I just got done de greasing and cleaning up 2 brand new molds that arrived today. Lee TL 452-200-SWC and a Lee 452-255-RF. Cant wait to do some casting now.
Printable View
I just got done de greasing and cleaning up 2 brand new molds that arrived today. Lee TL 452-200-SWC and a Lee 452-255-RF. Cant wait to do some casting now.
Just spent a couple hours casting 310 gr bullets (lee 452-300), Water dropped. Will put on gas checks and lube and size tomorrow. Might load a few tomorrow for 454 casull. . . .
Decapped, resized and primed about 35 pieces of 30-06 berdan primed brass. I know I'm nuts to reload berdan primed brass but it is nice stuff and I have almost 2 bricks of berdan primers so why not;)?
Loaded several hundred 40cal, 165g plated and 180g cast. Love the 550
Went to the range and emptied a bunch of .308 found a bunch of 45 acp and some nice guy gave me his 30/30 and 270 brass. Now the rifle brass is soaking in Leme Shine and dish soap and a big bunch of 45 acp is in the tumbler.
It's been a good day so far.
Question for you about soaking in LS and detergent, I'm guessing that you tumble the brass later? If so Do you find soaking makes the actual tumbling faster or?
Just wondering as I've been wet tumbling for a while now and if soaking for a while was beneficial, I'd do it.
Keeping my little Rock tumbler from Hobby Lobby going with a load of approx 70 45ACP brass plus little stainless steel magnetic pins plus 1/ CC of Dawn plus a Lee dipper of Limishine and adding water to cover over everything.. Run time is as little as one hour some times. That is when the brass is not very dirty. Resluts ar e fantastic.
Working up a load for my Ruger Vaquero in 44 mag with 2400 powder and Modified Lee bullet 290 grain Hollow point. Start grains was 14.2 of 2400 powder and worked up 0.2 grains at a time. I have a bullet trap in my back yard and can load a test group, and then shoot them. It is better than having to load several different loads and wait until you can go to the range. My neighbors don't seem to mind as they shoot as well. We live on two to five acre tracts.
The modified bullet comes into existance by turning the Hollow Point form and drilling one hole in the mold.
My aim for this 290 grain HP bullet was to have some penetration and a lot of shock value for hunting pigs. After making the fourth model, I chose a less deep one than shown in the picture. I am trying to get the expansion to be from .600 to .700 diameter. The one that is shown casts a 270 grain bullet and shot into sand the expanded petals open and separate from the main bullet which mushrooms to 0.530 approx. and weighs around 187 grains and who knows where the petals go. We have pigs coming to the soured corn so my plan is to use one of these bullets for a real penetration/shock test. Then it will be time to report the findings here. Any way you look at it I am having fun and being as careful as possible working up the loads. 15.0 grains of 2400 seems to work very well.
Made a DIY ventilation system to blow the fumes out. Ugly but cheap and it seems to work. Hoping to fire the pot next weekend..
100 Lee TL358-158 SWC cast from 2/3/95 lead, twice tumbled in 45/45/10, pushed into some nickel plated 1x fired cases which brings me darn near the end of sized and trimmed 38 special brass.
Sorted head stamps on 8 lbs. of .223 range pickups that have been going through the vibrator in batches the last few days.
Going back down and adjust for doing some 357 magnum with same cast.... or maybe out to the garage, some scrap lead is calling to become ingots or the .430 TL SWC mold that just arrived could get prepped and used. Decisions decisions but it has been a bullet centered day.
Raining so not doing yard work :-) am going to finish assembly of metal chairs and small table DW picked up for porch. Man I remember when metal furniture was purchased already assembled, miss that. Nothing encourages precision fit and parts alignment like have the assembly guy walk across the plant and tell you he is going upside your head if you don't start making the parts right. I don't have time (or language skills) to go all the way to China to "discuss" these parts with the idiot that bent the bracing tabs so the screw holes don't line up.
One more reason to like casting and reloading, I make the parts and do the assembly, what do you know these American made parts fit. Or by golly I take them apart and make them right.
Spent a bunch of time trying to put PBGCs on my new NOE .432 265FN PB. They would not hold together. Would rip apart. Ended up trying some 45PB checks & could get about 80% to crimp correctly.
Loaded 5 up with 23gr H110 to test fire & cycle test in Rossi 92. All worked fine.
Then, loaded up 50rds between H110, 4227, Unique to shoot tomorrow.
Then finished sizing .432s putting GCs on about half.
Then sized & GCd new .501 385gr NOE. Actually both were new molds & the .501 with only 1 heating on the hot plate & smoking, dropped 3 out of the first 4 perfect. The .432 took a little more work.
Now I get to prep the new MP .501 400solid, 385 HP, I just received. Will try to cast after shooting tomorrow. Since it's going to be record breaking heat tomorrow I'll be shooting early so will have time to cast.
Hauled home a bucket full of once-fired (crimped primer) 223 bright shiny brass and sized-deprimed/swaged a bunch and primed ready for stuffing and shooting.
Loaded up another 50 of 7.62x54R and 50 of .308 of various loads.
Hope to shoot them next weekend weather permitting.
Slim
It's gonna rain some more!!! I organized my brass buckets. Lord help Southwest Louisiana. Hahahaha!!!
This afternoon I took my oldest (11yo) to the local indoor range, he seemed to have a good time. We went through 150 rounds of 9mm, and I hit the jackpot because the shooters in the 2 stalls next to us gave us their brass. I was running low on 9mm brass, but that gave me enough to tumble, so that's what I did today after getting back home and cleaning the gun.
Nothing.
Went out into the garage and deprimed and sized some 30-30. Just going into the garage in June is a giant step forward. My son and I blew in 16" of insulation in the attic and insulated the walls this spring. It is almost bearable. I need to get the portable ac unit hooked up and the doors insulated so I can work year round. I have a small reload area in the house, but casting and depriming remains out in the garage. Without the insulation when the Texas sun came out I would be completely soaked in about 5-10 minutes.
Finished swaging the pockets of over a K pieces of military Brass. My fingers are sore. Right hand can't see what lefty is doing. I also slightly swaged my index finger.