What did you do at your reloading bench today?

Scrounger · Jan 24, 2021

Filled one of the mixers with 5.56 brass. When I went to empty it, found out one of the cans of 5.56 I filled it with had some 9mm in it. Now comes the hand sorting. Then to makes things even more joyful. Had the same thing happen with the other mixer. If this happens to many times, I may have to invest in one of those fancy sorters.

gwfrench · Jan 24, 2021

Trying to use up my oldest supplies. Loaded 50 of 357 Magnum with my oldest Sierra 125gr bullets. The price sticker says $5.00 for the box of 100. Probably from the late 1970's.
Next is to use up the remaining 50 bullets in the box.

TripleEight · Jan 25, 2021

Swapped out magnetic bullets for Hornady SST's in 100 rounds of Tula 7.62x39.

platekiller · Jan 25, 2021

TripleEight said:
Swapped out magnetic bullets for Hornady SST's in 100 rounds of Tula 7.62x39.

Those look interesting. What do you do with the old bullets?

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davsco · Jan 25, 2021

temccoy said:
Precision Rifle Blog just finished a large ammo / handloading study, and one of their conclusions is that you get lower velocity spreads and standard deviations with 0.003” of neck tension.

can you please 'splain this to me?! and how to accomplish this. just ordered my first bushing die set so starting from scratch on this.

85MikeTPI · Jan 25, 2021

davsco said:
can you please 'splain this to me?! and how to accomplish this. just ordered my first bushing die set so starting from scratch on this.

I've only ever done this on 338Lapua, but I believe the details are normal sizing dies over tension the neck that the bullet opens up and squeezes into. The 0.003" bushing will only put a slight tension sizing on the neck that a consistently sized match bullet will just slightly open up the neck and have a more consistent tension holding the bullet into the neck.

The value/size of the bushing is determined by the thickness of the brass neck and the bullet diameter.

https://vimeo.com/207797436

TripleEight · Jan 25, 2021

platekiller said:
Those look interesting. What do you do with the old bullets?

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I throw them in a box until I accumulate enough worth selling lol.

Speed3 · Jan 25, 2021

85MikeTPI said:
I've only ever done this on 338Lapua, but I believe the details are normal sizing dies over tension the neck that the bullet opens up and squeezes into. The 0.003" bushing will only put a slight tension sizing on the neck that a consistently sized match bullet will just slightly open up the neck and have a more consistent tension holding the bullet into the neck.

The value/size of the bushing is determined by the thickness of the brass neck and the bullet diameter.

https://vimeo.com/207797436

This video sums it up pretty well. But you first have to know that all necks are the same thickness(hint, they usually arent even with peterson/lapua brass). If you're serious buy a 21st century neck turner and have a field day. IMO its the worst part of reloading, took me 1.5 hours to turn 100 a few weekends ago, but only have to turn them once ever.

Once the necks are the same thickness, then you can consistently start playing with neck tension(the most important part of reloading). They sell expander mandrels now(various brands but 21st century is what I use). Let's say I want an OD of .267. I would use a .266 bushing in my full length sizer and then expand the neck back out to .267. That way I know that bullet contact is as uniform/consistent as it gets.

The logical next step is to seat with a hydro/force meter arbor press. You can sort bullets by the force it takes to seat minimizing vertical aka water line.

I would only recommend this if you are chasing tiny groups at distance.

gwfrench · Jan 26, 2021

Got my next ammo loaded for plinking. 100 rounds of 223 using Hornady 55gr FMJ's. 26gr of TAC flings them at about 2900fps from my 16" Bushmaster barrel. I need at least 45 degrees to go to AGC and unload all the reloads I'm making. I guess the next will be 223 using 77gr Nosler's that I've got a couple thousand of sitting on the floor.

erwos · Jan 26, 2021

Primed up a couple hundred rounds of 223 brass, and got my super swager operational again after replacing a bent locator rod. Next step is to do what gwfrench did and load 'em up as 5.56 with 26.5-27gr of TAC, and then chrono them from a couple guns. I'd really like to keep them at 27gr, but I'm not sure I think there's enough top-end margin for that.

U.S.SFC_RET · Jan 26, 2021

I picked up some scab rounds. These are discarded due to light primer strikes. I pull the bullet and gently remove the primer and reinstall. Nice little bullet. So thats what I did recently

Leper Messiah · Jan 26, 2021

Loaded up 300 more 10mm with 180gr xtp over 10.4 gr of blue dot. Just received 500 xtreme 115 gr and 1000 ct processed brass for 9mm today. Now i just need some spp.....lol

John from MD · Jan 26, 2021

Loaded up a test ladder for a new batch of .380's using ww231 and a few rounds for my S&W 625MG .45Colt/.45Acp. Hopefully the range has dried out by tomorrow.

platekiller · Jan 26, 2021

Had a fairly productive reloading day on my day off. My 5 year old and I split up the 1k 9mm bullets into 100 count bags and then did the same with cases. I don’t have the low primer alarm for my 550 so 100 bullets for 100 primers makes it easy. Then when my 8 year old wanted to do some loading to, we loaded up 100 rounds of 9mm, 50 rounds of 223 and pulled some mistakes apart.

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Neutron · Jan 26, 2021

I loaded up 50 rounds of .357 mag, half with small pistol primers and half with small pistol primers magnum. All with 158g plated RNFP over 6.2g Bullseye. Curious to see if there is much of a difference.

John from MD · Jan 27, 2021

NeutronBlu said:
I loaded up 50 rounds of .357 mag, half with small pistol primers and half with small pistol primers magnum. All with 158g plated RNFP over 6.2g Bullseye. Curious to see if there is much of a difference.

You probably know this already but you are a couple of grains over the manf. recommended load for a lead bullet. That limit probably is for striping the rifling and not as a pressure issue.

That said, you probably won't notice much because of the fast powder you are using and the caliber. Now if you did it in a Glock 9 or Fotay, you might get some interesting results. :innocent0

jimbobborg · Jan 27, 2021

I'm trading a guy some of my primers for his powder. He's getting 4000 Winchester SPPs and I'm getting 8 lbs of Bullseye.

Harrys · Jan 27, 2021

De-primed and cleaned 200 rounds of .500 S&W Magnum and 200 rounds of 45/70. Next check case length and install primers. Also, making a stock ammo holder for my 45/70.

PowPow · Jan 27, 2021

Harrys said:
De-primed and cleaned 200 rounds of .500 S&W Magnum and 200 rounds of 45/70. Next check case length and install primers. Also, making a stock ammo holder for my 45/70.

Your bench is so organized. How can you find anything?

Harrys · Jan 27, 2021

PowPow said:
Your bench is so organized. How can you find anything?

You should see my garage

What did you do at your reloading bench today?

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