Hey all
I was on a roll. After having all the various issues I have documented here getting my reloading & casting going, I had finally hit a stride.
I was 94 rounds into this session. Only 4 needed to be pulled due to slightly loose projectiles. Roughly a 4% failure rate at this point, even with my reloading bench giving up the ghost. Keep in mind I was getting 20-25% failure rate previously. That poor table won't hold together much longer.
And then I had something even more fun happen. Nothing went bang - but something snapped.
The design of the press makes that handle tend to unscrew a lot. I re-tighten it by hand every time before I put an upstroke into it. But, it broke clean & crisp right in the middle of the threads. What's odd is the foam-like texture of the core of the handle. I haven't seen steel look like that before.
This press was given to me by my father to learn on. It's a CH press, and they apparently have a lifetime warranty on it, so I put in a support request with them.
If it's not under warranty, I might have just clarified what I want for Christmas.