What do you folks have for Brinnel testing ? I'm not sure I want the Lee model, and anything above is pretty pricey.
I gather wheel weights and bullet scrap that I recover; sometimes range pit collections. I drop into a bucket of water to provide a soft landing, but don't know what my hardness scale is. As long as I get good fill-out and can size, lube and reload them, they are good to go. All of my loads shoot better than I can, so I don't see the need to make things more complicated.
As mentioned before, unless I need something unique to my bullet-making capabilities, I have been buying coated bullets from Norman in Roswell, NM. His prices make it hard to justify lighting the Coleman stove.
Also, I don't recall when I last ran a brush down the bore of any of my rifles...
You might get better dimension control with a micrometer for measuring bullet diameters.
My go to bullet in .30 is the Lyman 311410. It is an M1 Carbine bullet, but I use it often in .308 Winchester (FR-7), 7.5 Swiss (K31). It could go atop a .30-30 Winchester, too, although it isn't the flattest tip around for tube magazines. Most rounds below are dummies...just for illustrative purposes.
It drops around .314", so it is great in 7.62x39/54R, 7.7 Jap, .303 British, 7.65 Argentine....
7.0g of Unique (virtually any pistol powder) makes for all-day, economical shooting.
Might not be your first pick for Whitetail hunting, but it kills paper, steel and bowling pins just fine. Even the 18g Plastic Riot bullets take the pins down!
