Interesting day reloading

[Green Frog]

I decided late this afternoon to do a little reloading for my 32 S&W L. I'm in the process of moving and a lot of my stuff is in various stages of being scattered. Anyway, I had 100 cases that had previously been sized and decapped. I found a #9 priming chamber for a 310 tool and screwed it into an old 32-20 handle set I had laying around. Got 100 cases primed with only one primer in backwards. Then I scrounged around some more and found a 310 expander die with a plug marked 313, so I opened case mouths on the 100 cases with that and the same 32-20 handles. It got to be supper time, so I put everything away for tomorrow. I'm going to probably use my Little Dandy for powder drops then seat and crimp bullets with the DA die I have set up already in my TruLine Jr. At my house, reloading isn't just a task, it's an adventure!

Froggie

[trooperdan]

Boy, does this sound like reloading at my house! I am currently doing just about the same dance with .45 Auto Rim! Currently looking for a #17 priming chamber, I usually like to use my RCBS APS strip hand primer but it just doesn't work with the auto rim cases! Anyone have a spare #17? Or how are you priming AR cases using 310 tools?

[RED BEAR]

Hey what ever works. The end product is the same ain't it.

[Green Frog]

I’m considering blowing the dust of 5 years of disuse off the Dillon 550, filling up the powder reservoir and primer tube, and cranking out a hundred or so 38s before I get back to the challenges of working with my 32s. I think I’m over the biggest hurdles with the “Great 32 Adventure” but I need some 38 MRWCs to go with the 32s so I can take my K-Masterpiece trio out for a little quality time. Maybe running the progressive press a while will put me in a different frame of mind. Then I will be able to do some more slow paced work with the hand tools that get me back to my roots.

Regardless, I’ve got to load and box up a bunch of 32 S&W Longs both for practice here and for my next foray to the Northwest Territory (Ohio) to commune with my brother from a different mother, Dale53. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, a some of it involves 32s prominently, of course. A reloader’s work is never done!

Froggie

[mdi]

I agree, reloading is fun! (or adventurous). I started a very long time ago and my motivation was curiosity. "Hmmm, I wonder if I could reuse these things?". There are almost as many reasons to reload as there are reloaders, but I do it because I enjoy all aspects of reloading. For the last 20 years of my working career, I had a pretty good paying job with not real heavy financial responsibilities, so I could afford factory stuff if I wanted, but I would have missed out on many, many hours of fun, time spent finding/researching a load, gathering components, assembling components, recording loads, shooting, analyzing, and recording results in my log...

[Green Frog]

Well, I got down in the flotsam and jetsam of the loading gear and my RCBS Jr had a RCBS seating die already mounted in it... the one for 32 revolvers. I loaded 25 rounds of the Ideal 313445 and 24 of the MP 105 gr hollow points. These will go with some standard factory round nose and some high grade factory wad cutters I bought so I can wring out my K-32 a bit. I feel like I cheated a little since so much of what I did on this project did not involve hand tools for all the steps, and I used a bench press to finish up.

Anyway, I can safely say I wouldn't have gotten it done as easily as I did if I hadn't had the 310 tool with #9 PC to do the priming. I don't even remember the last time I primed a 32 round on a press. Unfortunately, the first edition Lee priming tool I normally use seems to be among the missing, and when a single key step gets interrupted, the rest of the process goes astray quickly.

If everything were sorted out, I would have begun by FL sizing and depriming with a Lyman TC die on my All American press (a step I did a long time ago) then prime with the aforementioned Lee Auto Prime. From there on, it would be either a tong tool for the rest of the steps or more likely the tiny dies screwed into a second issue TruLine Jr press. The little press just seems to be in the right scale for the little round. Now if I could just find my Lee Priming Tool.

Froggie