What did you do in the reloading room today?

Had a range day Thursday and shot my new 40 cal loads, but when I got to the rifle range, I was getting everything onto the firing line and... No bullets. Oh well, get home early; tell the wife I came home early to spend some time with her, score the BIG POINTS. That way, I can do it on Saturday. Excellent plan!!!
But NOOOOOO! This overcast, the Chrono will never work, even if the rain holds off. So it looks like a day loading 40 cal with the new recipe and cleaning toilets so that maybe I can score enough points to go on Sunday.

Maybe buy a lottery ticket, this luck has got to change!!!
 
Loading some 100gr .380 loads. The test batch I made up worked 100% so now it's time to crank out a few hundred of them. I'm just using a single stage, but the wife is out with her friends tonight so I've got the time to spend listening to music and slowly loading little tiny rounds. And doing laundry, and stealing another slice of zucchini bread from the kitchen because the woman is out and can't stop me. Ha!

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Finally got the bench set up after the move. Some turd spray painted "Lumbee" on the bench at some point.
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Whipped up some 9mm HST rounds with my SR-7625 stock. I'll miss it when it's gone.

And 38 Special powder puffs. 158gn RN and SWC-HP using BE-86. First time using it with lead. But from what I gather, it works quite well.
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Loaded my first rounds EVER!!! Loaded 50 rounds of 38 special cowboy loads on a new Lee Classic Turret Press. Took my time and made only one mistake that I am aware of - one primer not pushed in far enough. Otherwise, a spectacular experience. I think I will love the Lee Classic Turret press going forward. 125 grain poly-coated bullets from Red River Bullets over Trail Boss powder.
 
Loaded my first rounds EVER!!!

Outstanding and welcome to the club. Rolling your own is kind of like making the move from bourbon to scotch, eventually everyone grows up. (that ought to spark some discussion). All kidding aside be aware that you now have two hobbies, shooting and reloading are not the same hobby. As many on this forum will confirm, shooting is simply more pleasurable than pulling the bullets and starting again.

Welcome
 
Outstanding and welcome to the club. Rolling your own is kind of like making the move from bourbon to scotch, eventually everyone grows up. (that ought to spark some discussion). All kidding aside be aware that you now have two hobbies, shooting and reloading are not the same hobby. As many on this forum will confirm, shooting is simply more pleasurable than pulling the bullets and starting again.

Welcome
I agree.

Been reloading more years than I can remember. Reloading is just a way to use up more time and be able to shoot more on the same about of money. IF I were able to convert the time reloading into a paying job, I could pay for a little more ammo that what I can reload in the same amount of time.
 
Loaded my first rounds EVER!!! Loaded 50 rounds of 38 special cowboy loads on a new Lee Classic Turret Press. Took my time and made only one mistake that I am aware of - one primer not pushed in far enough. Otherwise, a spectacular experience. I think I will love the Lee Classic Turret press going forward. 125 grain poly-coated bullets from Red River Bullets over Trail Boss powder.

Bravo sir. It’s been 4ish years since I bought my press and I’ve yet to do anything other than decap. Starting to think I’m a probrasstinator .
 
Processed about 600pcs .308 brass
  • Tumbled
  • Deprimed, resized
  • Sorted by FGGM, crimped .mil, and other commercial
  • Trimmed, cut mil crimps
  • Wet tumbled each batch

Next up is about 2500pcs .300BLK, this will take some time haha!
 
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Another thread got me thinking about my 308. It doesn't get shot much so I don't have much loaded up for it but have plenty of components.

So, 20 rounds of 168gn Nosler Ballistic Tip. Over 43.5gn of IMR-4064, set at 2.830". My notes say the rifle loved this load.
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Last night, I took the ~ 300 pieces of annealed 223 brass that I had finished processing and primed them all with Federal 205MAR primers. Then I loaded up 100 of them, 50 using the Wilson chamber style seating die, and 50 using the Forster micrometer seating die. The seating depth seems to be a little more consistent with the Forster. I will compare them at the range next time.

Then I sized ~ 100 pieces of 7.62x39 brass. I have a few new .310 bullets I want to try out in my AR and Mini-30.
 
Then I loaded up 100 of them, 50 using the Wilson chamber style seating die, and 50 using the Forster micrometer seating die.

I will be very interested in the results. Remember, you have already whetted my appetite for Wilson Chamber Style dies. With luck forster will out perform the Wilson and I will be off of the hook.
 
I will be very interested in the results. Remember, you have already whetted my appetite for Wilson Chamber Style dies. With luck forster will out perform the Wilson and I will be off of the hook.
From what I have seen so far, there really isn't much difference in the results between the two. Will let you know how it turns out.
 
Took a good nap after reading some Carlos Hathcock. Waiting on cool weather and the death of a zillion skeets to start shooting again.
 
something I have not done in a long time, reload handgun ammo (44 Mag). I had some 190 SWCs laying around and wanted to get them out of the way. There is no data for the 190 SWC bullets so I ended up using a 200 grn SWC data from the Lyman manual. Took the average from max to min.
16.7 grn of Blue Dot
Est 1250 ft/sec
 
Got my Frankford media magnet so I cleaned 100 pcs of .308 and about 400 300BLK.

The magnet was $15 well spent but I was a little surprised that it took 10 magnet pulls to pick up 5lb of media from my bucket.

I’m loving wet tumbling so I’m running 1-2 batches every night lately haha.
 
From what I have seen so far, there really isn't much difference in the results between the two. Will let you know how it turns out.

You really are a kind individual, as you know hinting at the slightest improvement would make acquisition of the top performer a moral imperative. I thank you and my wife thanks you Toprudder!!!
 
I will be very interested in the results. Remember, you have already whetted my appetite for Wilson Chamber Style dies. With luck forster will out perform the Wilson and I will be off of the hook.
From what I have seen so far, there really isn't much difference in the results between the two. Will let you know how it turns out.
You really are a kind individual, as you know hinting at the slightest improvement would make acquisition of the top performer a moral imperative. I thank you and my wife thanks you Toprudder!!!
But then again, the Wilson seating die gives me the warm fuzzies when I use it. LOL.
 
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Loaded 100 more 38 special cowboy loads while waiting for the rain to arrive. Took my time. Checked powder charge several times and checked OAL about every 20 rounds. Everything was pretty consistent. Took me about 2 hours for everything, from start to finish and cleanup.
 
Replenished the 75ish rounds of 9mm that was shot the other day in Myrtle Beach plus an additional 125.
 
I will be very interested in the results. Remember, you have already whetted my appetite for Wilson Chamber Style dies. With luck forster will out perform the Wilson and I will be off of the hook.
Shot them yesterday, in 5 round groups, about 30 rounds of each. The best extreme spread and standard deviation was from one 5 shot group from the Forster group, with 17 ES and 6.9SD, but then all the other 5 shot groups were statistically insignificant from one another. Group sizes were also pretty consistent with one another. I did have a single one-hole group going until the last shot, which opened up the group to 1". Overall, I was very happy with that.

So, unless I were to do a lot more comparisons between the two, I don't think I could tell the difference between the two dies.
 
So, unless I were to do a lot more comparisons between the two, I don't think I could tell the difference between the two dies.

An Honest and Kind man you are. Good information. Thanks.

Damn it, now I will have to come up with my own justifications!!!!! No easy task as I have already used most of them too many times already.
 
Installed and began using a Lee Universal decapping die.

I learned that I need a small primer pocket reamer as the 300BLK brass I recently bought contains a lot of Barnes and Hornady both of which have some serious crimps.

I have a bunch of MKE .308 brass and that has a light circular crimp but that Barnes and Hornady is another story.
 
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I played with a handful of tools for that purpose and hands down the Dillon Super Swage 600 is the best I've tried. I use it even on commercial brass and my bulk 9mm too as it can help ID loose pockets when you get zero resistance.

my WDYDITRR is: cut, form, swage, trim, deburr, chamfer and guage 80 300BLK cases from LC 5.56
 
I played with a handful of tools for that purpose and hands down the Dillon Super Swage 600 is the best I've tried. I use it even on commercial brass and my bulk 9mm too as it can help ID loose pockets when you get zero resistance.

my WDYDITRR is: cut, form, swage, trim, deburr, chamfer and guage 80 300BLK cases from LC 5.56

I think I’m gonna buy an RCBS military crimp remover. I already have the LP version and it’s super easy, has a square face stop so no cutting too far or off angle, is only $16, and fits my FA Platinum case prep machine.
 
I played with a handful of tools for that purpose and hands down the Dillon Super Swage 600 is the best I've tried. I use it even on commercial brass and my bulk 9mm too as it can help ID loose pockets when you get zero resistance.
+1.

I tried the C4HD swager and had mixed results. I used the RCBS cutter for a long time, with my RCBS case prep center, but the RCBS case prep center rpm is to slow for that, IMHO. It worked much faster when chucked in a drill. (The new RCBS center has a couple of spindles that turn faster now). I broke down and got the Dillon 600 and I can really knock them out once I get into a rhythm.
 
Yesterday mounted my newly purchased used MEC 600 Jr to a white board. Today loaded my first 12 ga rounds. Loaded six rounds for testing. All went well so far. Don't want to get too pregnant, so I am going slow, plus have other stuff to do.
 
Tue/Wed: Decapped 500pcs 300BLK, used my new RCBS mil crimp cutter in my Frankford case prep center to remove roughly 150 crimps

Tonight: Got into a rythm and decapped 500pcs 300BLK, removed about 90 crimps, now wet tumbling all 1k.

The Lee universal decapper works really well in my Turret with the indexing rod removed. I did upgrade to a Squirrel Daddy decapping pin and it's noticeably stronger plus holds in the collett better when I hit those Barnes crimped pieces.
 
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After the wife and I got back from the indoor range, I did my normal procedure and decapped all the brass and cleaned the guns. Then I got setup to start sizing and turning necks on a few hundred pieces of 223 brass.
 
10716735-B3A6-4012-A470-342E7E432D58.jpeg Mounted the Mr. Bullet Feeder to a shelf above the press. This has resolved upside down boolits caused by casefeeder shake. I think I’m going to come up with a brace for the case feeder to try and cut down on cases being fed the wrong way however this has been much less of an issue (~1/400) compared to the boolits.

Blue 200 grain .40 RNFP present the biggest issue. Their similarity in shape between the nose and base means there is a fine line between the base gliding over the void and the nose falling into it to be walked up the flip-ramp. As you can imagine, this makes the MBF bouncing around a whole lot less than ideal. Didn’t have as big of a problem with the Blue 147 —9mm RN’s.

Saw a thread on another well known forum (non Canadian based;)) and figured I’d share in the event anyone out there is having similar issues. I left the U bracket on and used a C clamp to secure it to the shelf and no, it’s not touching the casefeeder just close to it.
 
Added 700pc 125gr Speer TNT 30cal to the shelf for some 300BLK rounds. Gotta start working up the load for my 8" BA .300BLK.

Figured I have a nice variety of 30cal bullets now:
208 AMAX for subs
147gr FMJ for .300/.308 plinking supers
125gr TNT HP for HD/Hog hunting
 
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