I am pretty picky with my special rifle ammo loading ,but not very picky with my fun loads so I can go both ways but , record keeping very little just the basics .
I am pretty picky with my special rifle ammo loading ,but not very picky with my fun loads so I can go both ways but , record keeping very little just the basics .
Last edited by toallmy; 09-22-2018 at 05:52 AM.
I keep a -4 record of fire for my bench guns ( Artillery thing). Tracks type of round and power rating ( 90% of max etc..) along with a round count on each barrel. Ambient temps and pictures of targets along with crono data.
Non bench guns ammo gets a safe load but brass is used until it dies or gets lost. Then replaced with range brass.
Retired Redleg
I came into this world kicking and screaming covered in someone else's blood, I don't mind going out the same way.
I feel compelled to respond to this thread as this is both one of my pet peeves and goals in life.
As a Machinist it kind of becomes necessary to be particular to a certain extent, depending on the job. I have to sell the things I make to a variety of customers. One being the US Navy.
I have a"source inspection" on Monday and the parts I am trying to sell will be scrutinized closely. I had to scrutinize them first and couldn't let inadequacies pass thru as the Inspector will catch them, and reject the parts, and I won't get paid! I kind of need the money so I have to make it go right.
My Friend John Dembura told me along time ago that the two components of Craftsmanship are,,,
1. Attention to Detail
2. Personal Responsibility.
For some reason they don't teach this in school?
The Attention to Detail part is kind of obvious as you have to see all the fine points of your work in order to produce good work.
The Personal Responsibility part is, after you find fault, not letting it go out the door!
Doesn't matter if you are Flippin' Burgers or building the Space Shuttle if these two components aren't present,,, your work will probably suck.
And in the immortal words of the guy who calibrated my Trava-Dials on my Mill and then drove home to Havasu from Ventura and then drove back the next morning because they weren't right, (8 hours both ways! 4 times total!) and was waiting for me when I got to work,,,,
If your work sucks, you suck!
These two things have stayed with me for the last 40 years.
I generally have little or no respect for individuals who suck. And there's plenty of them out there!
The "Attitude" of Craftsmanship is a learned thing, but I have found many who had it naturally, or it was instilled into them by their Parents or Mentors early on. I have a nephew who came by it naturally. He graduated High School as a Sophomore! And after 2 years of local college he is lining up on MIT! He is 17 years old.
His dad is my youngest Brother and is a Captain with Etihad Airlines out of Abu Dhabi and flies Boeing 777's. Neither he nor I went to college.
When it comes to loading ammunition there are varying degrees of of quality that is acceptable for the given use.
However the difference between those degrees is minimal simply because no matter what kind of ammo you reload the process is nearly the same.
You knock out the primer and resize the case.
You put in a new primer and charge the case .
Seat the boolit and maybe crimp it.
There are a variety of methods and tools to do every one of the reloading operations, and therein lies the "particular" component. You can do as much or a little as you choose.
Depending on the end use, various types of ammunition will receive varying degrees of scrutiny.
My Pistol ammo is all loaded on a D550B because the volume is high. It is setup the way I want that ammo to come out, and it holds those settings very well. I still have to check everything periodically to make sure it hasn't drifted! IE "Personal Responsibility"
My Precision Rifle ammo is all loaded on one of my Hand Presses now, and I weigh every charge. The repeated handling of each round makes it easier to find discrepancies. IE: assists "Attention to Detail." Personal Responsibility is just there due to the Attention to Detail.
If I see something wrong I either fix it or scrap the round. "Personal Responsibility" once again.
When loading pistol ammo sometimes the primer goes in backwards or the bullet doesn't go in strait. At the end of the run I disassemble the offending rounds and either fix them and reload them correctly, or salvage whatever I can and recycle it. IE, Personal Responsibility again.
So you can see that these two components can be applied to whatever degree you feel comfortable with to maintain some degree of quality in your ammo or for that matter, anything else you do.
The degree to which you apply them will determine if you are a "Craftsman," or if "you Suck." YMMV
However if you weren't aware of the "Two Components of Craftsmanship" you certainly are now, and as a result there is no good reason why you should suck!
So lets get after it! (chris cuomo from cnn)
Randy
Last edited by W.R.Buchanan; 09-15-2018 at 03:44 PM.
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
I'm particular about my loads...but only to a point. I never count how many firings for brass...(and never for a particular rifle) However, I do all my loading on a single stage press and prefer ball powders that meter well...(although I do use stick for many loads) When using ball powders I measure every 10th case to make sure my powder thrower is still accurately metering powder, I also check OAL every 10th case. Now this is just for my plinking ammo. For hunting ammo I weigh EVERY charge (usually stick powder) and check every OAL. I also seal my hunting ammo primers with orange nail polish.
I also build each round one at a time from start to finish (except for priming) I bulk prime my brass with a hand primer unit...but then each round is taken to the bench and built to completion in sequence. Meaning...I put in powder, set a boolit (or bullet), check OAL...then factory crimp on a second press. Then that round goes into the box...I'm then on to the next round. This method keeps me from accidentally over charging or creating squib loads.
Its my method...and I'll stick to it.
redhawk
The only stupid question...is the unasked one.
Not all who wander....are lost.
"Common Sense" is like a flower. It doesn't grow in everyone's garden.
If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question. - Ronald Reagan
Redhawk:
I do the same thing with my good rifle ammo. After priming they get assembled to completion one at a time, for the same reason as you.
Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
The only stupid question...is the unasked one.
Not all who wander....are lost.
"Common Sense" is like a flower. It doesn't grow in everyone's garden.
If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question. - Ronald Reagan
If they stay in this hobby very long, everyone develops a system that works for them regarding the sequence they do things.
A lot depends on their requirements for quality and volume.
If your system works for you and produces what you need, well and good.
The unexamined life is not worth living....Socrates
Pain, is just weakness leaving the body....USMC
Fast is fine, but accuracy is FINAL!....Wyatt Earp
You make some great points from a machinist's perspective. It reminds me a little of something my first machine tool instructor said, on the first day of class many, many years ago. He said there were two things he didn't want to ever hear in his class: "Perfect" and "Good enough". What he wanted to see were projects that were "in spec".
He said if anyone brought him a machine project and told him it was perfect, he would find a better measuring tool and show that it wasn't, and if we ever asked him if something was good enough, he would ask in return if it was in spec. If the spec on the project was ±.001" and we brought him a part that was three thousandths out, he would reject it as shoddy work. Conversely, if the spec was ±.1" and we spent a half hour making it "perfect", we would be in trouble for wasting time. In a shop either one will get you fired.
Since each of us is loading for ourselves, we determine our own specs, and our time is ours to waste. I reject my own work as shoddy occasionally, even though it may well be in spec and acceptable by some standards.
Last edited by fatelk; 09-15-2018 at 10:49 PM.
I like that. I like that A LOT.
When Dad & I were heavy into Highpower in the '90's and early '00's, we were integrating a lot of the Benchrest loading techniques we picked up reading Precision Shooting Magazine. The reality we woke up to is that Highpower requires 1 MOA results for perfect scores and that, in a standing/ sitting/prone/rapid fire game like that, 1 MOA is nearly impossible to achieve no matter how good the ammo is.
Any more, my process is to ask "What is this gun or ammo for?" before I even get started. Over the years, Pop and I have refined our load workup process so that we frontload the anal-retentive stuff in the development phase and can pretty much mass produce good results thereafter, but I no longer DEMAND that deer rifles and defensive handguns shoot cloverleaf groups at impractical ranges. Life is just too dang short.
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
I'm in the mixed bag camp. I have two rifles that I am very particular about. One is my old high power ar with about 4,500 rounds through it and I'm starting to have to chase the lands a little to keep it around 1/2 MOA. The other is a custom 28 nosler with less than 200 yards through it, but it's a lightweight build and needs precision loading to stay at MOA and the same POI out to 400 yards. On the other hand, I have Swedish Mausers that are very happy and accurate with most anything I feed them, and 1911s that I load for on the progressive press using barely sorted boolits from the master caster and 100% mixed range brass. My 1911 "games" gun has somewhere over 100,000 rounds through it at this point and I have never seen any appreciable difference in accuracy between my mass produced ammo and very carefully weighed and measured ammo in it, so I don't bother. I think in general the accuracy of all of my handguns has a lot more to do with how many rounds I manage to shoot through them each year, than how carefully I load for them.
Most of my guns were bought used, so I have no idea how many rounds were fired in them. I don’t count the number of rounds fired in either them or the few new ones I have.
I keep records of the loads I test for accuracy, which are five shot groups of loads that go from minimum to maximum powder charge for a given load. Once the optimum charge is obtained, I set the powder measure and live with the variation.
If I fire a group or two in the future off the bench, I might record it to show the load proves out. If I’m target shooting or plinking, it might be years before I put another notation in the notebook for that particular gun. Of course, if I try a new powder or boolit, the process is recorded again. The powder measure settings for the optimum loads of the various powders are recorded, and I check them on the scale at start and every ten throws. I record the given load data on a piece of paper in the ammo box.
Bookkeeping is only of interest to me to the extent that it gets me good loads. The point is shooting, as far as I’m concerned.
That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell. You can spend as much time & effort as you desire but there are diminishing returns and practical limitations. As I said earlier, this topic breaks down into doing things because of personality traits and doing things to achieve specific results.
I reload for a heavy barrel 308 and it will make 1 hole cloverleaf's in paper at 100 yards all day long. But that's shooting from a bench at a piece of paper. Fun, but not terribly useful.
I shoot far more handgun than rifle these days and I see no need to put the same time & effort into my loading practices with handgun cartridges to achieve a result that just will not matter.
However, if other people enjoy that effort they certainly can do as they please.
I think I've shot everything competitive except shotgun. I just never did get into that. But my 45acp goes through the Dillon. I have a couple of hundred match cases for it. But that's not too bad.
The 223 goes through the Dillon. I did everything on it by hand until I got a real sweet shooting load. Then I adjusted the Dillon to make them like that. All other rifles get done one at a time.
My benchrest rifles get everything weighed and measured multiple times. We made and sold benchrest bullets for several years. When my health got to the point I had to take too much medications. I made up what I had started and just quit.
The one thing I would say to a beginning handloader has been said on here dozens of time in the thread, BE CAREFUL !
Thanks for the time.
Victor
Be careful,
Victor
Life member NRA
Reloading on a progressive loader is pretty much the same thing as running a Turret Lathe. The end result is a completed part.
The rule in the machine shop for producing parts is, "Find out what works,,, and do that."
The same holds true for a progressive loader or even a single stage loader. You figure out what you have to do to produce an acceptable round and then repeat the process.
This is what loading ammunition is all about.
Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
Most interesting and informative thread.Thanks for posting.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo
People never lie so much as after a hunt,during a war,or before an election.
Otto von Bismarck
Very informative thread!!!!
I am particular and I am not so particular, but there are lines I won't cross. I have been ultra carful and had bad results and more or less slapped rounds together and had phenomenal results, that's why I am still learning (only been handloading 31 years).
An old guy at the range once told me "I don't reload I handload, anyone can jerk a handle on a reloading press".
Took me a while to figure that perfect statement out, and it's true. I haven't reloaded since, now I handload, fliers and keyholes included.
Be safe
When you read the fine print you get an education
when you ignore the fine print you get experience
Although my ammunition is reloaded with new components , they are custom loads worked up for particular firearm . I take offense to my ammunition being labeled as reloads , most shooters cannot comprehend the effort that goes into producing a good worked up custom load . But to lighten things up a bit , I suppose after all the work up I produce reloaded ammo .
I am picky of who I am around that I shoot around and I am picky on who is around me when I do reloading and also gun safety ,but not on how many rounds that is shot in a gun or how many times brass been use or shotgun hulls use.It works for me. I know each have there own way of things also. I have my own range and stick with that.
Life Member of NRA,NTA,DAV ,ITA. Also member of FTA,CBA
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |