A Garand Update: Speer and Hornady

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about new bullets I had purchased for the Garand. They are Speer 168-grain Target Match bullets, and they’re designed to go head-to-head with the benchmark bullet in this arena, the Sierra 168-grain jacketed boat tail hollow point bullet. As you will recall, I talked to the Speer engineer and he recommended bumping the IMR 4064 propellant charge up from what I had tried previously and seating the bullets out a little further.

I only had 20 Speer bullets left from the box of 100 I initially purchased and Phillips, my local dealer, didn’t have any more.   I also had a couple of boxes of 178-grain Hornady AMAX bullets in my stash and my Hornady reloading manual had a Garand-specific load for these, so I loaded some of them for testing in the Garand as well.   You can’t just use any .30 06 load for the Garand; the loads have to be specific for the Garand.  If you go outside of what’s recommended for these rifles, you can damage the rifle.

It was windy out at the West End Gun Club this past weekend, so I don’t know if my results were the result of the load, or the wind, my shooting abilities, or all of the above. Take my results as an indication of what might work, not the ultimate authoritative conclusion on either bullet’s inherent accuracy.  And as regards my propellant charges, work from your own manual.  You will want to develop your own loads, starting at the bottom of the range and working up.

My testing for this session was limited.  I had two loads for each bullet (both the Hornady and the Speer bullets), and all were with IMR 4064 propellant.  I did all of my testing from the bench at 100 yards.

For the 178-grain Hornady AMAX bullets, I used 45.0 and 46.4 grains of IMR 4064, and a cartridge overall length of 3.240 inches.   This load came right out of the Hornady reloading manual.  For the 168-grain Speer bullets bullets, I used 47.0 and 48.0 grains of IMR 4064, and a cartridge overall length of 3.295 inches (as recommended by Speer).   All loads were with Remington brass and CCI 200 primers. I trimmed the brass to 2.500 inches. This was the 6th firing of these cases in the Garand with these cases.

I reloaded and fired a total of 40 rounds for this test.  I reload for the Garand in multiples of eight cartridges (because that’s what the en bloc clip holds), and like I said above, I only had 20 of the Speer bullets left.  So bear with me (this is going to get a little complicated).   I had one clip of eight rounds with the 168-grain Speers at 47.0 grains of IMR 4064, and one clip of eight rounds with the 168-grain Speers at 48.0 grains of IMR 4064.   Then I did another clip of eight with the 178-grain Hornady bullets at 45.0 grains of IMR 4064, and a fourth clip of eight with the 178-grain Hornady bullets at 46.4 grains of IMR 4064.  That left four of the Speer 168-grain bullets, so I loaded those four with 47.0 grains of IMR 4064, and then I loaded another four rounds with the Hornady 178-grain bullets and 45.0 grains of IMR 4064.   Yep, you read that right.  That en bloc clip had two different loads in it.

I had a concern that the plastic tips on the Hornady 178-grain AMAX bullets might be damaged sliding up the Garand’s feed ramp, but that didn’t occur. At the seating depth Hornady recommended, the bullets are pointed into the chamber and the tips never touched the feed ramp.

None of the 40 cartridges exhibited any pressure signs. There were no flattened primers, no excessive muzzle blast, no case ruptures, no extraction issues, or anything of that nature. Everything fed and ejected normally.

I fired the mixed clip of Hornady and Speer bullets first, and surprisingly, it was my best group of the day (it was also the only group I fired where there was a lull in the wind that morning). The first four shots were with the Hornady bullets, and of these, only one was just outside the bullseye (it might have been the first round fired from the cold, oiled barrel). All the remaining seven rounds shot into a pretty tight group, with six of the seven in the 10 ring. The bottom line based on this one group to me was that either load (the 178-grain Hornady load at 45.0 grains of 4064, and the 168-grain Speer load at 47.0 grains of 4064) were awesome, and both shot to the same point of impact.

The next group up was the 168-grain Speers with 47.0 grains of IMR 4064. I couldn’t duplicate my prior results as shown in the above photo. Six shots were in the black, two were out, and of these two, one was down in the 6 ring. It could have been the wind, or it could have been me.  Most likely it was me (the wind wasn’t blowing down).

Then I fired the clip of eight with the Speer 168-grain bullets and 48.0 grains of IMR 4064.  Five shots were in the black and three were outside, with one low at 7:00 in the 6 ring again.

It was on to the Hornady 178-grain bullets, first at 45.0 grains of IMR 4064.  Five shots were in the black, one was in the 8 ring at 9:00, one was in the 7 ring at 10:00, and again, I had one shot go low in the 6 ring at 7:00. The group was biased to the left. That was probably the wind.

And finally, I shot the Hornady 178-grain bullets at 46.4 grains of IMR 4064.  6 were in the black, 1 was in the 8 ring at 9:00, and yet again, 1 was in the 6 ring at 7:00.  These were a little more tightly clustered favoring the left side of the bullseye, consistent with the wind pushing the shots to one side (the wind at the West End Gun Club always blows northeast to southwest, pushing the shots to the left).

The bottom line is that any of loads could be good, but that first clip of mixed bullets was (for a guy at my low talent level) phenomenal. The wind no doubt distorted my results (along with my lack of consistency shooting the Garand). I have 180 of the Hornady bullets left, and I’m going to load them at 45.0 grains of IMR 4064. I’ll buy more of the 168 gr Speer bullets because they did well, too, and I’ll load them at 47.0 grains.  I’m just not that good to say with certainty which load is best; the variability in group size you see here is probably more me than anything else.

The Speer bullets are the least expensive of the three brands I’ve tried in the Garand at $25/100. Next up are the Hornady AMAX bullets at $32/100. The Sierra 168-grain MatchKing bullets (not tested yesterday, as I had used all of them previously) are the most expensive at $37/100. If there’s a difference in performance between the bullets, I’m not good enough to see it. I have 180 of the Hornady bullets left, and I’m going to load them at 45.0 grains of IMR 4064 later today. I’ll buy more of the 168-grain Speer bullets because they did well, too, and I’ll load them with 47.0 grains of IMR 4064.

So which bullet works best in the Garand?  Any of these are better than I am, and for a guy like me, evaluating accuracy at 100 yards with iron sights is subjective at best (my old eyes ain’t what they used to be).   But I’m having fun, and I love shooting my Garand.

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