Re buying at American gun shows

Bavarianbrit

Well-Known Member
I was over in the USA and needed some .284 Win ammunition as it is hard to find normally.
Picked up (three old stock boxes???) after my return I needed to have leadfree bullets for a driven hunt thats coming up. So I removed the soft point bullets which had grey showing on the tips "lead corrosion". And one case was only half full of powder (hello!!!) I then measured all the powder charges and they varied between 58 & 60.5 grains and all my loading manuals show a powder charge of averaging 46.5 grains with normal powders which set off the alarm bells.
I could not identify the powder and so I have redone the loads with 3031 powder and I will use the old powder as fertilzer.
Moral of this tale seems to me to be, not to trust the ammo sellers in US gun shows unless the packages are more modern and they still have their seals undamaged.
My rifle might have blown up next to my face in a worst case scenario.
Muir have you any experiences to add?
 
Good grief! Sound like some reloads or something.
You must have bought them from some individual.
May I ask which gun show this was?

I was at a gun show a few weeks ago, and bought some Hornady 7mm-08 boxes with just the brass in them, all marked $2.00.
When I got home and opened them up, one had 16 round of new Hornady 7mm-08 140-gr SST loads, factory stuff.
 
I was over in the USA and needed some .284 Win ammunition as it is hard to find normally.
Picked up (three old stock boxes???) after my return I needed to have leadfree bullets for a driven hunt thats coming up. So I removed the soft point bullets which had grey showing on the tips "lead corrosion". And one case was only half full of powder (hello!!!) I then measured all the powder charges and they varied between 58 & 60.5 grains and all my loading manuals show a powder charge of averaging 46.5 grains with normal powders which set off the alarm bells.
I could not identify the powder and so I have redone the loads with 3031 powder and I will use the old powder as fertilzer.
Moral of this tale seems to me to be, not to trust the ammo sellers in US gun shows unless the packages are more modern and they still have their seals undamaged.
My rifle might have blown up next to my face in a worst case scenario.
Muir have you any experiences to add?
Buyer beware. I examine 'New, Old Stock" ammunition very carefully. If I even get a grain of suspicion that it might me reloads I pass or buy it for the brass.~Muir

PS: There are thousands of gunshows held annually i the US. Don't judge them all by one seller at one show. It isn't fair.
 
Also bear in mind that the law in the USA has changed and you now need to be either a US citizen or resident to be able to buy ammunition.
 
You didn't say the bullet weight, but Winchester loaded the .284 with 125, 150 and 175-gr bullets.

Their powders were W748 and W760, and 48.5 gr of W748 or 54.0 gr of W760 would be a normal loads for 150-gr bullets at their advertised velocity of 2,890 FPS and 49,000 CUP of pressure. These are ball powders. So, if your cartridges did not have these powders in them, they were certainly home brews.

About 49.0 gr of W748 or H-4350 would be good loads for a 120-gr bullet. RL-15 would also be a great powder.

IMR-3031 does not fill the case enough, and is going to be too sensitive to powder position, giving wide variations of MV.

H-4831 ( or SC or SSC or IMR-4831 ) are excellent for long bullets in in the 160-gr class.
 
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Also bear in mind that the law in the USA has changed and you now need to be either a US citizen or resident to be able to buy ammunition.

Do you have a source for this?

Certainly there is no checking done on ammo sales here in PA (doesn't mean it's legal of course!).

The only limitation I am aware of is from when I worked at the shooting range, we wouldn't sell any hollow-point ammo to people who checked in with a New Jersey drivers license (NJ has in some ways stricter gun laws than the UK). But in general there is no ID needed to buy ammo, so there is no enforcement of this in PA if it is in fact law.
 
Also bear in mind that the law in the USA has changed and you now need to be either a US citizen or resident to be able to buy ammunition.
Sorry Felix you can buy ammunition as a non resident, at least that is how i understood it when i went over recently May a nonimmigrant alien who has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa and who falls within an exception, purchase a firearm or ammunition in the United States? | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Cheers
Richard
 
If you took a firearm with you to the USA through the BATF papertrail you are allowed to buy ammo for it to the best of my knowledge.
Muir, I love visiting the gun shows so dont get me wrong but it was a sobering wake up call to me as the boxes only looked as if they had been left on a shelf for years. I was at one gun show years ago when I worked in the states and I picked up a small .25 auto to look at it and of course racked the slide first as always on a safety check and out fell a live round
Southern, they were 150 grain powerpoints. Thanks for the info on the powders as what was loaded in them appeared to be ball powder.
 
If you are shooting 150-gr bullets in your .284 Win, and cannot get W760 / H414 powder to replicate the factory loads, one of the 4350s will be close, but RL-17 even better.

And RL-17 and the 4350 powders (H, IMR, AA) will be good with 160-gr bullets, too ( again, RL-17 giving more velocity than the 4350 ).
 
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If you are shooting 150-gr bullets in your .284 Win, and cannot get W760 / H414 powder to replicate the factory loads, one of the 4350s will be close, but RL-17 even better.

And RL-17 and the 4350 powders (H, IMR, AA) will be good with 160-gr bullets, too ( again, RL-17 giving more velocity than the 4350 ).
I am reloading them with Barnes TSX 140 grainers as in Bavaria on state forest land it has to be lead free ammo now.
 
Do you have a source for this?

Certainly there is no checking done on ammo sales here in PA (doesn't mean it's legal of course!).

The only limitation I am aware of is from when I worked at the shooting range, we wouldn't sell any hollow-point ammo to people who checked in with a New Jersey drivers license (NJ has in some ways stricter gun laws than the UK). But in general there is no ID needed to buy ammo, so there is no enforcement of this in PA if it is in fact law.


Sorry, should have been more specific you cannot buy with the intention of exporting (without exporting and end user certificates).
 
Sorry, should have been more specific you cannot buy with the intention of exporting (without exporting and end user certificates).

Ahh - got you. Yes, they are super-jumpy about anything​ with an ITAR liability. Definitely not worth the risk to save a few quid.
 
I am reloading them with Barnes TSX 140 grainers as in Bavaria on state forest land it has to be lead free ammo now.
If you can get W760 / H414, the same load of 54.5 gr that Winchester puts behind their 150-gr Power Point will probably be a great load to work up, as the Barnes 140 gr is long.

Is your rifle a shorter action, like the Winchester M88, or a bolt action like the 98 Mauser with enough magazine length to seat the bullets out a little further? With the Barnes, you need 0.050 for running start, anyway, so a load to factory length of the 150 PP or to its ogive should be the place to start, then check the jump to the lands. I guess with these REACH regulations coming, you will need to go to a Norma equivalent of the Alliant powders, or the VV powders, or the Swiss or Czech stuff.
 
If you can get W760 / H414, the same load of 54.5 gr that Winchester puts behind their 150-gr Power Point will probably be a great load to work up, as the Barnes 140 gr is long.

Is your rifle a shorter action, like the Winchester M88, or a bolt action like the 98 Mauser with enough magazine length to seat the bullets out a little further? With the Barnes, you need 0.050 for running start, anyway, so a load to factory length of the 150 PP or to its ogive should be the place to start, then check the jump to the lands. I guess with these REACH regulations coming, you will need to go to a Norma equivalent of the Alliant powders, or the VV powders, or the Swiss or Czech stuff.
Winchester M100 with an MAK swing off scope mount system for my S&B variablex56 and a S&B driven scope.
 
That's what the .284 Win was created for: a short action semiautomatic and lever action.
The .280 Remington was created for the Remington semiauto and pump action rifles.

So you are best staying with the same powder and pressure as their original loads, or drop down to a faster powder with lower gas volume, like H-4895, same as you would with the M1 Garand. You want the peak pressure to occur early, and fall off well before the bullet passes the gas port.
 
The .284 Win and the .280 were originally loaded to lower pressures, until people started building bolt action rifles for them. The .284 is a bit too long for the magazine in most short action rifles, if you load longer bullets, but the Mauser 98 is perfect. Of course, F-class shooters love them and load them up with 4831 in long barrels. With the new 7mm bullets, they will shoot as well as the 6.5-284 and give a lot more barrel life.

I have some friends who have M100 and M88s, so I will see what they have for their hunting loads. They use then as still hunting, stand hunting and for driven boar and deer in big woods.

You don't need a hot rod load in the M100, anyway. With its short barrel, it is perfect for your intended use of dropping driven boar at close range, where the velocity and energy will be high. Sako makes a solid copper bullet with a round polymer nose ( can't think of the name of it ), which might be worth looking into. I have some of them in factory ammunition, which I picked up for about $17.00 a box in .30-06 and .375 H&H on a liquidation. Haven't shot any game with them, but they shot to the point of aim out the rifles I tried.
 
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