What did you do at your reloading bench today?

Russ D said:

Put together 50 rounds of 69 gr hPBT’s to shoot steel at 400 yards this evening with a good friend and esteemed member of this forum.
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You don't have to flatter me to shoot over my chronograph.

You really do deserve a nice custom rifle. Because custom rifle kool aid is the best kool aid.

For the record, I didn't do shit at the loading bench today because I didn't spend any time at home but I did shoot RussD's AR at 200 and one of my 260s at 400. Tomorrow after work I will hopefully get to starting on some 8 kurtz brass prep for a guy.

Just finished my first reloading rounds ever! 20 rounds of 6.5 Grendel ready to test tomorrow morning. My Lee 6-pack press worked really well. I used it for everything but the bullet feeder. I have the bullet feeder for it but it is really cloogy. My Hornady powder cop did not work very well. The plunger just fits in the case mouth for the 6.5 Grendel and was getting caught and dragged along. After a couple rounds I just stopped using it. It is actually hard to double charge a Grendel case I don't think the case will hold 2 charges. But I paid attention to visually inspect each round after the powder was put in and also when I was all done I weighed all 20 rounds for consistency.

The primer feed and seat was flawless! And I was only using the exact number of primers that I needed all of them fed from 1st to last.

I have a little confusion on the factory crimp die. I am not really sure what is the correct setting. I set it to barely crimp at all.

I was using bullets with plastic tips on them. I was unsure what OAL to make these so I ended up making them at 2.25". They feed into the magazine well.

If testing tomorrow goes well I will crank out another 200 rounds or so next week.

gungate said:

Just finished my first reloading rounds ever! 20 rounds of 6.5 Grendel ready to test tomorrow morning. My Lee 6-pack press worked really well. I used it for everything but the bullet feeder. I have the bullet feeder for it but it is really cloogy. My Hornady powder cop did not work very well. The plunger just fits in the case mouth for the 6.5 Grendel and was getting caught and dragged along. After a couple rounds I just stopped using it. It is actually hard to double charge a Grendel case I don't think the case will hold 2 charges. But I paid attention to visually inspect each round after the powder was put in and also when I was all done I weighed all 20 rounds for consistency.

The primer feed and seat was flawless! And I was only using the exact number of primers that I needed all of them fed from 1st to last.

I have a little confusion on the factory crimp die. I am not really sure what is the correct setting. I set it to barely crimp at all.

I was using bullets with plastic tips on them. I was unsure what OAL to make these so I ended up making them at 2.25". They feed into the magazine well.

If testing tomorrow goes well I will crank out another 200 rounds or so next week.

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Congrats on a new hobby!

I loaded bullets that look like that to 2.245, so same area.

They shot sub moa at 26.8 and 27.1 gr of Accurate 2460 in my rifle, with an SD of about 5 fps.

Primed and started loading 1600 357 mag rounds along with 200 38 SPL that also came mixed in the 357 brass.

gungate said:

Just finished my first reloading rounds ever! 20 rounds of 6.5 Grendel ready to test tomorrow morning. My Lee 6-pack press worked really well. I used it for everything but the bullet feeder. I have the bullet feeder for it but it is really cloogy. My Hornady powder cop did not work very well. The plunger just fits in the case mouth for the 6.5 Grendel and was getting caught and dragged along. After a couple rounds I just stopped using it. It is actually hard to double charge a Grendel case I don't think the case will hold 2 charges. But I paid attention to visually inspect each round after the powder was put in and also when I was all done I weighed all 20 rounds for consistency.

The primer feed and seat was flawless! And I was only using the exact number of primers that I needed all of them fed from 1st to last.

I have a little confusion on the factory crimp die. I am not really sure what is the correct setting. I set it to barely crimp at all.

I was using bullets with plastic tips on them. I was unsure what OAL to make these so I ended up making them at 2.25". They feed into the magazine well.

If testing tomorrow goes well I will crank out another 200 rounds or so next week.

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Welcome to the addiction. Lots of experience in these forums. Some of us have been doing it for decades. I bought my first press in 1983 but was using Lee Loaders long before that. My dad taught me how to reload. If you have any ??? feel free to ask. Someone here will know the answer or at lease know where to look for it.

Muleskinner said:

Welcome to the addiction. Lots of experience in these forums. Some of us have been doing it for decades. I bought my first press in 1983 but was using Lee Loaders long before that. My dad taught me how to reload. If you have any ??? feel free to ask. Someone here will know the answer or at lease know where to look for it.

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I just got back from the range where I tested my 20 rounds along with 60 factory rounds. My reload performance seemed the same. I was shooting 1-2" groups once dialed in at 100 yards. I was having some minor feed issues with the reloads. I think that might have been due to the OAL being just a bit too long. They looked around 1mm longer than my factory loads. So I will shorten them up for future reloads.

I also read a few articles saying it isn't necessary to clean brass before reloading especially if you go right from the range to reloading. So I think I will just reload these 20 without cleaning and see how that works out. Well, 18. I had to dump 2 in the misfire bin due to feed issues denting the brass . I was using a brass catcher which worked especially well so no brass touched the ground.

Only other thing of note is I could not tell any difference at all with my reloads using magnum primers compared to factory loads which I am guessing are not using magnum primers. So I don't think that is a factor at all.

I will try to get 250 rounds reloaded next week.

BTW: This was my new Bear Creek Arsenal 6.5 Grendel Upper. It is very accurate I have no complaints at all!

gungate said:

I just got back from the range where I tested my 20 rounds along with 60 factory rounds. My reload performance seemed the same. I was shooting 1-2" groups once dialed in at 100 yards. I was having some minor feed issues with the reloads. I think that might have been due to the OAL being just a bit too long. They looked around 1mm longer than my factory loads. So I will shorten them up for future reloads.

I also read a few articles saying it isn't necessary to clean brass before reloading especially if you go right from the range to reloading. So I think I will just reload these 20 without cleaning and see how that works out. Well, 18. I had to dump 2 in the misfire bin due to feed issues denting the brass . I was using a brass catcher which worked especially well so no brass touched the ground.

Only other thing of note is I could not tell any difference at all with my reloads using magnum primers compared to factory loads which I am guessing are not using magnum primers. So I don't think that is a factor at all.

I will try to get 250 rounds reloaded next week.

BTW: This was my new Bear Creek Arsenal 6.5 Grendel Upper. It is very accurate I have no complaints at all!

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Technically no, it's not required but your accuracy may suffer and your gun will get dirtier if you don't. I've reloaded 45acp right at the range bench using a Lee Loader tool without cleaning them but I don't recommend not cleaning rifle brass

I made a spacer out of a 1/8" thick washer for my .38 Factory crimp die to load .357 without having to monkey with adjustments.



Then I cranked out 100 .357's with a 105 swc
(one of my favorite plinkers). It worked out pretty good as it was set without tweaking it.

Harrys said:

Finished loading a total of 100 rounds of .500 S&W magnum.

350 Berry's heads
LMRPs
43 grains of H110
COL 2.100"
Average 1846 fps on last test.

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Tell me you like shooting .308s out of a revolver, without shooting .308s out of a revolver.

Dang, that's about 2x my stiff 44 mag loads for energy (and H110 from that matter).

Muleskinner said:

Technically no, it's not required but your accuracy may suffer and your gun will get dirtier if you don't. I've reloaded 45acp right at the range bench using a Lee Loader tool without cleaning them but I don't recommend not cleaning rifle brass

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And your dies will get dirtier. Depending on what got on the brass, you can scratch your dies. Now, if you are catching your brass, probably not. Burnt powder will just get the die dirty. If you are scooping it up off the ground, anything like a rock, abrasive dirt, etc. can scratch the heck out of your dies. Only time I've done it was 357 and 44 mag when I realized I didn't have any tumbled brass handy and I really just needed to get a ladder loaded up to test something else and I knew darned well I would NOT have the time at my reloading bench before my range trip again (it was the day before and I had other crap to do). Worked fine. Pistol brass I was rescuing off the ground or a bucket, no sir. Definitely not rifle.

On rare occasions I've reloaded dirty brass.

To OP on the grendel loading. What are you loading in? I am guessing an AR.

Pop the upper and drop a round (no powder/primer) in the chamber with the bullet seated after painting the round with black magic marker. Use the forward assist to chamber the round. First, it shouldn't take a bunch of force to chamber it. Second, carefully and slowly extract the round. See if there are any rifling marks on the bullet. If so, it is too long.

For the factory crimp die, it should have directions. Likely it is screw it is in till it touches the shell holder, then half a turn past touching for a light crimp. If shooting in a bolt gun, I'd do 1/4 turn (yeah, it put just the slightest of crimps on all my cases, even shooting in bolt guns). If shooting in an AR, I'd probably be putting a 3/4 turn of a crimp. If the bullet as a crimp groove, I'd turn the case mouth over enough to properly fill it, which is probably 1-1.5 turns past touching on a Lee FCD.

Something else you can test there is with the gun full assembled, and a made up dummy (NO primer and powder) and cycle the same round into the gun and eject it by hand 3 or 4 times and check the COAL each time. If it moves (and it might INCREASE, not reduce), then you need a tighter crimp and/or the round is too long. Make sure you are dropping the bolt on the round, not slowly feeding it in to the chamber.

Lastly, make sure those powder charges are getting weighed (not just using a scoop) and you are running a ladder. A powder dropper dropping a set amount is okay. Depending on the powder, that can be very accurate. Auto scales that measure the drop can be extremely accurate. Don't just load them all at a set charge and go. Most powders have accuracy nodes. So if you just load up, say, 29gr of CFE223, you are almost certainly not getting nearly as accurate a load as testing where that accuracy node is for your gun(s).

Fortunately my 18" AR and Howa do seem to share the same node With Grendel.

I would suggest half grain increments 4-5 steps at first leading up to a max load. So 4-5 rounds in each step. Minimum 3. You could do .3 or .4 in 5-7 steps would be better.

For instance, for 120gr Sierra Match Kings my, most accurate charge of CFE223 is (I think, don't take it as gospel) 30.6gr at 2.260" and CCI SR primers. Just a short .2gr less at 30.4gr and accuracy dropped from ~.7MOA in my Howa, to 1MOA for 5 shot groups. Drop to 30.2gr and below and it was generally ranging from 1.2-1.6MOA. Then it picks back up to around 1MOA at around 28gr (but consistency is in the toilet with >40fps SDs at the lower accuracy node).

gungate said:

I just got back from the range where I tested my 20 rounds along with 60 factory rounds. My reload performance seemed the same. I was shooting 1-2" groups once dialed in at 100 yards. I was having some minor feed issues with the reloads. I think that might have been due to the OAL being just a bit too long. They looked around 1mm longer than my factory loads. So I will shorten them up for future reloads.

I also read a few articles saying it isn't necessary to clean brass before reloading especially if you go right from the range to reloading. So I think I will just reload these 20 without cleaning and see how that works out. Well, 18. I had to dump 2 in the misfire bin due to feed issues denting the brass . I was using a brass catcher which worked especially well so no brass touched the ground.

Only other thing of note is I could not tell any difference at all with my reloads using magnum primers compared to factory loads which I am guessing are not using magnum primers. So I don't think that is a factor at all.

I will try to get 250 rounds reloaded next week.

BTW: This was my new Bear Creek Arsenal 6.5 Grendel Upper. It is very accurate I have no complaints at all!

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How dented? Dented brass can be used. At a minimum, if the bullet isn't screwed, you can reuse the bullet. Since it is your own round, you know what powder is in there, so when you pull it apart, you can reuse the powder. And you can carefully deprime it and reuse the primer. Next time, don't toss your own ammo in the dud bin. It is a known quantity and you can reuse it. Hell, I shoot dented ammo, so long as it chambers and the dent isn't too deep. I don't expect accuracy, but at worse it is a bit less accurate. I regularly rescue stuff I find in the dud can. Depending on why I think it was in there, determines what I do. Pistol I'll just dump the powder and load it back up with a conservative load of Bullseye (all my BE loads are on the lighter side of things), with a new primer if that is what seemed to be wrong. Hell, 90% of the time I've pulled pistol rounds out of the misfire can with a dented primer they went bang when I put them in my glock.

I won't just do that with a rifle round. I'll just scavenge what I can of the components.

So far every single round I've rescued that I've found on the ground. I find live rounds about every third trip to the range. Someone spilled a 9mm, or 5.56, or whatever and no one found it till me. Or in dud bins. Or the worst, in the brass buckets or trash cans sometimes someone stupidly threw a live round in there. Anyway, every single time I've pulled one apart, I am 99% sure each time it's been a factory round and not a reload. One time a .45acp might not have been, but it may have also just been a surplus round with a lot of age on it (70s head stamp).

lazarus said:

How dented? Dented brass can be used. At a minimum, if the bullet isn't screwed, you can reuse the bullet. Since it is your own round, you know what powder is in there, so when you pull it apart, you can reuse the powder. And you can carefully deprime it and reuse the primer. Next time, don't toss your own ammo in the dud bin. It is a known quantity and you can reuse it. Hell, I shoot dented ammo, so long as it chambers and the dent isn't too deep. I don't expect accuracy, but at worse it is a bit less accurate. I regularly rescue stuff I find in the dud can. Depending on why I think it was in there, determines what I do. Pistol I'll just dump the powder and load it back up with a conservative load of Bullseye (all my BE loads are on the lighter side of things), with a new primer if that is what seemed to be wrong. Hell, 90% of the time I've pulled pistol rounds out of the misfire can with a dented primer they went bang when I put them in my glock.

I won't just do that with a rifle round. I'll just scavenge what I can of the components.

So far every single round I've rescued that I've found on the ground. I find live rounds about every third trip to the range. Someone spilled a 9mm, or 5.56, or whatever and no one found it till me. Or in dud bins. Or the worst, in the brass buckets or trash cans sometimes someone stupidly threw a live round in there. Anyway, every single time I've pulled one apart, I am 99% sure each time it's been a factory round and not a reload. One time a .45acp might not have been, but it may have also just been a surplus round with a lot of age on it (70s head stamp).

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In retrospect, I should have kept the 2 rounds and salvaged the primer and bullet. The dents were not huge but I would not take a chance on them bursting to save $1.

Hey are you supposed to clean off the case lubricant after the bullets are completed? This is ok for 20 rounds but not so much for 250 rounds.

BTW: I used this brass catcher at the range and it works perfectly. It did not get in the way at all I didn't even notice it. Caught every single empty. Only thing is I had to move my scope back 1 more notch to make room for it. Once you install the rail piece, the basket just slides on and off.

Brass Catcher

gungate said:

In retrospect, I should have kept the 2 rounds and salvaged the primer and bullet. The dents were not huge but I would not take a chance on them bursting to save $1.

Hey are you supposed to clean off the case lubricant after the bullets are completed? This is ok for 20 rounds but not so much for 250 rounds.

BTW: I used this brass catcher at the range and it works perfectly. It did not get in the way at all I didn't even notice it. Caught every single empty. Only thing is I had to move my scope back 1 more notch to make room for it. Once you install the rail piece, the basket just slides on and off.

Brass Catcher

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The case lubricant is harmless and shouldnt affect feeding. Although it does attract grime to the cases when being handled, causing them to cosmetically tarnish overtime.

Sent from my SM-A136U1 using Tapatalk

4g64loser said:

You don't have to flatter me to shoot over my chronograph.

You really do deserve a nice custom rifle. Because custom rifle kool aid is the best kool aid.

For the record, I didn't do shit at the loading bench today because I didn't spend any time at home but I did shoot RussD's AR at 200 and one of my 260s at 400. Tomorrow after work I will hopefully get to starting on some 8 kurtz brass prep for a guy.

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Yeah he shoots two shots, off hand at 200 yards and they are less than 2 inches apart. Well I guess the gun will do it’s part.

lazarus said:

Tell me you like shooting .308s out of a revolver, without shooting .308s out of a revolver.

Dang, that's about 2x my stiff 44 mag loads for energy (and H110 from that matter).

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I usually go through 40-50 rounds at the range. I recently shot a friend's 45/70 BFR revolver and believe it or not it was like shooting a 44 mag. Based on my research it is the difference in powder burn rates. Heading back to the range testing some #9 loaded with 38 grains and some enforcer with 39 grains. I found I can really tame the loads down with 12 grains of tite group. Instead of over 1700 fps with H110, the tite group produces 1145 fps. but what the fun is that.

Harrys said:

I recently shot a friend's 45/70 BFR revolver and believe it or not it was like shooting a 44 mag.

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45-70 greatly depends on the load. Trapdoor safe loads are pussycats. Ruger #1 loads are wrist breakers. Still not quite as much energy as 50S&W but still more than 2x that of 44mag.

guzma393 said:

The case lubricant is harmless and shouldnt affect feeding. Although it does attract grime to the cases when being handled, causing them to cosmetically tarnish overtime.

Sent from my SM-A136U1 using Tapatalk

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The bigger thing is charging the cases in my experience. If the lube is left on before charging and seating, you tend to get some powder in the neck. Which can impact neck tension. That and I use a lee auto drum on my less classic. I typically use it to charge the case, measure the charge, and then dump it back in. If the lube is on the case, some sticks in the case.

It is safe to leave it on, but I tumble the cases again after lubing and sizing. Otherwise it messes with my loading process.

Even with bulk loading where I am not checking each charge and trickling to get to final charge weight (my lee auto drum is +/-.1gr accurate with ball powders. I might get a rare (maybe 1 in 40) round that gets charged .2gr light. But for match/hunting stuff, my SDs shrink about 30-40% and group sizes shrink about 20%. Worth it when accuracy really matters. Not so much when I am loading 300 rounds of plinking 62gr .223 or plinking 120gr TMJ grendel and then the 1.5-2MOA accuracy is just fine and the cheap bullets are holding things back more than charge consistency.

Harrys said:

I usually go through 40-50 rounds at the range. I recently shot a friend's 45/70 BFR revolver and believe it or not it was like shooting a 44 mag. Based on my research it is the difference in powder burn rates. Heading back to the range testing some #9 loaded with 38 grains and some enforcer with 39 grains. I found I can really tame the loads down with 12 grains of tite group. Instead of over 1700 fps with H110, the tite group produces 1145 fps. but what the fun is that.

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I am sure my Dan Wesson is a lot lighter than those guns, but my sweet spot is about 1150fps with a 240gr coated SWC out of my 6" Dan running TG (9gr? I can't remember the exact charge for that 1150fps). I mean, some 24gr of H110 and 240gr XTP heaters at around 1400fps is a lot of fun. But my hand and wrist appreciate it a lot less. Fine for 25-30 rounds. Not sure I'd want to shoot 50. I definitely would not want to shoot more than that. Or shoot more than a few out of the 2.5" barrel on my Dan.

Cast and coated a couple hundred 225gr 308's for 300BO subs.. seems it likes to eat a lotta ammo every time I take to the range, so... need mo quiets!

Loaded up some recently acquired 123 gr PPU PSP bullets over A1680 for 7.62x39 load development.

I'm getting a slight backlog of workup loads that have been loaded and need to be shot.