Well I had allot of time on my hands this winter, to cold to go out and shoot any or do much else. I have seen quiet a few post about the Lapua wooden bullet ammo that Sportsman's Guide was selling and how it not good for anything, not even to use as a decent blank because of the wooden bullet. Most of the guys making these statements have never had one of the rounds in there hands.

One of our fellow board members from another board NORMSUTTON had done work with this Rd. so after exchanging some emails and talking on the phone I bought some for myself this past week,let me say first off this is not junk second quality brass its first quality Lapua brass,it's ashamed it's not reloadable it's Berdan primed. If you are loading it for hunting ammo or shooting at one of those ranges where they want let you pick up your brass and you like shooting the brass cased ammo then this might be for you. ya it's a little work redoing them but no more than reload your favorite pistol ammo except you can skip the priming part and pull the bullet instead.

First off I put my RCBS 30 Cal. collet puller in the press and ran the wooden bullet up into it then gave it about 1/2 turn, the bullet is hollow so it compresses it and make for a easy extraction kinda pops like a cork. The ammo has small roll crimp but the Lee universal expansion die takes that out with no problem. Also the Lee decapping rod in the 39mm die set is tapered and works just as well so you can skip the expander part if you have LEE dies,I adjusted the decapping rod so the pin wouldn't touch bottom when I resized the neck of the case. The M43 blank ammo come 40 Rds. to a box I knocked out about three boxes of these and had them ready to load in less than 2 Hrs. and I took a few breaks in between.

Next I set up my scales and measure out some charges of RL7 I bought a bulk quantity of this back when I could get it cheap it shoot really nice in my SKS rifles. I started out with 25.5 Gr. of RL7 and toped the charged case of with the Hornady 123. .310 FMJ and seated them to the crimp groove to 2.200 inches and use the Lee FCD with a Med. crimp. I set up a small target in the back yard and loaded the three Rds. in my Chinese leaning on the side of the truck and fired three shots offhand at about 50 Yds. Rifle isn't sighted in yet so it was a little off to the right. All Rds. performed excellent throwing all brass about 15' to my right and grouping about 1".

So if you looking for some cheap non-corrosive primed brass that you can custom load for serious target shooting,shooting matches or hunting,and finding you brass isn't possible or not a necessity maybe this will work for you.


Original Lupua Wooden Bullet Rd. and reloaded Rd. Target I shoot underneath 1" group. @ 50Yds.


Fired cases lost one O well big deal.


Loading these Rds. cost me about 20 cents each thats about $8 for 40 Rds. to make you own custom ammo using either 123 Gr. SP or FMJ bullets or 150 Gr. SP if you prefer a heavier bullet.