What did you do in the reloading room today?

[taco650]

Not yesterday but the day before I cast up some Lee 44's for the Dan Wesson.

[62chevy]

Found the live primer I lost 2 weeks ago.

I was lubing/checking some Lee 430-310 boolits with NRA lube, one of them slippery devils got away from me. It hit the ground and disappeared, just like the primer. I looked, didn't see it. Figgered '...this thing is far too large to lose on the floor...'

Got the flashlight, went under the bench..... found it, wedged in betwixt the leg and the shelving adjacent to it. Had to get needle-nose pliers to reach it.

Pulled the boolit out, and there under it was the prodigal primer.

Now I have a single SPP to keep up with. So far, it's just sitting on the bench....

hahahahahahaha never fails !!!

[bjordan]

I hung my Star sizer upside down and heated it with a torch and drained all the BAC lube out of it. Got it re-mounted and plopped in my fist stick of Blue Angles lube, brought the heater up to temp and cranked the PSI on the air cylinder up and started sizing some 230 grain RN .45 bullets. I like the look of the BA lube.

[labradigger1]

Loaded 400 150 grain 30-06 for the garand.

[mwells72774]

Tried out some max loads in the compact handi rechamber. Lee 358-200 over H110 worked great and super mild

[rsrocket1]

Cast about 1000 Lee TL452-230-TC's. The boolits virtually fall out of the mold like rain but it empties the 4-20 pot pretty quickly. I'll be powder coating these to use in my XD45 which will see the light of day when it gets out of jail because of the 11 day wait here in Kim Jung Jerryland.

[OS OK]

That TL _TC design just tries to jump out of the mould...you've been casting like a 'house-a-fire'! Pretty satisfying...huh?

[bullseye67]

Good evening,
Today was the finishing of a project that started Friday with my son.
Couldn't decide what I wanted for a gun cleaning bench for the last couple of years. Tried several tables to see how much room and what would be a good height. Decided to go with the "Island" style of bench. My reloading bench is a large "L" 8'X6' attached to one side/end of my gun room. Studied the "what kind of bench do you have" threads and the Island style seemed to get a lot of picks for the ability to work all around. I used 2X4s and put a 2'X4'x3/4" shelf to store a bunch(1000lbs) of cast boolits, to anchor it down. I am a tall guy so I went with 3' legs plus the 1 inch and a 1/4 from the top. For the bench top I used 2layers (60"X30") of 3/4" plywood covered with a sheet of cabinet grade 1/2". I put a trim around that creates about a 1/2" lip. I hate it when things roll off the bench.
Decided to take a quick picture, set the gun vise on for scale, and post it before I get it loaded up with all the "goodies" that appear from everywhere!!
Everyone have a fantastic week...

[JBinMN]

That bench looks nice! Looks like ya have the lower shelf set low enough to not cause "top heavy" situation & I like the idea about the rim all around.


I need to make one myself.


For me...

Today I sorted about 1500 - .45cal ACP mixed type cases/casings to sort by maker. Should have worn gloves as they blackened my hands, but I am happy. Tomorrow or the next day it is about 800 cases/casings of 9mm & about 500 .380. Then it is citrus soak & swirl, remove primers, clean, another quick soak & swirl & load time. Lucky this time since these are only "once fired", so no need to trim length on casings, or anneal for a while anyway. Boring stuff, but so is sorting by manf. if ya do it... LOL


Time to buy more primers & lead though.

[coxa2]

Taking on the daunting task of organizing the reloading room/bench.

[Soundguy]

Cast about 1000 Lee TL452-230-TC's. The boolits virtually fall out of the mold like rain but it empties the 4-20 pot pretty quickly. I'll be powder coating these to use in my XD45 which will see the light of day when it gets out of jail because of the 11 day wait here in Kim Jung Jerryland.

Nice!

[robg]

Smelted about 10 lbs of lead scrap into nice clean ingots ,was going to do some casting but the weather was beautiful so I gave my self the afternoon off.Cleaned my308 ,had about 200 boolits through it since I last cleaned it ,well pleased just some soot in the barrel no lead just used some Butch's bore shine on a patch then half a dozen patches till they came out clean .

[rsrocket1]

That TL _TC design just tries to jump out of the mould...you've been casting like a 'house-a-fire'! Pretty satisfying...huh?

Yes, easier than a couple of weeks ago when I made 1200 401-175-TC boolits.

You experienced guys have probably figured out that the fatter and the heavier the boolit, the easier they tend to come out of the mold. The toughest 6 bangers I have are the 356-120-TC and TL356-124-2R. The 40 cal are in between and the 45 are a pure joy to cast. The rifle, slug and ML molds are a different animal because they are either dual or single cavity.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The weather is about as nice as it gets, Minnesota in May, gotta love it. Problem is, I have tree pollen allergies and Pollen counts peak in May, so I need to spend as much time inside, as I can possibly stand. Which leads me to the reloading/casting room to find something fun.

Some months ago, I bought a Lyman 45. Funny thing is, it is one that I had sold to a member and they never got around to using it...So I bought it back. Today, I finally got around to mounting it to the bench and proceeded to empty the last bit of Lube that was inside, via filling the reservoir of some new modified orange felix lube sample that I was given...and cranking the pressure screw, til all the old lube was pushed out the hole where the die goes...and was coming out orange.

Next, was to install a older .410 die that I bought somewhere along the line, to test it, to see if it had been modified...it appears to be...boolit come out slightly larger than .411 that's good, that's the size I like. I remove the die and plug some of the holes with solder rivets, so I can cleanly lube single lube groove boolits from my Saeco 411 (SWC) mold. I reinstall the die...Success feels so good.

Now I need to go back outside to work on the lawnmower, and mow part of the yard.

[Sghinds]

Loaded up some more test rounds for cast 223. I did some shooting of these a few weeks ago, but feel this test needs to be run again. This time I lowered the powder charges (17.0-19.0 gr in .5 gr increments) of Winchester 748. I loaded 5 rounds with and 5 rounds without gas checks (blue=no gas check, orange=gas check). They are powder coated (shake and bake method) and sized in a lee push though sizer (.225).From my previous test, 19 gr without a gas check was by best group at 2.5in @ 100 yards. Hopefully this will help narrow down a good plinking load to run in my AR15 (16 in HBAR 1:9 twist)

[Soundguy]

Someone asked me to post a few pics of the ballistic gelatin I made up.

Here are just some preliminary pics. I made up a rectangular block, and a cylindrical '1-shot' block. Pic is showing the rectangle clock just coming out of the box mold still in it's liner bag, and the cylinder block just got poured, so it's still in setup phase in the 2L soda bottle.

Might be shooting them this weekend.. if not this weekend, then next weekend.

[tazman]

I cast and tumble lubed a small pile of 356402 boolits. I can shoot these as cast in my Springfield Armory 9mm Range officer since they drop from the mold at .356-.357.
It turn out my pistol like these run at nearly full power better than light loads. I am using a full power load of CFE Pistol for a 125 grain boolit under this one (which is 120 grains) so should be quite safe.
They certainly shoot well enough.

[JBinMN]

Cast a couple hundred or so TL 356-120-TC, and spent some hours sorting brass. A seemingly never ending task when you are doing it. LOL

[OS OK]

Someone asked me to post a few pics of the ballistic gelatin I made up.

Here are just some preliminary pics. I made up a rectangular block, and a cylindrical '1-shot' block. Pic is showing the rectangle clock just coming out of the box mold still in it's liner bag, and the cylinder block just got poured, so it's still in setup phase in the 2L soda bottle.

Might be shooting them this weekend.. if not this weekend, then next weekend.

I think you will blow right through those blocks. How are you going to catch the boolit?

[frkelly74]

I am packing it up to move back north to Michigan. I will miss the setup I have here but look forward to organizing another setup. All that stuff is really heavy.