What did you do in the reloading room today?

[Photog]

Cast about 375 of the Lee 358-125R pistol boolits out of GT Bullets 96-2-2 alloy. Takes no time at all with a 6 cavity mold and bottom pour pot. Maybe 2 hours TOTAL with set up.

[openbook]

Recent updates: did some plywood cutting and knocked together the frame for the top section of my reloading bench. Cast about 200 Lee 452-230-TCs from wheelweights and some 22, 9mm, and 45-70 bullets. Lubed and sized the 230-gr boolits and loaded 100 rounds with Titegroup. Tested 25 of them, I found that I was getting an unacceptable amount of setback in the 1911, not in the magazine during recoil, but when chambering. Some research and learned that the 1911 has a reputation for this. For these rounds I'm going to apply a slightly stronger crimp until they're acceptable, but I also suspect that not letting the tumble lube cure completely before loading played a role. More to experiment with.

[460S&W]

I loaded up 200 rounds of 40 with some powder coated cast to test out!

[Soundguy]

Finally sat down and loaded up some 30 Super carry with cast bullets. 93 grain. same as I use in my 327 federal revolver. Going to test them today at lunch. data called for small rifle primers. Hope my Shield likes them. Pictured are the loads with a single factor flat nose jacketed in the middle for reference.

[35 Rem]

I cast a full 20lb Lee pot into the LEE 452-228-1R bullet. Should be something like 550. I love that mold, it drops bullets like water running out of a faucet. I've developed a load with this bullet using some military surplus powder I got recently on Gunbroker that works perfectly in both my 1911's so I'm going to load up all my brass with it and shoot em up.

[firefly1957]

I previously posted about some 40 grain all copper Nosler bullets coming apart leaving the bore of my XP-100 .221 fireball I wondered if the rifling may have been causing them to fracture . I put some in gray 30 caliber sabots and loaded them over a charge of IMR-3031 that gives a 100 grain short jacket bullet 3200 f/s (30-06) . All of them got to various targets 25 yard group was three inches between poor accuracy and sabots I did not shoot them over the chronograph but speed must have been good as the 46 grain bullet/sabot combination recoiled about like factory ammo and primers looked about normal for 30-06 .
Two blew thought a 55 gallon steel drum the plug of steel from the first side exited and so did globs of copper . A hit on a 3/8" steel plate made a impressive crater that had a copper coating .
If they did not shoot much lover then point of aim they might be fun for small vermin at close range .

[35 Rem]

I previously posted about some 40 grain all copper Nosler bullets coming apart leaving the bore of my XP-100 .221 fireball I wondered if the rifling may have been causing them to fracture . I put some in gray 30 caliber sabots and loaded them over a charge of IMR-3031 that gives a 100 grain short jacket bullet 3200 f/s (30-06) . All of them got to various targets 25 yard group was three inches between poor accuracy and sabots I did not shoot them over the chronograph but speed must have been good as the 46 grain bullet/sabot combination recoiled about like factory ammo and primers looked about normal for 30-06 .
Two blew thought a 55 gallon steel drum the plug of steel from the first side exited and so did globs of copper . A hit on a 3/8" steel plate made a impressive crater that had a copper coating .
If they did not shoot much lover then point of aim they might be fun for small vermin at close range .

That is weird how the same bullet could behave so differently. I've always assumed pure copper/gilding metal etc. bullets could be driven at any speed with no possibility of fragmentation. Certainly hard to believe it could ever happen with a 221 Fireball in the pistol length barrel. You know that 30-06 sabot load was faster.

[Rapier]

I ran six 308 cases in the FL 358 Win die. Assized is hey are .017” short. So I will try fire forming by using long bullets in the lands and case lube on the case to see the cases will grow a bit with the 6 cases. If they do not grow I will go searching for factory 358 Win brass.
With the rotation method they did not pull the mouth down to one side.

[dondiego]

Shot my Uzi with a bunch of 147 grain bullets...... waiting for the Jericho suppressor. Shouldn't need earmuffs any more when that comes in..........

[Good Cheer]

After making a batch of chicken fried steak checked the as-cast diameters on some hollow base molds of nominally .44 and .45 diameter. Looking for a common bore diameter and which molds could work as lubed lead and which mite get machined for a smooth sided paper patch. Working my way towards a light weight percussion rifle with octagonal to round barrel, somewhere between a .45 Colt and a .45-70.

[Targa]

Loaded some .400 grain’rs for the .475 Linebaugh.

[B1GB1RD]

I cast 120+ #s of ingots to cast my .358 155gr ILSA bullets, then I proceeded to screw up (literally) my mold, have a new screw coming, its the step down one that goes at the pivot point, oops. All good.

[Mandoair]

Sorted a 1/2 bucket of range brass and organized the room a little. Made up my mind as to what test loads to make up for the next trip to the range. Also inventoried my primers and powder stash. Amazing how fast the pwd disappears loading 5.56 compaired to something like 9mm.

[firefly1957]

35 Rem I suspect the rifling is breaking up the bullets ?

I am not sure what I am doing with the rest of the bullets I have few left now I am wondering what would be left of one hit with a hammer on a anvil....

[Rapier]

I made up a couple more "as formed" 358 Win cases from 308 brass to see if they might feed in a M-96 Mauser action. This is an as formed on a 96 follower, so far so good, used a Rem RN 200 just for feed testing. I need a mag spring, on the way. Now if everything works, I may need to turn and chamber a barrel. If everything works I will make a cast bullet rifle on the 96 action.

[Rockindaddy]

Just acquired a Dillon 550 set up for 45 ACP. Have an old CH inline progressive that turns out 45 ACP too. But this Dillon 550 is a bit hard to get used to. Turned out about 200 rounds today. The manual indexing is a pain as my Dillon RL1000 and Super 1050 automatically index. Everything went ok till one of those Federal small primer empties got into the mix and went past my old eyes and into the automatic case feeder. The air turned blue as the large primer feeder tries to push a large primer into the small primer Federal cartridge case. I feed several 1911's, a SIG P220, and an old M1A1 Thompson that is registered to me. I go through alot of 45 ACP ammo. I buy ammo usually a 1000 rds at a time but will not buy Blaiser or Federal small primer ammo. When sorting brass the Blaiser and Federal go right into the scrap. Why would these companies market this junk? After so many years of 45 ACP using a large pistol primer, they decide to change and market ammo with a small pistol primer???? Maybe they do not want their empty cases reloaded! I tell many friends and shooters not to buy their junk ammo! Pain in the ass to reload. Federal and Blaiser should go to Berdan primers! Am tired of my priming systems choking up on small primer 45 ACP brass!

[Thin Man]

I had a need for 30-40 Krag brass. I got down the Krag die set and ran a handful of .303 British brass through the sizing die and got very satisfactory Krag brass. The British cases are about .100" shorter than the Krag, but with that in mind I will never have to trim these replacements.

[Texas by God]

Custom fit a screwdriver bit(convex) to adjust the windage on my brother’s Walther PPQ.
And I put a brand new old stock firing pin in my most used Nylon66. I had a hard time believing that it needed one- but it did.


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[B1GB1RD]

So with the mold down, I decided to make my own lube, read a lot of posts on the lube, how to mix, heat, etc etc, and how to make the molds. Made the molds out of pvc, used aluminum dowels, and mixed my 1st batch of "NRA" lube, new style I guess cause I used lucas red, came out pretty darn good, made 6 sticks, I m excited to use it in the ole lube o matic, let ya know.

[Gobeyond]

Spill powder, threw a primer into casting pot, made too much lube, rippled the necks of a box of brass with too hard lube. Every mistake in the book or not in the book. Ha.lol supposed to be funny.