9.3x62
258 gr Shock Hammer
2000MR
CCI LR
COAL 3.30" - I have room to play with this. Measured OAL with Hornady tool and the old-fashioned way with a wooden dowel, both showed 3.38"
Norma twice fired brass and annealed.
Case H2O capacity avg 73.6 gr
MagnetoSpeed
58.0 gr - 2382
58.5 gr - 2375
59 - 2396
59.5 - 2408
60 -2422
60.5 - 2429
61 - 2450
61.5 - 2475
62 - 2467
62.5 - 2503
GRT seems to be particularly awful at predicting pressure/MV for Hammers. at 62.5 gr, predicted MV was 2694 fps, at 58 gr prediction was 2476; so anywhere from 100 to nearly 200 fps faster prediction than actual measured.
At no point in this ladder were there any sticky extractions or deformed primers
Note that at 3.30" COAL and 62.5 gr of 2000MR, I was right at the edge of having a compressed load. I have never been able to roll/taper crimp with a seating die without crushing the shoulder, so I always use LFCD and avoid compressed loads.
I think I'm going to shoot another 10 shot string and set the COAL to 3.34". I don't see any reason why I can't get 2600 fps out of this bullet with this rifle.
I did have a little drama with this yesterday. I had Gordy & Sons in Houston do some work on my 9.3, picked it up from them about a month ago and yesterday was my first trip to the range with it. I got everything set up, pull the trigger, and got nothing but a click. "OK," says I, "bad primer." Pull that one out, put in a new one. "Click" again, and again, and again on new cartridges.
While this is a Mauser action, Zastava has their own unique flavor of bolt design. Long story short, when the smith put the bolt back together, he stopped one full turn short of seating the primer all the way down, so when I pulled the trigger, it just barely came out of the hole, far enough to dent the primers, but not far enough to ignite them.
So I go back home and start looking at everything, and in disassembling/reassembling, I left the firing pin in the fired position and finally happened to notice what was going on. Unlike regular Mauser 98/96, which are easy to disassemble/reassemble, Zastavas have a LOT of spring tension once the first couple of threads of the bolt shroud are engaged in the bolt. It's easy to turn the shroud/firing pin down and think you're all the way down and still be one full turn short. So I loaded up an empty brass with a primer, went in my garage, and BANG. That was the issue. Every click this morning was followed by a loud bang.
Any other Zastava owners here who've never disassembled the bolt assembly and want to know how, ping me. It isn't THAT hard, but there is a little trick to it, and I can walk you through.