Olympic arms reloads

[Colohunter]

Hello, I have an Olympic Arms 300 Fireball on order from Midway. I already got the Redding dies and trim die. I started sizing some brass and wanted to hear what dimensions others were using, especially those with Oly arms uppers. I sorted through my 223 brass and noticed that I had a little over 300 pieces of PMC brass that someone had given me, so I decided to start ther with forming. So far I have the following dimensions:

The neck was about .0105-.011" thick, compared to the 223 brass that was .0100-.0105", before trimming.
The neck diameter with a bullet seated was .331" compared to the Sierra manual maximum of .344" This is a little encouraging that I may not have to turn the necks, though I will have to wait and see when the upper arrives.
I seated the 220gr bullet with an OAL of 2.260" and the 125 gr to 2.050"

So far these are just dummy rounds, I am waiting to load anything with powder until I get the upper in to test the dummy rounds in. How does that compare to those of you with Oly arms uppers?

[Colorado Osprey]

COHunter, fancy seeing you here too....

Did Midway give you an estimated ship date on the upper?
The reason for the question is OLY halted production last year of alternate caliber barrels because of back log in trying to keep up with demand for standard 5.56/.223 barrels.

Most custom AR gun makes that use OLY barrels also ran out of alternate caliber barrels last year like Mike Milli, Dan Carey and Tony at Del-Ton.

I would contact Midway dirrectly and ask for an ETA for the upper.. you may find out that they can't give you a date and it may be a few years.

Mike Milli for www.dtechsuperstore.com has 30 cal Shilen blanks and has a 300 Fireball reamer and makes his own AR barrels. He can put the gas port anywhere you want and with any size diameter you want. He does outstanding work and can even turn the barrel down to the profile you want, add weight reduction fluting (Not cosmetic) and thread the barrel for a can or just a flash hider. He pioneered the WSSM platform with Olympic Arms and is the only authorized person to make WSSM AR rifles other than OLY. BTW he has a large selection of WSSM wildcats available too.

Sorry no load data... just sharing info.

[Colohunter]

Hello Osprey, I have worried about that, but when I ordered the upper the expected date was 06-02-08, unfortunately that passed and it is now 06-16-08. I looked long and hard at a custom barrel and building an upper, I really liked the idea, but unfortunately money is tight and I figuret that I could order the Oly upper and dies and a cheap scope to get me started for less than what it would cost me to build the upper that I wanted.

So bottom line, since they had a date I took a chance on it. I figured maybe they were a large enough resaler that they could still get the products. If they string me along for very long I will go ahead and just go back to building my own.

[too_many_hobbies]

Colohunter,

I made a deal with Mike Mille of Dedicated Technologies to trade the upper he made for me with an Olympic Arms 16" barrel for an upper with a Shilen 10.5" barrel. The only reason I am trading is to reduce the length of the weapon for use with a suppressor. You may want to give Dtech a call if you are interested in the upper I am trading in...

[Colohunter]

That sounds tempting, I think I will wait a little longer and give Midway a chance to fill the order. So far I haven't had any problems with them, though I haven't actually ordered anything on backorder from them. If they drag it along for very long I will check with Dtech or just build my own, which I had been considering.

[Scoop]

My Oly Whisper (cut down to 10.5 inches) ran best with a 190 SMK over 9.1 grains of H110 lit by a 205M primer. I loaded 'em to 2.250 COL. Never had any luck at all with the 220 SMK in that rifle. It just would not stabilize them. Accuracy with the 190 grainers was ~1 moa.

[Colohunter]

Well, Midway kept moving the expected date for the Oly upper. I finally just decided to cancel the order and order a M1S. I just got the upper last night. I ordered the post ban configuration so that I could thread the barrel later. I got the railed gas block and standard handguard (haven't decided what handguard that I will use, maybe a Hogue once I put on a JP adjustable gas block). I also got the bolt carrier assembly and tactical latch on the carry handle. I mounted a BSA 4-16 Mil Dot on it for the time being.

Now I just wish it wasn't going to take me two or three weeks to shoot it.