Clean up.
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Clean up.
Waited about 45 minutes for my lube to flow in my sizer.
Wondered what was taking so long to heat up.
Realized I had ran it dry exactly when o finished the last batch of lube sizing.
Dropped a partial stick of old NRA lube I found in a box of stuff and quit for the night.
I’ll try again later this week
I loaded 400 rounds of 9 mm.
But far more worthy of comment was that I had a powder spill. The powder measure retaining bolt worked loose and eventually the whole measure reared up as the empty case riding up the ram pushed on the powder/flare die. Then the fail safe return rod tilted the whole shebang over; nearly a whole pound of powder ended up on the floor.
Well, fortunately the spill was directly away from the open element heat dish I use to heat my basement reloading area (still, I need to think some more on fire safety, here). I swept it all up, ending up with powder mixed with floor sweepings. Maybe I should have dumped it all into my wife's garden plot, but I'm a cheap SOB, and did my best to salvage that $35/pound imported powder.
First thing was to run the powder through a sieve to get out the hair and large shreds of paper and wood shavings. Then I put everthing in a big plastic shallow pan and shook it up repeatedly. The light debris rose to the top over this extruded short grained powder, to be picked out laboriously after each shaking. The small heavy dirt particles stayed on the bottom of the pan, but also tended to stay behind when the pan was tilted and the powder granules rolled downhill, to be taken out by dabbing with adhesive tape.
What was left looked OK and loaded fine. Retesting of velocity and accuracy pends.
Trimmed another 40 9X19 to 9X18.
Just received my BT Sniper one step 9X19 to .40 jacketed bullet swaging die. The brass on the samples extends slightly past the lead so I may have to keep trimming for those as well. I like a jacketed soft nose.
Primed a few 9mm cases.
Sized and primed 1,003 new Starline 44 Mag cases. The Cyber Monday Starline Hat is nice. Loaded 200 #503s over 20g of 2400, my regular diet.
Loaded 100 rounds of 200 grain RF in 45acp cases.
Cast 500 Lee 452-200-RF.
Loaded 100 rounds 9mm with 120TC.
Took the 45acp cases out of the tumbler that had been going during the rest of the stuff.
Getting ready for the big move to the new house. We've been doing little moves for a while, things that either the movers won't move or that we don't want them to handle. I set up the Magma Case Master II to full length size a collection of .40 S&W brass, both range pickups and some I had purchased here, hoping to get a jump start on getting back to reloading after the move. I added a support to the base the Case Master II is mounted on that will hold the case feeder off of the Dillon 650. It really speeds up the process. I need to fun maybe 3000 pieces through the Case Master II. The Case Master II utilizes a modified Dillon carbide sizing die that has the taper ground straight. It pushes the case all the way through the die much like some of the press mounted dies but is based on an arbor press with a mechanism to load the cases into the sizing area quickly. It will size about 15 cases/minute.
Forecast in a couple of days is pretty bad so I hope to get to some powder coating and more full length sizing and then load up a few thousand rounds for USPSA matches before moving.
Spent a few hours loading a few 9mm.
Attachment 231621
Local mans basement found to contain an arsenal and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
That's the headline if the MSM got into my basement. Looks like Danedgli is in that same league.
I trimmed another 50 9X19 to 9X18mm.
Yesterday morning I switched the dies in my Star sizer and started sizing a couple of gallon jugs full of H&G 68's. After I got tired of sizing I started in to organize my loaded ammo stash. I've slowly started moving the loaded rounds from directly in ammo cans to ZipLoc bags in ammo cans. And counting/labeling them. While empty I'm also spraying the lid gaskets with silicon spray.
Today I'll start back on the bullet sizing.
Primed 500 10mm auto starliner brass. I will probably trin another 50 +- 9X19 to 9X18.
This week was all about a couple different cast boolits in the 30-30 . So wile the little darling was out of town for the week I spent a lot of time working out 2 different NOE cast boolits . The first is a plain base 311-165 that I want to shoot pop cans with and after trying multiple powder charges with a couple different powders I came back to where I started - yep a light charge of unique keeps the group's tight out to 50 yards , but I still had fun shooting a hundred rounds or so trying to better it . My second project was to get the NOE 311-180 FN gas check boolits to run a bit faster so I played with imr 4350 and it is showing promise , I just wish I got along better with that side mount scope it just feels wrong . But I'm having a blast - I have put more rounds through my Sears model 54 this year with cast boolits than the last 25 years all together .
Loaded up 200 rounds of 44 Mag.
Lee TL430-240SWC, sized .431, tumbled with BLL twice.
13.5gr AA#7, S&B LPP, new Starline brass.
~1125 fps from my 9.5" Super Redhawk, and almost a one-hole group at 50 yds. Need to practice more
Got 2000 more .40 S&W cases push through sized on the Case Master II. I think 2000 is my daily limit. This is the most strenuous reloading activity I've ever done. I've had the Case Master II for 10-11 years but in the past have sized hundreds at a time, not thousands. Tweaked my technique and have the cyclic rate up to 30-32/minute but due to having to do other things it takes over an hour to do 1000. Hope I don't trash my right arm doing this. I still have a bunch to go.