What did you do in the reloading room recently?

Really need primers. I only have 1500 left. I never thought I would run out of reloading supplies. Trust me, this will be the first and last time. As soon as stuff is available again I am making a major investment powder and primers.
Small pistol primers I assume?

If so, are you opposed to CCI magnum SP or Federal match magnum SP? How about you @bigblue ?
 
I broke down 6 rounds of 9mm that was laying on the ground (in excellent condition) at the range over the weekend. Nice to score free primers and brass! [laugh]
No idea why people are leaving 9mm on the ground. That’s like $3 laying there...

Back in June it was, I think, I liberated nearly 300 rounds of Winchester steel cased 9mm from the dud can at MFS. Now that “USA Forged” 9mm is crap ammo, but still...I only had 3 or 4 of them give me any trouble. I will say, however, that one was failure to extract, and it was stuck in there pretty good. If someone had that happen early on, I can sort of understand, but it didn’t happen to me until almost the end.
 
Recently acquired some 6.5x55mm empties, so I'm loading them up with an assortment of toppings; mostly SGKs and other jacketed bullets.
My stash of coated bullets for economy loads is exhausted, so I guess it's time to call Norman.

BTW, anyone that doesn't reload 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5x50mm Japanese, 6.5x55mm Swedish, even 6.5x52mm Carcano (limited quantity of .267" diameter bullets), you are welcome to learn the basics of metallic cartridge reloading and test-fire your work onsite. While I have 6.5mm bullets, powder and primers, come down and roll some yourself. You'll have to provide brass.
Sorry, I don't have dies for 6.5 Grendel, .260 Remington, .264 Winchester Magnum, 26 Nosler or others.
 
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I haven't had problems using magnum rifle primers, I have no idea how magnum pistol primers would affect my recipes. Thoughts/experiences?
I know @kerryman71 compared SRP to SPP and only had a ~20 fps increase. So I'd imagine using magnum primers wouldn't be much different.

I think he posted his findings earlier in this thread.
 
Small pistol primers I assume?

If so, are you opposed to CCI magnum SP or Federal match magnum SP? How about you @bigblue ?
I am not opposed to them, just saying.

Supposedly, CCI small pistol magnum primers are the same as their small rifle primers. Same thickness, same amount of mix. Read that on another site, the gentleman said CCI confirmed it with him. I tried it just because, I'm still here.
 
Really need primers. I only have 1500 left. I never thought I would run out of reloading supplies. Trust me, this will be the first and last time. As soon as stuff is available again I am making a major investment powder and primers.
What ever you shoot per year X2 then another 1X to keep you in supply. Then reorder 1/2 way through your supply
5000 yr order 15000 then at 5-8000 used its time to reorder 10k
 
I haven't had problems using magnum rifle primers, I have no idea how magnum pistol primers would affect my recipes. Thoughts/experiences?

I don't have a lot of data on this handy, but I found some at hand:

BulletPrimerPowderChargenAvgStdevMinMaxSpread
140gr MBC TCFPFSPMUltimate Pistol7.55110315.51080111939
140gr MBC TCFPWSPUltimate Pistol7.5510967.01087110518
180gr MBC RNFPFSPMUltimate Pistol5.858966.888890416
180gr MBC RNFPWSPUltimate Pistol5.858939.188090525
180gr MBC WFNFSPMUltimate Pistol5.8586721.683789053
180gr MBC WFNWSPUltimate Pistol5.8585727.782688256

Unfortunately, this compares different brands, Winchester Small Pistol to Federal Small Pistol Magnum. In this data we see slightly less average velocity with the standard primers, but the difference is significantly smaller than the spread.
 
I know @kerryman71 compared SRP to SPP and only had a ~20 fps increase. So I'd imagine using magnum primers wouldn't be much different.

I think he posted his findings earlier in this thread.

Yes, I compared the Fiocchi SRP and Federal 100 SPP, both using 6.5 grains Hodgdon HS 6. The short of it was I fired 15 rounds each and got an avg of 1152 fps using the SPP and an avg of 1165 fps using the SRP.
 
today is week 12!

if my stuff isn't shipped by wk 14 i'm gonna ground them into dust! ;)
ok, off the topic of primers for a sec...

[cheers] got my blue bullet shipping notice this afternoon, 12 weeks and a day. they musta got word i was going to grind them into dust with a patented nes butt hurt boycott. [laugh] calling off the dogs now. this whole wait was to show everyone the patience i have, and perseverance.
 
This week I found out that after 20+ years of hard use, it is possible to completely jam the inner passage of a Dillon Square Deal-B press with spent primers. [shocked]

I was loading up some .40 loads and suddenly the primer seating station was getting jammed! The old primer was coming in on top of the fresh one at station #2. I of course suspected the de-capping pin to be broken but no. I took off the primer assembly and the shell-plate to discover that the internal passage used for primers to travel down to the collection cup was filled with about 70-80 primers. I had to dig them out with a pick, some compressed air, and a screwdriver. All good now!
 
ok, off the topic of primers for a sec...

[cheers] got my blue bullet shipping notice this afternoon, 12 weeks and a day. they musta got word i was going to grind them into dust with a patented nes butt hurt boycott. [laugh] calling off the dogs now. this whole wait was to show everyone the patience i have, and perseverance.

Coincidentally, I just got my shipping notice from RMR, 11 weeks and a day. Supposed to get here Thursday.
 
Well life has been crazy lately with renovating the new "condo," moving, taking a new job etc. but I finally found some time to setup my bench. Cranked out some 9mm on the SDB and then decided to swap over the 650 for the first time to 9mm. Kind of funny how much less effort the 650 is. I'm using a new set of Hornady dies with coated bullets and can't seem to get them to not scratch the coating off a bit. Not a big fan of their seat/crimp die setup. What I think is happening is it's crimping slightly before seating completely. Have my crimp set to .380. Never had this problem with the SDB or the Lee 4 die set that went missing on me. View attachment 401269
View attachment 401278
I love my Hornady dies but......I back out the crimp on the seat/crimp die and only seat the bullet with it. Then, crimp separately with a Lee crimping die.
 
If you only have the seater die, simply shim the die or back it out so the crimp does not interfere with the bullet seating operation.. You can then back out the seater top punch, remove the shim or readjust the lock ring, so the crimp will now contact the case mouth as required.
 
That's my current plan, seat with it and then crimp with a Lee FCD.

That's actually how I like to handle my heavy caliber roll crimps because you almost can't screw it up with the Lee FCD. On a jacketed bullet, if you want a really heavy crimp, you can flatten the case mouth into the cannelure without deforming the bullet and without squatting on the case. I can always get exactly the crimp I want from the Lee factory roll crimp dies. But for some reason I don't like the 9mm Lee Factor Taper Crimp Die at all. I just don't seem to need it. I'm just seating jacketed bullets, so I'm not flaring very much. A light crimp on the Hornady seating die seems to be all I need to take out what little flare there is--one less pull of the handle on my single-stage press.
 
I haven't had problems using magnum rifle primers, I have no idea how magnum pistol primers would affect my recipes. Thoughts/experiences?
Only the chrono could tell the difference. Doubt you'd notice otherwise. I went from a standard Fiocchi SPP to a Fiocchi Magnum SRP and only saw about 20FPS increase in my 9mm loads. I posted details in this thread: Help Needed. Small rifle primers in lieu of small PP
 
then crimp with a Lee FCD.

Be very careful.
F.C.D's and lead don't mix. I believe it even says so in the instructions that come with it.
This is where you use calipers to measure the case mouth after the fact, because it will undersize the lead like in that pic you posted a few weeks back.
 
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