What did you do in the reloading room recently?

Cleaned off my reloading bench today and after sorting through all the culls and odd bullets and stuff that came in boxes from miscellaneous purchases, it's almost as cluttered as it was before I started.[banghead] .......but .....it's clean and all the brass trim shavings, spent primers that didn't make the tube when deprimed, all the frigged up brass that wasn't centered in the shell holder when resizing are cleaned up, all the brass is sorted, a single container contains all the miscellaneous defect bullets, all the dies are back in their respective cases and cleaned.
 
Stored the powder and primers I picked up over the weekend, updated inventory sheet as well.
Installed new grips on the M9A3
Rearranged 1 of the safes to better make use of the space
Pulled some bullets from some goofs
Plucked foam and put the Labradar in its new hard case
Tuned the trigger (set over travel and stop) on the CZ Czechmate
Did more research on what 77Gr projectile I am going to run on the new build
Put a nifty assortment of brews in the beer fridge
 
Cast some more MP 359-640 and handful of Lyman 457193.
The MP 359-640 is becoming my favorite 38/357 bullet and possibly my favorite mould to cast with overall. Old pic but this is it.
Then for S&G I figured I would weight up the bins and see how many of these I have on hand. Just over 2800 of them lined and sized waiting to be loaded.

4D485DA2-B4AC-4AB9-931A-DDDC65900D64.jpeg
 
Belled 1k .45acp primed brass getting them ready for loading and loaded three hundred 9mm, 124gr fmj over 4.0 gr of HPC-18 pulldown powder. A very productive day while it was blowing snow and rain outside.
 
Finished up loading a box of 115gn Zero JHP (350 ish) - was cleaning up and found a lost box of 500 more hiding behind about 30lbs of 125gn coated TC 356s.

The scale I added to the powder scale works great - easily see less than 0.1gn difference even though the lines are 0.2gn apart.

Then I got bored and modeled up some gears for my micromill to crank the spindle speed up to 4000 rpm. At 2k rpm I was stuck at about 4 ipm cutting speeds or risk snapping a $10 bit. Printed, installed and run in - now just need to edit some nc files to test it out.
Actually have to work tomorrow so probably won't get to change the press over to 380 to stock up for the pocket rockets.
 
My sons home from college. Just taught him how to set up the dies for 357 mag. Tokd him my stockpile of 357 was not where I need it to feel comfy letting him use any at the range tomorrow. So......I said I have a solution for that 🤣

Spent half hour teaching him how to set up the turret (had to change over from 45acp) and turned him loose.

125 grain JSP
9.5 grains unique

Its near max so I'm making him weigh each charge individually. Told him if you want to shoot your Henry carbine tomorrow you can shoot whatever you make tonight.

I'm still a bit upset over my 2400 powder debacle and am using unique which won't be as fun in the Henry but he will have something to shoot tomorrow.

I'm thinking once the supply comes back ill buy another can of 2400 and start again. When I loaded from the first can those loads are accurate and awesome velocity. Just sucks I had an issue with the second can...so for now its unique.
 
My sons home from college. Just taught him how to set up the dies for 357 mag. Tokd him my stockpile of 357 was not where I need it to feel comfy letting him use any at the range tomorrow. So......I said I have a solution for that 🤣

Spent half hour teaching him how to set up the turret (had to change over from 45acp) and turned him loose.

125 grain JSP
9.5 grains unique

Its near max so I'm making him weigh each charge individually. Told him if you want to shoot your Henry carbine tomorrow you can shoot whatever you make tonight.

I'm still a bit upset over my 2400 powder debacle and am using unique which won't be as fun in the Henry but he will have something to shoot tomorrow.

I'm thinking once the supply comes back ill buy another can of 2400 and start again. When I loaded from the first can those loads are accurate and awesome velocity. Just sucks I had an issue with the second can...so for now its unique.
I got a feeling anything you put through that carbine will be fun.
I need to get my 1873 out again soon. I absolutely love those 357 carbines.
 
I got a feeling anything you put through that carbine will be fun.
I need to get my 1873 out again soon. I absolutely love those 357 carbines.
I brought it to the club back in September for the open house. I had some friends showing up that had never shot before. Every newbie I handed that Henry carbine to was able to clear a 6 plate rack at 50 feet FIRST ATTEMPT. The skinner peep and the brass bead just line up so damn easy. Its a short to mid range machine! Just begs to be shot well.
 
I brought it to the club back in September for the open house. I had some friends showing up that had never shot before. Every newbie I handed that Henry carbine to was able to clear a 6 plate rack at 50 feet FIRST ATTEMPT. The skinner peep and the brass bead just line up so damn easy. Its a short to mid range machine! Just begs to be shot well.
Love it. I think most people don’t know how well they shoot.
Every time I let someone new let loose at a 200 yard steel plate they’re amazed at how often they can hit it.
 
I brought it to the club back in September for the open house. I had some friends showing up that had never shot before. Every newbie I handed that Henry carbine to was able to clear a 6 plate rack at 50 feet FIRST ATTEMPT. The skinner peep and the brass bead just line up so damn easy. Its a short to mid range machine! Just begs to be shot well.
Aperture style sights draw that front bead and target in and your eyes/brain naturally like to line/center things up.
 
Sized and deprimed and removed the primer crimp on fifty IVI .50bmg cases with about 200 more to go.

I have a new found respect for "One Shot" case lube......the new stuff actually works......even on .50bmg !!! No more rolling the cases on a piece of cardboard with lanolin. A couple of sprays of One Shot and into the die.....smooth as silk.
 
Rolling lanolin??

Why are you not spraying lanolin?

Well, Some cases just need a good greasing, the dillon type alcohol/lanolin spray wasn't cutting the mustard......and I'll be fvcked if I was going to stick a .50 case in a brand new die.
Some .50 reloaders use STP, sae 30 motor oil, Mobil 1 synthetic, etc.

You get a .50bmg case that has been fired in a generously chambered MG and you'll see just how much effort is required to resize.....better have you bench bolted down.

The cases I'm doing now were fired in a rifle with a good chamber so resizing them is not near as bad. I'll still use lanolin on MG fired brass though.
 
So I'm a relative virgin with reloading. Translation: I technically had sex, still don't know what I'm doing.

So, I've reloaded and successfully shot about 200 rounds (9mm) of my reloads without destroying my gun. Big win. Few questions, I'm checking the OAL for every single round after I'm done seating/crimping, is this overkill or normal?

To that point, that process has led me to only two rounds out of 200 that exceeded OAL, & both of those are a function of the primer sticking out too far on my newest batch. Now, I remember these two bastards because when I seated the primers on only these two cases I had to use a decent amount more force compared to the rest. I ignored them at that time knowing that if there was an issue I'd catch it when checking OAL down the road. Which I did, & noted that both the rounds were the same headstamped brass, "GFL" which I assume is Fiocchi since this brass is all my own spent casings.

So the 2nd question; is Fiocchi brass notorious for being finicky?
 
Nice!

How did the coated ones I gave you work out?
The
Nice!

How did the coated ones I gave you work out?
I did take them to the indoor range this past Sunday... the few I shot went off without a hitch and felt really really nice, I do want to run them thru the chrono before I shoot anymore. But based on what I shot Saturday I figure they might be around 950-975 fps went Thru my canik tp9sfx. Unable to test in my x5 legion as it is in disrepair, I can’t seem to get the red dot to stay on tight just keeps moving and loosens up. Awaiting some new hardware to come in and see if that helps. thanks again for the bullets.
 
Which I did, & noted that both the rounds were the same headstamped brass, "GFL" which I assume is Fiocchi since this brass is all my own spent casings.

So the 2nd question; is Fiocchi brass notorious for being finicky?

Yes. Or at least GFL.
Theres about half a dozen headstamps that'll give you grief.
AA USA, Aguila, Sig are a few.
Once you amass a lot then its time to sit down and sort by headstamp. I'll keep win, fed, hornady and maybe one or two more. Toss the rest.
 
So I'm a relative virgin with reloading. Translation: I technically had sex, still don't know what I'm doing.

So, I've reloaded and successfully shot about 200 rounds (9mm) of my reloads without destroying my gun. Big win. Few questions, I'm checking the OAL for every single round after I'm done seating/crimping, is this overkill or normal?

To that point, that process has led me to only two rounds out of 200 that exceeded OAL, & both of those are a function of the primer sticking out too far on my newest batch. Now, I remember these two bastards because when I seated the primers on only these two cases I had to use a decent amount more force compared to the rest. I ignored them at that time knowing that if there was an issue I'd catch it when checking OAL down the road. Which I did, & noted that both the rounds were the same headstamped brass, "GFL" which I assume is Fiocchi since this brass is all my own spent casings.

So the 2nd question; is Fiocchi brass notorious for being finicky?
Checking oal on every round is excessive in my opinion. When I'm reloading on the turret I check oal and charge weight every 10. So when I'm filling a 100 round box I check the weight and oal at the start of each row. I check the primer seating depth by feel on every round when I put the finished round in the case.....just touch the primer with my finger as I put it in.
 
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