on this ammo and puked. Quite a few people said how bad this stuff is.
Well with more reading come knowledge and I found out that the early runs of this stuff was not too shabby. Since I had 75 OFV, I read that the British set up the Indians to produce it and did the QC until turning it over to them.

I further read that stuff from the 80s and 90s was literally junk and in some instances dangerous to shoot due to charge weights varying by as much as 2+ grains.

Fast forward to a week ago.
My friend is selling off ammo, bullets and reloading stuff for his neighbor ( whose doctor uncle passed with all this stuff).
She had a case of 1986 OFV.. Having read up on my 75, I guided him to a few forums about this stuff.
He told her it was junk and possibly dangerous and she had him deliver it to the local PD for disposal.
Next day, I told him I could break it down to components and maybe salvage parts and brass. He said it was gone. OK

A couple days later, she finds another case of 97 OFV which he gifted to me.
I broke down 10 rounds. Powder charges fluctuated by 1.9 grains, there was tar chips in the powder ( sealant).

The cases, primers seemed ok. No splits or inconsistent primer seating ( it's only the first 10 rounds ).

I put the projectiles in acetone, weighed the powder at 434.1 grains.
The tar came off the bullets, I neck sized the cases and measured them.i reamed and chamfered the case mouth, used a charge if the same powder @ 43.4 grains and re seated the bullets.

Good thing I'm retired.

Next step is to shoot them, chrono the 10 rounds, measure group size out of my PA10.
Since the PA10 is set up for 180 grain Sierra 180 Gamechangers, ill just see what a 10 shot group measures.

I.m thinking about running one more sleeve of 10 rounds as they came and chrono those checking for group size.

Neither my FR8 or 2A1 have optics and I can't see irons any more so.ill run the PA10.

I'll post up some pics when I'm on my desktop. Seems like I can.only put up links on this phone.

[Brick]

Bullets and brass should be fine. What kind of primers are in them boxer or berdan?

[27hand]

Bullets and brass should be fine. What kind of primers are in them boxer or berdan?

Boxer. I've reloaded quite a bit of the 75 brass I have.

Probly have another 500 to plink with.
I should pull some of those and check for powder charge variations.
My SA is berdan primed

[abner13]

There was quite a few reports and pics of split cases on a few of the battle rifle forums.

[Delkal]

I further read that stuff from the 80s and 90s was literally junk and in some instances dangerous to shoot due to charge weights varying by as much as 2+ grains.

two grains is bad....but i don't see anything wrong with finding the correct charge (average?) and reloading the pulled powder the right way. Consider it like loading a non canister powder when you already know the correct charge weight. A few tar grains inside will not affect anything.

If you have a chrony even better. Don't go for a max charge and stop when you are 50-100 FPS under the expected velocity.

[27hand]

There was quite a few reports and pics of split cases on a few of the battle rifle forums.

Those issues as well as primer problems( not fully seated or damaged).

I only looked over the first 20 so far. Cases seem ok, primers all seated.
I'll chrono these and see what I get for accuracy at 100.
I'll also chrono 10 as they are and might as well do a run of 1975.