Time off. Good weather, decided to load some hulls

[Soundguy]

Got off work early today..air was still about 71'... Felt like some reloading. I had been charging my power tool batteries and noticed my hull skivver and roll crimper in the drills and thought... You know what..not much shotgun food on my shelves..might as well crank some out. I use lee load all II's mostly..plus some hand tools I've rigged up.

Before the wifey got home, ended up making a box of #7.5, #4, #4 Buck, 00 Buck, and 7/8 oz reduced recoil slugs. I dripped a bunch of shot last year and make my own buck and slugs. Most of my hulls are pickups from the range..then sorted and cleaned.

Today I ran federal top guns and Winchester AA. I much prefer win hulls I must say. Unfortunately about 1500 of my stash are rem sts..and less than a quarter of my stash are AA.. And the rest are top guns... Have 2 13g bags of not yet sorted hulls.. One day to go thru.

Ran myself pretty much out of my hand punched fiber spacer wads..had just enough to finish.

Worked on my roll crimping and have finally got it where I like it. Normally with these lee drive key slugs I just fold crimp them.. But I save my hulls that are otherwise ok..but have boogered up fold crimp areas..and trim and roll them. I was having mixed luck until I found a new lube to use on the rotary roll crimp tool. I've tried motor oil and beeswax and natural oils with limited success..but now found a winner. A tube of synthetic brake parts grease..just a dot on a toothpick run around the roll crimp guide in the tool and it's the easiest roll crimps I've done yet.

Ready for dinner now!

[William Yanda]

Thanks for sharing, that lube choice sounds like a winner.

[Soundguy]

Yeah I really think the lube made most of the difference for me I had been trying other Lubes but it was still allowing the top of the Roll crimp to smear instead of heat up and roll and this synthetic break grease is just like magic unfortunately it's about $8 for a tube the size of my thumb however it only takes a DOT the size of a toothpick so it'll probably last a long time.

[Jungle Dave]

I might try that grease. I've used just about everything and my roll crimps have always looked like...well...bad. The best I've come up with so far is some beeswax lip balm I had in my pocket one day. It has worked best so far, but my crimps are still crinkly. Never a neat roll. I run in the drill press at speed everyone says to run at, and let it run on the top of shell for a few seconds and then ease it down. I came to the point that I quit worrying about it, the shells are always fine and shoot good, so it's just a matter of how they look instead of any real function. But gonna keep trying.

[Soundguy]

Try that grease it might help you I was doing about the same thing as you easing it before putting pressure and they always had wrinkles or something going on but this new synthetic grease really seem to help. This morning I sat outside with some Thin and Thick cardboard and some punches and made myself a tupperware container full of Wads since I pretty much ran out yesterday that was nice that the weather was cool.