What did you do at your reloading bench today?

[Russ D]

Tumbling brass and hand seating 1k .223 primers.

 

[MDlineman]

I did a general cleanup of my area and I am pin tumbling some brass to anneal.

 

[Archeryrob]

I cast 147 grain hollow points from the MP mold. It finally got dry enough to powder coat do I powder coated, sized and loaded 50 to test. Green is air cooled wheel weights and red is soft lead. Going to shoot a water tank for expansion testing and 30 yards to see is the soft lead makes fliers.

 

[John from MD]

I cast 147 grain hollow points from the MP mold. It finally got dry enough to powder coat do I powder coated, sized and loaded 50 to test. Green is air cooled wheel weights and red is soft lead. Going to shoot a water tank for expansion testing and 30 yards to see is the soft lead makes fliers.

Just curious but why are you interested in expansion? Are you going to hunt with your 9mm?

You should wait two weeks after casting for any alloy to harden up. Even most "soft lead" has some tin or antimony which will cause it to harden in about two weeks.

 

[Archeryrob]

HP's would be my anti personnel, defense rounds. I got round points to ring the plates. It's a hobby right and I an interested in trying this out and see what works best.

Also, according to DNR very few hand gun rounds have enough power to kill deer. 9mm is not even close.

 

[85MikeTPI]

I spent about 5hrs casting today to build up some stock. The #0 buck and pointy 50cal were new MP molds that I hadn’t tried yet. The 130gr, 160gr, and 230gr 7.62 are all slated for powder coating later, along with the 625gr full bore 12ga sabot slugs

 

[BFMIN]

Rooted through my "non re-loadable" Berdan cases (I have a lot of them) I keep them for things like action proving dummies, "Master Cases" & so on.
A friend got a little "Indublienated" & bought a butt tonne of primers for Berdan!
Described as "large", not sure which "large" (there are 2).
I found a couple of hundred S/A R1M3Z (A-80 & A-81)
& almost 400 Brit made (G&B) once fired cases.
I offered them to him if he can figure out which EXACT size he has.
The rest will remain for things like action proving dummies, "Master Cases" & so on

 

[John from MD]

Rooted through my "non re-loadable" Berdan cases (I have a lot of them) I keep them for things like action proving dummies, "Master Cases" & so on.
A friend got a little "Indublienated" & bought a butt tonne of primers for Berdan!
Described as "large", not sure which "large" (there are 2).
I found a couple of hundred S/A R1M3Z (A-80 & A-81)
& almost 400 Brit made (G&B) once fired cases.
I offered them to him if he can figure out which EXACT size he has.
The rest will remain for things like action proving dummies, "Master Cases" & so on

I used to reload Combloc cases in the late sixties and early seventies with Berdan primers. RCBS made a tool to take them out and we used a home made rig for setting them. It is a tedious process. Our cases at the time were brass. Steel will probably be harder especially when it comes to sizing.

 

[BFMIN]

AFIK none of these cases are steel.
We are reloading .303 British.

 

[John from MD]

AFIK none of these cases are steel.
We are reloading .303 British.

Good for you!

 

[BFMIN]

Was that the giant "claw" thing?
I hated them.
I had one & gave it away to someone I heartily disliked because he was A PITA of major proportions.
I now discover there are not just 2, but 3 "Berdan" primer sizes? 1 "small", one "large", & yet another, "Larger than large"!
I guess I'm not dead yet as I'm actually still learning things!

 

[John from MD]

Was that the giant "claw" thing?
I hated them.
I had one & gave it away to someone I heartily disliked because he was A PITA of major proportions.
I now discover there are not just 2, but 3 "Berdan" primer sizes? 1 "small", one "large", & yet another, "Larger than large"!
I guess I'm not dead yet as I'm actually still learning things!

That was the RCBS tool to remove Berdan primers. In later years, I learned how to do it easier and faster but it could make a mess. In that method, you fill a case with water, put a close fitting dowel in the neck and hit it with a hammer. The hydraulic pressure pops out the Berdan cap.

 

[BFMIN]

I don't think it was RCBS back then & over there, I vaguely remember some German-sounding brand?
RCBS might have bought the design in the interim?

 

[erwos]

I spent a bit swapping my 300 BLK toolhead to an old-style Dillon powder measure (no failsafe rod) and dialing in the height and powder drop. All set now. It is a little low compared to the old Mark7 Evo powder measure, but at least I have confidence in this one.

I am due for some quality time reloading 9mm and 45 again.

 

[Sticky]

Added some Power Pistol to work up some HST loads to inventory and I mostly load heavy 9mm, so I picked up a couple hundred 124gr x-def and 500hp from Xtreme to load up and.. a couple hundred more 55gr V-Max to load up for varminting in the 223. Can't have too many!

Finished depriming and cleaning up several hundred 9mm that I have recovered at the range the past couple of trips, ready to load up.

 

[trickg]

Was that the giant "claw" thing?
I hated them.
I had one & gave it away to someone I heartily disliked because he was A PITA of major proportions.
I now discover there are not just 2, but 3 "Berdan" primer sizes? 1 "small", one "large", & yet another, "Larger than large"!
I guess I'm not dead yet as I'm actually still learning things!

One thing that I've come to learn about reloading is that there's so much more to learn - I'll spend the rest of my life learning new things.

In my own reloading endeavors, I spent some time with my 14-year-old nephew kind of showing him some of the ins and outs of reloading. I set up the press to do some 223, and then let him load up 100 rounds under my supervision. He really seemed to enjoy it and wants to come over sometime to do some more.

After that, I loaded another 102 rounds of 223, and that finished my box of Berry's 55 gr FMJ 223. I'll have to find some more inexpensive bullets for AR range fodder, although I've still got a couple hundred 50 gr Hornady VMax.

The next thing I'll do is tool up to do some more 9mm and 45 ACP.

 

[4g64loser]

Primed, powdered and seated 140gr RDFs in 50 .260 rem cases. Maybe next week I will find time to prep some 6br cases.

 

[BFMIN]

Everything shooting related is at a standstill here for now, life is getting in the way.
I have a .22 to sight in & a 303 to sight in, but I've reloaded plenty for that.
The state of things being what they are & bought privately a bunch of 174Gr .311 HP which we think are Hornady. & some 150 Gr FMJs too. Not sure who makes them.
If I see components I can use at a fair price I just grab 'em & add to the stash.

 

[Russ D]

Loaded up 50 .223’s to test 2 different powders for the Hornady 68 gr. HPBT.

 

[boisepaw]

Finally setting up a well-used Lyman Model 55 that I picked up several years ago. I'm wondering if it will be more consistent than the Lee that came in my original anniversary press kit set up 15 years ago.

I have mounted it on a 24" by 24" piece of plywood so that I can bring it inside and charge cases inside where it is warmer. Plus being able to sit at a card table and thus not have to lean over so much to look at my scale when trickling in a final charge if necessary.

Just took apart and finished cleaning the whole thing and found that there was tons of powder sticks clinging to even the brass surfaces. So I hope I took care of that with dryer sheets.

Taking it all apart was a great way to see how the whole thing worked. I didn't have a manual for it and the information online, including any YouTube videos I found were just worthless in terms of figuring out just how to operate the slides in relation to each other. Now that I've seen the guts of it I'm impressed with both the simplicity but also the precision of the design.

I think I'm gonna like it!