Animal
06-10-2014, 12:03 AM
I bought 2 boxes of Hornaday .310 123gr SST bullets (100 per box) from my LGS. I've been wanting to dabble into reloading for my AK. Why? Because, I want to, and I'm pretty sure I heard it ask me to once. I decided to start with j-word bullets. The AK and Jacketed bullets seem to go together like Moon Pies and RC cola, so I thought that would be a good place to start before getting involved with alloys, lubes, temps, molds and hours of casting (I make casting an all day affair, it's just more efficient that way for me). So, I worked my load from Hornaday data. And before I knew it, I burned through the first box of bullets. Sheesh! It felt like I had someone standing in front of me saying "if you would like to load more bullets, you'll need to pay 27.99 for an additional box of bullets." I had another box, but I started burning through those pretty fast too. I wondered, "gee, will I have to buy a third box just to enjoy the load that I've tested and settled on? That'll set me back 80 bucks!"
I looked around my loading bench. I've got a 3lb lead muffin ingot just laying there so that I can smack it with my kinetic hammer when I need to pull a bullet. I then noticed my second 3lb ingot that rest on the base of my balance scale. I put it there just to add a little security from minor bumps against the table that might cause an inaccurate reading of the scale. I then noticed my 3rd 3lb ingot sitting on top of my puny little Hornaday powder trickler. It sets there just to add a little weight to prevent my clumsy hands from knocking it around when I trickle powder. I did the math. I had 63,000 grains worth of bullets just setting on my table because I have plenty to spare, and those ingots were able to serve a different purpose. Paper weights! that is all they are. Yet, I bought 200 bullets for 55 bucks and I had 420 bullets that cost a few pennies just sun-bathing on my bench.
Times like this make me understand why "jacket" is nearly a cuss word on this web-site. "J-word" is much more civil. Thanks folks, just had to get that off my chest.
I looked around my loading bench. I've got a 3lb lead muffin ingot just laying there so that I can smack it with my kinetic hammer when I need to pull a bullet. I then noticed my second 3lb ingot that rest on the base of my balance scale. I put it there just to add a little security from minor bumps against the table that might cause an inaccurate reading of the scale. I then noticed my 3rd 3lb ingot sitting on top of my puny little Hornaday powder trickler. It sets there just to add a little weight to prevent my clumsy hands from knocking it around when I trickle powder. I did the math. I had 63,000 grains worth of bullets just setting on my table because I have plenty to spare, and those ingots were able to serve a different purpose. Paper weights! that is all they are. Yet, I bought 200 bullets for 55 bucks and I had 420 bullets that cost a few pennies just sun-bathing on my bench.
Times like this make me understand why "jacket" is nearly a cuss word on this web-site. "J-word" is much more civil. Thanks folks, just had to get that off my chest.