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My mini 14 was a gift from my wife, other than that my rifles are bolt action or lever action, of course I do have a 10-22. i just let them fly, i haven't reloaded for the mini 14 so I just pick up a portion for my TC Contender, I may reload for it just to see if it will improve the groups but I doubt it will.
First time i shot the mini 14 I couldn't believe how far it tosses the cases, probably a good 20 feet.
The best thing I've found for catching stray brass is a large tarp. By laying it out on the ground where you expect the brass to land, you can often catch about 80 to 90 percent of the ejected cases. If you get a large enough tarp, that number could go up to 100 percent. I have found that the heavier canvas tarps tend to work better in some areas, because the lighter plastic tarps tend to allow the cases to bounce off sometimes, especially if they're sitting on light vegetation. The plastic tarps tend to act like a trampoline for the cases. That's been my experience, but I do find that the tarp is definitely helpful for recovery of spent brass. If you don't want to get your spent brass confused with any that was already on the ground, it's good to have a tarp for that reason, too.
I thought I would throw this out there.
Reloaders, when you are working up a load, how many rounds do you load for each test? say you start at a min. charge, how much do you increase it each time? do you change the bullet depth? Do you fully size or neck size?
For myself I only load 6 at each charge weight and i normally stay at the same depth on each round, After fire forming the case I always just neck size.
I'm just wondering how others aproach these issues, i worked up a good load for my 22-250, using my rifle rest I was shooting 1/2 and under groups at 100 yards, now that I have a load I really like I'm going to start working up the load, I normally increase the charge by 1/2grn at a time but I'm thinking of just trying a .10 increase at a time, what do you think and do yourself.
I just ordered an electric scale also, I've always used a manual beem scale, anyone use a electric digital scale?
i started reloading 30 years ago then I laid off shooting for some time, now i find myself really getting back to it big time.
I usually load up about 20 rounds to test a new load. I also have Nosler's reloading manual, which list the most accurate loads, and they're right about 90% of the time. You also have to take into consideratioin many variances, so keep in mind, just because Nosler obtained super accurate loads on their test rifle(s), that doesn't mean you're going to get the same thing. Different rifle twist rates, barrel length, bullet seating depth, and other factors can definitely affect the accuracy of the load.
For my 22-250, I use Hodgdon H380 powder, a Hornady 55 grain bullet, with Winchester LR primers. I don't have the exact powder weight with me, but I believe it's 34 grains. I do get very accurate 1/4" groups with that load at 100 yards.
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