What did you do in the reloading room today?

[KrakenFan69]

With 89 lbs of .40's to Hi-Tek coat I made a hand crank tumbler to coat at a higher volume. Ran the first batch tonight and had 1,000 coated and cooked in no time!

Kraken Fan #69

[mattw]

Got time to test a couple of moulds. Lyman 158 WC and Ideal 115 WC. I really liked the 158, could not hit a barn with the 115. That was the one I really wanted to work well. As cast was just to small, at the widest part I could get .359 but the upper driving bands were smaller.

I have no idea where the red lube was hiding in my 450... Has had 2.5 sticks of 2500+ run thru it since red was used. I really need another 450 or an RCBS. I do not use the Star for small runs. And I need a flat top punch!

[Tom W.]

I finally cast about 55 or so Lee 165 gr. (I think, I'll have to look ) rn gc boolits from my ancient single cavity mold.

[sigep1764]

I got a new set of dies, Lee Pacesetter set in .223 with a gift card my crew got me at work. Full length sized a couple hundred on the Lyman. Now I need a mold, gonna hafta wait til the end of September. These dies aren't as nice as Redding or Dillon, but I have to admit they do the job well. Not a massive fan of the pinch style depriming pin. Once I got it tight enough it gave no problems.

[cwlongshot]

Last night was prepping 6.5 Grendel brass.. 250 of them!

All primed and sized waiting like soldiers at attention in loading blocks on my bench....

CW

[THerbert]

Resized, primed and flared 50 .480 Ruger cases to be loaded with some of the 325 grain Lee LFNs that I sized and lubed Saturday evening. Cleaned up some in the reloading room as well. But they'll have to wait until Wednesday night to be loaded, I'm going to the Astros game tonight.

[Tom W.]

Those were 160 gr. boolits. I finger lubed them w/ some old RCBS lube, sized them and then dipped them in JPW. They ought to dry in 24 hours or so.

Did you ever do something that made absolutely no sense? I went to the shed and primed 20 30-06 A.I. brass, filled them with 47 gr. of Varget, and was going to load some 180 gr. GameKings. But noooo, I found some cast boolits that weighed 175 gr after loobing, sizing and with a gas check, so I commenced to loading them instead. Now I've been handloading since I was 19, and I'm well past that now. I have a feeling that I'm going to get patterns instead of groups with that load. What I was thinking I have no Idea. If they do shoot well I'll be surprised. I could lie and say I want to see if the brass fireforms any better, but I'm kinda anal when it comes to my brass....Sheesh!

Call it a brain fart.

[sigep1764]

Sized a couple hundred more 223. Then I trimmed them on a Lyman Universal trimmer. Have I mentioned how I hate brass prep? gonna chamfer and deburr tonight. Gotta pick up a primer pocket swager at some point.

[sundog]

sigep1764, me too. I prepped a hundred RP 223 brass (fls'd and trimmed). These were range pickups that appeared to be once fired factory loads. They had been wet pin tumbled and very clean. Then I went ahead and primed and loaded them with 50 gr Dogtown bullets and the last of my WC844 (sure gonna miss the CHEAP surplus powders). These will get fire formed in a bolt gun and dedicated to that rifle. I might even debur the primer hole and outside neck turn them before they are loaded again. Yeah, brass prep is a PITA, but "it do make a difference."

It's been very hot and humid here the last few days, so afternoons have been spent inside at the bench. I've managed to get a few chores out of the way.

[redhawk0]

I cleaned up an old .445 RB Ideal mold that I purchased only because I wanted the Single Cavity Lyman Handles. I got the handles and mold for just $15. I do have a 44Mag so the .445 RB could be used for plinking I suppose...but I figured I'd get some practice on mold tune-up with one I didn't care much about. It had a lot of lead splash on it from past use...I soaked in Mineral Spirits overnight but that didn't get under the lead very well. I then gave it a little spritz of Kroil and let it soak another overnight. That lifted the lead. So today, I polished the mating surfaces with green scotchbright pad and verified all the vents were clean and rust free. The sprue plate screw had the point of a Screwdriver still stuck in it. I took a screwdriver and a small light hammer and knocked it out (easily) put a little light oil on the sprue screw and set screw. Polished the underside of the sprue plate with the scotchbright pad again. The boolit cavity looks pretty good so I left it untouched (nice patina...no rust) I put the handles on it again and verified it opens and closes smoothly with no mold gaps (visually to a strong light). I'm please with the results...especially for a free mold that came with the handles that I wanted. Another day or two and the temperature should come down a bit and I'll fire up the pot. Its gonna be 99* up here in New England today....yikes!!!

redhawk

[therealhitman]

Every spare moment for the last three evenings was spent sizing/decapping four mostly full ammo cans of Lake City cases. With as much lanolin as has been on my hands I should be immune to my fingrtips cracking open while taking care of trimming, deburring and primer pocket prep on it all.

[Texas by God]

Tumble lubed some .379" 255 gr and some .430" 200 gr. Flat nose all.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[sigep1764]

It might be the homemade cider beer that my buddy gave me today, but chucking the bits from my Lyman hand tool for chamfering and deburring into my drill works a lot faster. It might not be perfect, but for range use I think it will be fine.

[cwlongshot]

Loaded up two ladders with my 450 Bushmaster last night on 296 powder. One with a 250 and a second on a 300G FTX bullet.



CW

[jdfoxinc]

Deprimed MFRB of .410 hulls. Then primed 200. All with the 30 yr old Lee loader set I bought from a member. The set does not have a way to size the brass. Any suggestions? I also need a way to accurately cut down some of the damaged hulls to 2.5"

[skeettx]

Have you tried sizing the hulls with a 44 Mag carbide die, with decapping stuff removed?

[JBinMN]

Loaded up some 9mm test rounds, as well as some .45 ACP ones for CC SD loads. The 9 MM with 124gr LRN & the 45 with 185 gr.. HPXTPs. Both were chronoed today and worked out OK with MV averages at 1086 & 1024 fps respectively. Std. Dev. on the 9mm were a bit high, IMO @ approx. 22, but the Std. Dev. for the 45 was approx. 13 & that is looking much better. Like to get under 10s, so some tweaking is in order , IMO.

Still some refinement & more testing, but I am happy so far. I really like doing load testing with different combinations of components & particularly when there is a purpose, like for hunting, target accuracy or SD, etc. & not just plinking/shooting at tincan rounds.

Got a box of 125 gr. HP XTPs to test in the 9mm, the 38 Sp. & 357M next.

Going to make up some more LSWC rounds as well, I think. Gonna see how fast I can push them to get in the upper FPS ranges where it transfers well into the SD parameters I am looking for right now. Trying to find the right combo to make for good knockdown/penetration with not being too hard on the hands/wrist.

Going to rain & storm off & on this weekend, so I think I will be doing more loading & testing of this type in the next couple days.

Fun fun!

[sundog]

My last post in this thread I mentioned running out of WC844 and how I am going to miss those cheap surplus powders.

Well, to my surprise, I ran across a jug of DP73 that I forgot was in the storage locker. Owww-weeee, says I! There are a few loads listed on the label, and the sheet that came with it says use AA2230 load data times .95.

I also had a batch (97) of 1x fired PMP (origin South Africa?) head stamp .223 that Felix had given me years ago. It would not chamber in my bolt gun, so I ran it all through an RCBS small base die, and that fixed it. Several pieces needed trimming, so that was done on the Forster hand crank.

They were primed with Rem SR primers and loaded with Dogtown 55 grainers for fire forming. Charge weight for the DP 73 worked out to 21.5 gr for an estimated 3086 fps. The first couple loaded were fired out back and all looked well. The rest were loaded, bagged, and labeled for next range trip. After fire forming, these will get another trim for uniformity and maybe an outside neck turn, if needed.

Ever so slowly I am getting all my odds and ends chores done, and the loading room is getting cleaned up (well, a little anyway).

[Pressman]

What I did today is what I have been doing for two weeks straight. Clean up. A long time friend passed away this spring and left me in charge of the estate. He never thru anything away and bought in multiple amounts.
Yesterday I found a very large box of shotgun components. Today it was polish media and lead, lots of lead. 1400 pounds of COWW cast in bars 24 pounds each. Adding that to the 800 pounds of bars and cast bits and 2000 pounds of range scrap makes me think I need to "get the lead out".
Ken

[chrometip78]

Finishing up the size and priming portion of 400 new to me 44mag cases.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T377A using Tapatalk