7Acres
12-31-2012, 02:57 PM
I thought I'd share my experience from my very first reloading session. I am new to reloading and also new to cast boolits. Rarely do I start a new hobby without reading everything I can get my hands on before I start buying equipment and taking the plunge. My new casting & reloading hobby is no exception. Most of what I've learned has been from this forum as well as reading a few reloading manuals.*
I bought a Lee 6 cavity .452 230gr TC (non-tumble lube) mold in October. I'd been collecting WWs for about a year so I finally sat down, hand sorted out the steel and zinc ones and smelted about 50lbs of ingots. This past Thanksgiving I finally got a chance to sit down and cast about 700 boolits while I was babysitting the turkey smoking on the grill. After more research I realized it would be a good idea to acquire a .452 sizing die to run these boolits through. With that in hand along with the little LLA bottle that came with it I did a bunch of research on the plethora of different lube*recipes*out there. I kind of got wrapped around the axle a bit over lubes and which of the recipes I should make. In the end a fine gentleman on this forum won me over with the simple recommendation of using the LLA I already had and mixing it in equal parts with Johnson's paste wax and paint thinner.*
Last weekend I went out to the shop and made my LLA mix. After that I took about 200 of my boolits and put them in a rectangular shallow aluminum pan, poured in a bit of my freshly made LLA mix and shook the pan around till all the boolits had a light brown coating of the LLA mix. I didn't even bother letting them dry. I just wanted to get them all sized so I could tumble lube them for the final time before calling it quits for the day. I was very excited to have 200 of my boolits lined up on the bench all sized and lubed.*
We got back from our Christmas trip at my parents place and the next day I had the afternoon free. I made my mind up that I would spend the afternoon methodically getting all set up to load a single round. First, I left the primers and powder alone and just focused on getting the dies on my Lee classic 4 hole turret adjusted and properly seating and crimping a boolit into the brass. That turned out to take me a few hours to get that figured out so my TC bullets were seated deeply enough so the driving band wasn't sticking out too far and getting stuck in the rifling causing ejecting issues. All I had at the end of that day was 6 beautiful unprimed powderless boolits properly seated into their respective brass cartridges. I got back up to the house and proudly showed my wife and some guests the result of the day's setup activities. I knew the next day I'd be reloading for real.*
Next morning I grabbed my Kimber 1911 and my Glock 21 and went down to the shop. I got out a package of CCI LP primers and opened my new 8lb jug of Unique. Per some reading here I decided to start with 5.1gr of Unique for a nice light plinking load. I filled the powder hopper with a small amount of powder to start with and loaded up the Lee Safety Prime with 100 primers. It was interesting to shake the primers back and forth and watch them jump around till they were all facing up. I loaded a single round and admired it's beauty. Took it up to the house to show the wife :) She thought it was pretty cool.*
Then I went down to the pistol cube lead trap I had made weeks earlier, loaded the single round into my 1911 to see how the clean traditional rifling looked after 1 lead round. Then after great anticipation... Bang! That little Kimber Ultra Carry II never felt so good! I walking back to my shop thinking how much I liked the way 5.1gr feels. Then I loaded 3 more boolits, put one in the 1911 and two in the Glock21. Back down to the pistol cube. 1911 went bang and felt great. 1911 in the holster and G21 now in hand... Bang! Except the brass stovepiped. I was a little*disappointed*but I fired the next round just see if it would do the same thing. It stovepiped too. Walking back to the shop I was resigning to trying 5.2gr to see how that would do in my G21. I get back to the shop and looked at my powder hopper. No powder!*
Then it dawned on me I just fired two rounds through a Glock 21 with no powder. The primer alone pushed the bullet out! I*unwittingly*just fired a mouse fart through a polygonal barrel! I inspected both barrels for any sign of leading. I was excited to see that both traditional and polygonal barrels still were mirror clean. So I put more powder in and loaded up 6 rounds again with 5.1gr. Put three in each gun. This time the Glock 21 fired them all with no issues. Same with the 1911. Back to the shop, inspected both barrels. Clean as a whistle. Loaded up 20 rounds. 13 in the G21, 7 in the 1911. All 20 fired flawlessly in each respective pistol. Again, both barrels had zero leading.*
By this time it was getting cold out and I had a wedding rehearsal to head out to. I loaded up one more round and put it in my pocket to show off to some family members that night. All evening I had my hand in my pocket and a smile ear to ear!*
I bought a Lee 6 cavity .452 230gr TC (non-tumble lube) mold in October. I'd been collecting WWs for about a year so I finally sat down, hand sorted out the steel and zinc ones and smelted about 50lbs of ingots. This past Thanksgiving I finally got a chance to sit down and cast about 700 boolits while I was babysitting the turkey smoking on the grill. After more research I realized it would be a good idea to acquire a .452 sizing die to run these boolits through. With that in hand along with the little LLA bottle that came with it I did a bunch of research on the plethora of different lube*recipes*out there. I kind of got wrapped around the axle a bit over lubes and which of the recipes I should make. In the end a fine gentleman on this forum won me over with the simple recommendation of using the LLA I already had and mixing it in equal parts with Johnson's paste wax and paint thinner.*
Last weekend I went out to the shop and made my LLA mix. After that I took about 200 of my boolits and put them in a rectangular shallow aluminum pan, poured in a bit of my freshly made LLA mix and shook the pan around till all the boolits had a light brown coating of the LLA mix. I didn't even bother letting them dry. I just wanted to get them all sized so I could tumble lube them for the final time before calling it quits for the day. I was very excited to have 200 of my boolits lined up on the bench all sized and lubed.*
We got back from our Christmas trip at my parents place and the next day I had the afternoon free. I made my mind up that I would spend the afternoon methodically getting all set up to load a single round. First, I left the primers and powder alone and just focused on getting the dies on my Lee classic 4 hole turret adjusted and properly seating and crimping a boolit into the brass. That turned out to take me a few hours to get that figured out so my TC bullets were seated deeply enough so the driving band wasn't sticking out too far and getting stuck in the rifling causing ejecting issues. All I had at the end of that day was 6 beautiful unprimed powderless boolits properly seated into their respective brass cartridges. I got back up to the house and proudly showed my wife and some guests the result of the day's setup activities. I knew the next day I'd be reloading for real.*
Next morning I grabbed my Kimber 1911 and my Glock 21 and went down to the shop. I got out a package of CCI LP primers and opened my new 8lb jug of Unique. Per some reading here I decided to start with 5.1gr of Unique for a nice light plinking load. I filled the powder hopper with a small amount of powder to start with and loaded up the Lee Safety Prime with 100 primers. It was interesting to shake the primers back and forth and watch them jump around till they were all facing up. I loaded a single round and admired it's beauty. Took it up to the house to show the wife :) She thought it was pretty cool.*
Then I went down to the pistol cube lead trap I had made weeks earlier, loaded the single round into my 1911 to see how the clean traditional rifling looked after 1 lead round. Then after great anticipation... Bang! That little Kimber Ultra Carry II never felt so good! I walking back to my shop thinking how much I liked the way 5.1gr feels. Then I loaded 3 more boolits, put one in the 1911 and two in the Glock21. Back down to the pistol cube. 1911 went bang and felt great. 1911 in the holster and G21 now in hand... Bang! Except the brass stovepiped. I was a little*disappointed*but I fired the next round just see if it would do the same thing. It stovepiped too. Walking back to the shop I was resigning to trying 5.2gr to see how that would do in my G21. I get back to the shop and looked at my powder hopper. No powder!*
Then it dawned on me I just fired two rounds through a Glock 21 with no powder. The primer alone pushed the bullet out! I*unwittingly*just fired a mouse fart through a polygonal barrel! I inspected both barrels for any sign of leading. I was excited to see that both traditional and polygonal barrels still were mirror clean. So I put more powder in and loaded up 6 rounds again with 5.1gr. Put three in each gun. This time the Glock 21 fired them all with no issues. Same with the 1911. Back to the shop, inspected both barrels. Clean as a whistle. Loaded up 20 rounds. 13 in the G21, 7 in the 1911. All 20 fired flawlessly in each respective pistol. Again, both barrels had zero leading.*
By this time it was getting cold out and I had a wedding rehearsal to head out to. I loaded up one more round and put it in my pocket to show off to some family members that night. All evening I had my hand in my pocket and a smile ear to ear!*