What did you do in the reloading room recently?

Michael J. Spangler said:
I knew I would be hearing from you.
I think 14.6 was the accuracy load in the Lyman manual.
Sounds good enough for me. I'll load some up tomorrow. Got distracted tonight.
You don't have a 357 lever do you? Just the 44?
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No I use to have both but sold the Henry 357 to fund another purchase...
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
Loaded 130 of the 357/158 JSP
I think I said speer before but they're sierra brand.

I sorted some 38/357 brass I had tumbled a few weeks back. There was probably 100 357 mixed into 2 gallons of 38 brass. I just grab a handful, stand them up on the bench and look for the taller ones. Anyone have a better method for sorting your 357 out of your 38 brass? I know I should just keep them separate in the range bag but it seems some 357 always finds it way in.
A little bit of me dies every time I send a 357 into the expander set up for 38 special.

I had loaded some 357 with coasted cast a couple months back. When I shot them I ended up getting some decent leading. I had about 150 left and upon examination of the loaded rounds and the coated bullets on the bench I realized that instead of coated the cast 3 times I must have only coated twice because they were pretty spotty. Talk about a disappointment.
I'm going to fire a bunch of the lead and then chase them with a few of the JSP and back to the lead until they're all gone.

Did I mention I hate pulling bullets?
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Lol yeah it sucks. I sold off all my 38 spl brass and now just use 357 brass for magnum and really 357 loads (38 spl really). Also don't get any carbon rings in the cylinder.
 
Eric H said:
Oops, I really meant to say neck-size die. I was thinking neck-size but wrote small based by mistake, when I first started learning about reloading I thought small-based die was the same thing as a neck size die, I guess I'm still trying to get rid of that habit. Thanks for the catch!
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Gotcha. I dunno what EC's opinion is on neck sizing is(worth finding out though), but as someone who, over the past year, has gotten pretty deep into precision reloading, I would advise you to do a ton of research before you spend money on neck sizing dies.

I'm finding that, through experience and reading, unless you have a custom barrel/chamber, the only benefits to strictly neck sizing is that you work the brass less and get to size w/o lubing. I've found neck sized stuff to actually be less accurate in my 700 sps. There are pretty technical reasons for why this is/could be, that I can't remember enough of to get into here, but you can find them if you want to.

I wasted dough on a forster neck sizing die and bushings when I really shouldn't have. I wish I had just put that money towards a nice FLS die, like a redding type S or something along those lines. Remember, even neck sized brass will need to be FLS every now and then, so you should have a decent FLS die on hand anyways.

Just friendly advice, hopefully you can get into it w/o blowing some of the cash that I have on stuff I didn't really need. Zediker's handloading for competition has been a wealth of info. He advises against neck sizing, except for serious benchrest shooters with very custom rifles.
 
josh2600 said:
Gotcha. I dunno what EC's opinion is on neck sizing is(worth finding out though), but as someone who, over the past year, has gotten pretty deep into precision reloading, I would advise you to do a ton of research before you spend money on neck sizing dies.

I'm finding that, through experience and reading, unless you have a custom barrel/chamber, the only benefits to strictly neck sizing is that you work the brass less and get to size w/o lubing. I've found neck sized stuff to actually be less accurate in my 700 sps. There are pretty technical reasons for why this is/could be, that I can't remember enough of to get into here, but you can find them if you want to.

I wasted dough on a forster neck sizing die and bushings when I really shouldn't have. I wish I had just put that money towards a nice FLS die, like a redding type S or something along those lines. Remember, even neck sized brass will need to be FLS every now and then, so you should have a decent FLS die on hand anyways.

Just friendly advice, hopefully you can get into it w/o blowing some of the cash that I have on stuff I didn't really need. Zediker's handloading for competition has been a wealth of info. He advises against neck sizing, except for serious benchrest shooters with very custom rifles.
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Thanks for the advice, I definitely appreciate it! That's a very interesting perspective as well and at this point I'm no where close to installing a custom or aftermarket barrel on my Savage Model 10, or even a custom rig. I know I still have a bit of research to do in regards to rifle cartridge reloading, I'll definitely check into the Zediker's source.
 
josh2600 said:
I've found neck sized stuff to actually be less accurate in my 700 sps. There are pretty technical reasons for why this is/could be, that I can't remember enough of to get into here, but you can find them if you want to.
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I've found the same thing to be true. There are several opinions as to why this might be.

I think it has to do with non-concentricity and the bullet's ability to center itself in the leade.

Since the neck-sized case was fire formed, it is more or less an exact fit to the chamber. If the case and chamber were perfectly conecentric, it wouldn't matter how the case happened to be oriented (a.k.a. rotated) the next time it was loaded and inserted into the chamber. But the chamber and especially the case are not pefectly concentric, so if you happen to place the reloaded round into the chamber so that the thick side of the case was where the thin side was when you fired it, the bullet would be shoved hard against one side of the leade, which affects the accuracy (and not in a good way).

If the case were full-length sized instead, there would be a little bit of "wiggle room" around the case, so that the bullet will pilot into the leade and have room to self-center.

Bench rest shooters use custom rifles and turn the necks of their cases, so non-concentricity isn't a problem.
 
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I consolidated a hundred small baggies, boxes and what not filled with brass into one 5 gallon bucket. The stuff was EVERYWHERE.

I also sorted about 3000 pieces of brass from my 2 day class at Sig. I now have about 2000 pieces of 9mm brass all the same brand. Perfect for if I ever decide to shoot centerfire bulls eye and wnat everything to have the same headstamp. Which is something I don't worry about now when reloading pistols.

Don
 
Sized probably 15 pounds of 200 grain 45 hollow points and 250 grain 45 SWCs.
I'm planning on loading the SWCs over a stout charge of unique or universal in 45 auto rim cases. Can't wait to mess with them.
Might make up some round ball loads for contrast. Some 454 or so round balls with some bullseye.


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Got into a nice groove and ran about 1500 rounds of 223 through the Tri-Way, then loaded 100 with 55gr sp Hornady. Got a nice blood blister on my index finger from running so many through.
 
Rob Boudrie said:
Painted the floor.

Helpful hint: If you buy a new house, paint the basement floor before moving in the safe and workbenches.
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Excellent tip sir, but it goes against everything I do to make my life more difficult when it comes to this stuff. That would go along with painting the bench before I mount my presses on it, which I did not do and wish I did.
 
rcoolbaugh said:
Wait till you drop a box of primers .... or bunch of bullets onto it ....
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Yup. That is why I went with a solid matt, something like this:

6956568131936.jpg
 
rcoolbaugh said:
Wait till you drop a box of primers .... or bunch of bullets onto it ....
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Nah..... i run a tidy operation.... no willy-nilly flinging primers around.... either way, the mats lift up easily enough...

More likely is a single primer jumping out of my 650....

I wanted something breathable because i get a river through there when we get a good rain.... that's also one reason why i screwed hockey pucks to the bottom of the bench feet
 
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I have a lot of 6.5CM load development to do.

Also going to brew up some 10mm handloads with 165gr gold dots, probably keep them around 1300fps.
 
Making a few test loads for .45-70 Gov't.
Once I have someone with a Trapdoor or similar firearm, I guess I'll see which bullet profiles will work and which ones won't...



Ended up turning some of the 530g bullets down on the ShopSmith to a more respectable 485g to 500g.
 
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I recently loaded a few hundred 38sp rounds with 125GN plated bullets over 3.1 of Bullseye and they are very accurate and easy shooting. I had some 357 cases so I loaded 20 or so with 6.8 of Bullseye and the same bullets. They were all over the paper. Same gun same shooter. I know Bullseye is not the greatest powder for 357 loads but would it cause the lack of accuracy. I also bought the 125's by accident, I wanted 158's
6.8 was on the low end of the suggested powder charge.
 
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Cast up 10# or so of MP454-200 hollow points and coated another 10# mix of those bullets and some NOE copy of the 453423.

Now for sizing


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Michael J. Spangler said:
Cast up 10# or so of MP454-200 hollow points and coated another 10# mix of those bullets and some NOE copy of the 453423.

Now for sizing


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Nice. Loaded the last of your ~310 gr powder coated 44 bullets with 20 gr of H110. It was funny when I noticed I had the exact amount of clean 44 brass needed to load the bullets you sent me lol. Thanks again.

Also continued loading more 9mm using 125 gr JHP and 4 gr of N320 for IDPA matches and just blasting at the range.
 
andrew1220 said:
Nice. Loaded the last of your ~310 gr powder coated 44 bullets with 20 gr of H110. It was funny when I noticed I had the exact amount of clean 44 brass needed to load the bullets you sent me lol. Thanks again.

Also continued loading more 9mm using 125 gr JHP and 4 gr of N320 for IDPA matches and just blasting at the range.
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That's awesome! I love it when a plan comes together.

I need to blast some more 44s so I have all my brass ready to run a batch. I hate not having enough brass. A few hundred is not enough.
Too much to blast in one night. Too few to bother loading a batch until all of them are shot up.
Not worth changing over the 550 to load up 100 of them. Then changing back to load more 45s or 38s just to change back to 44 the following week.
Blah!
I need to order 1000 44 brass
 
Just started load development for my 6.5 Creedmoor.

I didn't do any brass prep...just took it out of the Hornady bag and loaded it.

Still shot 4 groups in a row in the high .2x and low .3x MOA range.

Savage can build a freakin barrel, that's for damn sure.
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
That's awesome! I love it when a plan comes together.

I need to blast some more 44s so I have all my brass ready to run a batch. I hate not having enough brass. A few hundred is not enough.
Too much to blast in one night. Too few to bother loading a batch until all of them are shot up.
Not worth changing over the 550 to load up 100 of them. Then changing back to load more 45s or 38s just to change back to 44 the following week.
Blah!
I need to order 1000 44 brass
Click to expand...

Yeah I hate not having enough clean brass also. But I don't mind swapping back and forth between calibers as it only takes me 5 minutes at most to change over. Though I need a few additional minutes to adjust the powder measure...

I'm pretty much set on 44 mag brass for a while. I probably have ~1k pieces now if I had to guess.
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
That's awesome! I love it when a plan comes together.

I need to blast some more 44s so I have all my brass ready to run a batch. I hate not having enough brass. A few hundred is not enough.
Too much to blast in one night. Too few to bother loading a batch until all of them are shot up.
Not worth changing over the 550 to load up 100 of them. Then changing back to load more 45s or 38s just to change back to 44 the following week.
Blah!
I need to order 1000 44 brass
Click to expand...

What you need is another 550 or two [smile]
 

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