What did you do in the reloading room today?

[Texas by God]

Sized, primed, flared, and charged with 22.8grains of IMR4198 40 38-55 brass. I cast about 60 Lee 379-250s, pc’d them orange after sizing to .377”. After lunch I’ll assemble them together

[Crash_Corrigan]

Well I am still unpacking from my lifetime 51st move. This time I moved from a small rental house in the foothills on the West side of Vegas to the South Central Valley into a 57 year old frame larger house with a giant drive-in triple carport. Or just a garage without a door. It also has a lovely pool in the backyard and it is fully fenced so my Sgt. Rambo (Attack Chichuahua) can cavort and terrorize pigeons. I am taking the master bedroom to be my boolit room. I have three 48x18x72 storage racks and a motely collection of benches and tables and the like for the mounting of my collection of presses and assorted reloading and casting goodies.

I am still in the process of unpacking sealed cartons of stuff that the movers put in the house. I also have a 16'x8'x8' POD in the driveway full of the contents of my two 1/2 car garage. Most of that is related to our beloved hobby. It will take me some time to fully unload and put away these goodies as I suffer from COPD and arthritis so my stamina is a joke. Five minutes of activity must be followed by 8 minutes of rest so progress is slow to achieve. The good of it is that the stuff is safe in the POD but it also is costing me $198.77 per month to keep it.

The weather here in Vegas is just hitting the hellish part of the year as we had 107 degrees last week but the pool in the yard is wonderful to cool off in. I get up before dawn and get in a couple of hours of work before the heat really starts at about 1030 hrs. By 1400 hrs my pool time is over and I am back in the rack for a two hour nap. I probably will need to buy at least three more storage shelf units so I can access my goodies easily. I probably have over 100 molds for the 26 different firearms that I own along with about 9 presses and countless dies and other necessary tools.

I started to reload in '95 to feed my two .38's. It was to save money. By now I probably have over $35K invested in the firearms hobby. I gave up golf and playing the guitar as both took time away from shooting, casting and reloading. It has been a blast over the years to be able to custom load ammo to fit each firearm and produce a better round than factory fodder.

Just moving my stash of alloy is an adventure. I started collecting alloy in '95 when my friend had a radiator repair business. He was paying some one to take away his scrap (heavy tin %) solder and spatters from the concrete floor of his shop and dispose of it. I took over this onerous task and over the next 5 years I collected over 150 five gallon plastic buckets of alloy. This alloy was very rich in tin and cast like a dream but shattered on hitting metal and did not expand well at all. The boolits were light in weight but free. I bought a dozen cast iron ash trays that were tiny replicas of a Lodge Skillet with the Bass Pro Shops logo. The made dandy molds and the flat muffin ingot stored well and weighed between 2-3 1/2 lbs apiece. Along the years I also obtained a lot of WW's and I found that a mixture of my light tin rich alloy with both COWW's and SOWW's produced a better boolit than the pure old alloy of heavy tin. I also took part in demolishing 5 dental x ray rooms and we recovered all the pure lead sheeting. All this alloy made a nice pile and I have had to move it 5 times over the years. I still have 1,000 lbs of ash tray ingots in the back of my Nissan PU that I need to bring into storage. With the heavy load the truck rides like a Cadillac but does not want to stop easily and the mileage has dropped from 22 mpg to 18 mpg.

So I will now stop typing and hike myself up the hill to visit with the ex in Sun City as usual for every Sunday we get together. We get along better now than we ever did when we were married. No more fighting as when she gets testy I just leave and go back down the hill without having to fight and squabble any more. Life is good...……..

[robg]

Sized and gas checked some 308and 357 boolits I cast yesterday .

[44Blam]

Maybe I should try that... mine drips frequently but not constantly. Still annoying though

When mine leaks, I just work that screw in and out that controlls the flow. Just a couple in and out and it usually clears up the leak.

[44Blam]

Maybe I should try that... mine drips frequently but not constantly. Still annoying though

When mine leaks, I just work that screw in and out that controlls the flow. Just a couple in and out and it usually clears up the leak.

[Keith 429421]

I spent the beautiful day today making sawdust for fluxing by cutting 1 foot off my new casting bench from 48" wide to 36 " , plans change and more room for my drill press and air compressor relocated , making the best of my space that's dwindling with every new idea I get

[Gatch]

Get a hot plate and re- purpose a small pan of some type from the kitchen cabinet. You might be out 10 dollars...but you will save yourself hours or days in time.

Attachment 244026

You can see mine behind the mold. I put the mold on the hot plate. Put the small cast iron pan on it face down covering the mold with the handle sticking out. Put ingots on top...just in case there is moisture on them and to warm them. I let them go on 3/4 full power for the entire time the lead is melting.

Most of the time I get good pours on the first or second pour if the mold is clean.

Had another go today. I don't have a hotplate, but sitting the mold on the pot for half an hr got close, then waving a butane torch over it got close enough to allow the sprues to cut in 1 knock of the soft face hammer. Had to cull about half the first lot, but only around a dozen or so of the second session, so a marked improvement.

I then hitek coated 2 lots of 5lb. I overdone them a little but that's ok. I've only just added a pid and am yet to get the timing sussed. Shooting a club ipsc match tomorrow. Looking forward to sizing and loading a few testers from this new mold.

[cwlongshot]

Show the 450 BM Boolits please. I hate to say this...but I follow you to steal your load data...

The bullet shot real well today with 5744 powder but no chrony so need to know that before saying it is “good”.



Mild recoil so might be slow. Looking for at least 1600 fps.

CW

[Ramson222]

The bullet shot real well today with 5744 powder but no chrony so need to know that before saying it is “good”.



Mild recoil so might be slow. Looking for at least 1600 fps.

CW

You beat me to the range I'm still waiting for Gas checks.

[44Blam]

The bullet shot real well today with 5744 powder but no chrony so need to know that before saying it is “good”.



Mild recoil so might be slow. Looking for at least 1600 fps.

CW

Looks like 5 shots? Good grouping.

[44Blam]

Just got some new PC powder from smoke... I need to get in the garage...

[WardT]

Pin tumbled a couple hundred 30-06

[dansedgli]

Not today but I got this running a few weeks ago finally. Thanks to Hatch for the bracketry.

[cwlongshot]

I powder coated some 600 ish pieces as I cast another 600 ish more of the same...

CW

[Bookworm]

Neck sized and primed 60 pieces of 7.62x54r. The monthly Military Bolt-gun match is only 2 weeks away.

[ThomR]

Sorted some brass that I picked up the last two day. Picked up around a thousand 9mm cases, and around 500 223 cases.

[trixter]

Saturday morning I plugged in the pot and turned on the hot plate with my favorite 9mm mold on it and went back in the house for about an hour, I sat down and starting casting, I looked in the pot and it was getting low, so I went to the shelf..... OH NO! I am out of ingots! so I shut everything down and cleaned up, then I uncovered my smelting stuff only to discover that I was out of propane. The tank is in my truck and will get filled this week and it looks like I will me making ingots. I usually do that during the winter, but had a bunch of medical issues to deal with this year and so everything is out of sync.

[Conditor22]

Not loading room -- I did some smelting of mystery metal last month, waited 5 weeks for alloys to harden. Tested each batch for hardness, marked each ingot (from angle iron ingot molds) and put them in my ingot storage shelf unit under a work table

[Keith 429421]

I went to the range and tested some of my bullets as Im a new caster of only 2 months now. I shot some 9mm and 40 S&W from my Glocks and both of the Lee bullets I cast flowed thru them with no issues at all and shot good groups Im happy with this new addition to my 46 year reloading hobby and now am putting the lots of bought cast bullets into storage . Ill be shooting what I cast from now on , most of my loads have been cast bullets over the years with exception of handgun magnums and all rifle cartridges. I have cast some 8mm Mauser gas checked bullets and will load some up and get out with those too this summer and go from there

[44Blam]

I went to the range and tested some of my bullets as Im a new caster of only 2 months now. I shot some 9mm and 40 S&W from my Glocks and both of the Lee bullets I cast flowed thru them with no issues at all and shot good groups Im happy with this new addition to my 46 year reloading hobby and now am putting the lots of bought cast bullets into storage . Ill be shooting what I cast from now on , most of my loads have been cast bullets over the years with exception of handgun magnums and all rifle cartridges. I have cast some 8mm Mauser gas checked bullets and will load some up and get out with those too this summer and go from there

So... I know people shoot lead in stock Glock barrels... Buuuutttt...
I had good accuracy for 30,40,50 rounds when testing. I also had good accuracy in a steel match - until the accuracy fell off the edge of the Earth. Of course, I thought it was me losing focus or something, but then I went a couple days later and it was ALL OVER the place. A bore scope revealed lead on one side of the "rifling". I got a KKM barrel and have no such issues -- hundreds of rounds at a time with great accuracy - much better than the stock Glock barrel. So, I have a Glock 35 and shoot 357 sig and 40 S&W both out of KKM barrels. I will shoot bullets out of the glock barrel, but even with plated bullets, I get better accuracy with the KKM barrels.