Hello 97D persons!
Just a quick note to those that already own rifles chambered in the EABCO 6.5BRM. I have now reloaded approximately 1000 rds of 6.5BRM and have discovered a few reloading quirks that others may find useful or at least interesting. It is for those few that I post the following. I will try to document my findings in a manner that makes sense to both novices and those that have been reloading for a while.
EABCO and others have built a number of barrels for different rifles chambered in 6.5BRM. Most notibly, the 97D falling block rifle that EABCO markets. The 97D is a neat little gun and performs well. Some recent criticism's of the barrels being used on the 97D's have not held true for my rifle, purchased within the last six months. Mine has provided sub MOA groups from day one and just seems to be getting better with use. Ok, enough about the rifle; let's get to the reloading stuff.
The 6.5BRM rounds are most easily assembled using 30-30 Winchester brass. There are probably other ways to arrive at the proper dimensions but this is the easiest. 30-30 Winchester brass is some of the most common brass found in the world but sadly, has not been used much by the precision shooter group. As a result, you won't find Lapua, Hornady, etc. 30-30 brass. You can find Winchester, Remington-Peters and a few other small time outfits selling new brass. These days, with Obama looming on the horizon, bulk rifle brass is getting hard to find. Folks are stocking up apparently. At any rate, I was finally able to obtain 1000 rds of RP brass from the guys at "Precision Reloading". I prefer Winchester but it is currently unavailable in bulk.
The case mouth of the 30-30 has to make the transition from the stock dimension of 8mm to the 6.5mm needed for the BRM. This is most easily achieved by running the new brass through a 7-30 Water die. I have read where some reloaders have managed to avoid this intermediate sizing. I initially tried to do this but in spite of my best efforts, could only manage about one in two without crushing the case. Soooo, I use a 7-30 Waters die as EAB recommends.
After I get the desired amount of cases sized to the 7-30 Waters dimensions, it's time to trim the brass to a length that can be chambered in the rifle. This is NOT optional. If you neglect to check this, you will end up with rounds that the 97D will NOT chamber. I can't say whether other rifles chambered in this round will be the same. At any rate, remove the absolute minimum amount of brass from the neck that you have to. This will be important later so size check, size check until you are confident that your brass trimmer is adjusted correctly for the minimum amount of removal.
Time to fire form. I now use the "COW" method of fireforming. This involves the use of cream of wheat cereal and pistol powder to expand the brass to the shape of your chamber. I am not advocating this and won't go into detail (the how to's are well documented elsewhere on the internet). I will say that it works and is much more cost effective than loading expensive rifle powder and bullets into the 7-30 Waters sized cases.
Ok, at this point you have your desired number of cases fireformed, looking very much like 6.5BRM cases! Yep, time to go for the gusto here and build some ammunition! Not so fast. If you buy into EAB's somewhat cavalier position that this is just a rifle, just ammunition, just go shoot it--well then go ahead. If you are looking for the type of accuracy that one would expect from a $1000 plus gun, you have to jump through a few more hoops.
First of all, the 97D rifle likes the 140g bullets. It shoots others well but seems to really prefer the heavier ones. Secondly, it seems to want to provide the best accuracy when the rounds are seated as far out as possible. Last but not least, to achieve those last tidbits of accuracy that you won't really be able to see until you start shooting at two and three hundred yards, you have to concern yourself with runout and concentricity.
(The documentation provided by EABCO with regard to the reloading of this cartridge leaves something to be desired. At any rate, it talks about a "trim to length" of 1.970 but also lists a "maximum cartridge length" of 1.980. I am going to assume that this was a typo of some sort. At any rate, DO NOT trim your brass at this point to 1.970. Again, leave it as long as you can while still being able to easily chamber the loaded round.)
Ok, back to runout and concentricity. I don't concern myself with the concentricity of the case body. They are shaped to chamber size and unless you got some sort of morphodite, they should largely be similar in case capacity. If you want to go the extra mile you can measure and compare case capacity with sugar or salt. (I spent several hours doing this with brass that had been trimmed to a uniform length and did not discover any major differences.) I am convinced that "case neck" concentricity is crucial to maximum performance. I neck turn all of my cases to achieve uniformity from one round to the next. Squeezing that 8mm neck down to 6.5mm has created some thick spots that I want to remove. Call me anal but if I didn't think that it mattered, I wouldn't do it. (I will conduct testing later to determine if I am correct in this matter.)
Last but certainly not least, the matter of runout. This DOES affect the accuracy potential of the 97D rifle. Tests that I have conducted at 200 yds prove to me that any runout at all is detrimental to accuracy. The more runout, the larger the group size-period. Now I'm not talking about massive differences here but just for example: from a bench rest with tightly controlled specs, I fired five identical rounds where the runout was between 6 and 7 thousandths. The distance was 200 yds and was from a sandbagged bench rest. The group measured just a frog hair over two inches. Five rounds loaded to a runout of 2 to 3 thousandths knocked a half inch off the group size. We did this several times with different shooters (same gun). The results were undeniable.
Ok, so we've come to the conclusion that runout is a bad thing. How do we get rid of it or at least minimize it. There are a good number of little tricks that are available to reloaders. Do a search on the 6mmbr forum and you'll find a couple of days reading on the subject. I all but eliminated my runout by contacting the Hornady people and talking to their technicians. I could not understand why I had such wide variances in runout using the Hornady made die that EABCO sold me. (EAB himself is an accomplished individual but highly critical of those of us who pursue the utmost in accuracy from his 97D rifle. If you call EABCO and ask to speak to the technician, you will likely be speaking to EAB himself. Once again, a super smart guy, an avid hunter but a real crappy customer service rep.)
At any rate, come to find out that when using the 140g A-max and especially the 140g Berger VLD, the seating stem on the EABCO die was not deep enough to accomodate the long thin shape of these bullets. The tip of the bullet was bottoming out on the tip of the seating stem before the mouth of the seating stem was able to make contact with the ogive of the bullet. The bullet was being pushed down into the case by pressure being applied to the needle point of the bullet. It's like trying to push a string in a straight line! The tech at Hornady told me to drill out the tip of the seating stem which I did. After removing about a quarter inch of metal from the tip with a small drill bit, the seating stem was now able to engage the bullet properly. That same tech also informed me that Hornady now sells a seating stem for their dies that is specifically designed to solve this problem. (I informed EAB of this and he replied indicating that he would be obtaining a supply of these seating stems to be included with future die sales.)
This simple modification completely eliminated rounds with 6,7 and 8 thousandths runout! My normal runout now is rarely over 2 thousandths.
Sorry about the long post but I was so relieved to have finally caught this runout culpret after chasing it for so long that I had to share my success!
If you ever thought about buying one of EABCO's 97D rifles but were put off due to criticisms of quality, ignore them. This rifle is exactly what it is advertised as being. An extremely handsome, unique and great shooting gun! Good luck and enjoy!
