What did you do in the reloading room today?

Moved my 223 dies over from me Lee Classic Turret to my Dillon 550. I will still resize on the turret, but do everything else on the Dillon. Time to crank out some rounds.
 
Fitted a new barrel to a Glock 24 that I bought this summer. Getting it ready to go. Also started setting up a .40 cal tool head for the 650.
 
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When to the range today so I have a bunch of brass that I shot and the range brass barrel was full of rifle brass. I filled up 3 1-gallon zip lock baggies that I just sorted between 223 and all other brass. Got both tumblers working.

Hoping to find some 6.5 CM brass
 
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Loaded 191 rounds 38 SPL 125 Gr SNS bullets. I would have loaded more but my brass supplier left me out in the cold [emoji31]

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ncav8tor said:
Loaded 191 rounds 38 SPL 125 Gr SNS bullets. I would have loaded more but my brass supplier left me out in the cold [emoji31]

406296c6c9d11bf02d247392ebe85ce4.jpg



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I have never used coated bullets before. How do you like them and is there anything you need to do different when loading them?
 
ECNC said:
I have never used coated bullets before. How do you like them and is there anything you need to do different when loading them?
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I like coated bullets because they shoot cleaner than regular lead bullets and they are very reasonable priced. The quality of the coating varies from vendor to vendor.

The SNS bullets shown in the picture above are excellent and you can handle them without getting anything on your fingers. I have bought 38, 44 and 45 calibers and all have been excellent. And I will tell you, no one in the business does a better job at packing their product!

The Blue Bullets are excellent too but you will get "Smurf fingers" from their coating. The quality of their bullets are first rate.

The worse coated bullets that I have ordered recently were Bayou Bullets and that was because they had applied the coating very thinly and a lot of lead was showing on the 1000 rounds I bought. I was really disappointed in that order because of the coating errors. I was quite surprised because generally speaking, Bayou Bullets have been excellent in the past.

To me, the most important things to look for are the quality of the coating (no lead showing) and a consistent weight. SNS and the Blue Bullets are very good on those two points.

There is nothing you really need to do differently when loading them. Just make sure you flare the case mouth to avoid scraping the coating off when you seat them. Also, make sure you don't over crimp because that will affect accuracy and damage the coating. Use only enough crimp to remove the flare and leave just a barely visible crimp line on a pulled bullet (just as you should with any bullet). Depending on the bullet manufacturer, you may need to vary your regular powder drop less by a few grains than you would for a FMJ.
 
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ncav8tor said:
I like coated bullets because they shoot cleaner than regular lead bullets and they are very reasonable priced. The quality of the coating varies from vendor to vendor.

The SNS bullets shown in the picture above are excellent and you can handle them without getting anything on your fingers. I have bought 38, 44 and 45 calibers and all have been excellent. And I will tell you, no one in the business does a better job at packing their product!

The Blue Bullets are excellent too but you will get "Smurf fingers" from their coating. The quality of their bullets are first rate.

The worse coated bullets that I have ordered recently were Bayou Bullets and that was because they had applied the coating very thinly and a lot of lead was showing on the 1000 rounds I bought. I was really disappointed in that order because of the coating errors. I was quite surprised because generally speaking, Bayou Bullets have been excellent in the past.

To me, the most important things to look for are the quality of the coating (no lead showing) and a consistent weight. SNS and the Blue Bullets are very good on those two points.

There is nothing you really need to do differently when loading them. Just make sure you flare the case mouth to avoid scraping the coating off when you seat them. Also, make sure you don't over crimp because that will affect accuracy and damage the coating. Use only enough crimp to remove the flare and leave just a barely visible crimp line on a pulled bullet (just as you should with any bullet). Depending on the bullet manufacturer, you may need to vary your regular powder drop less by a few grains than you would for a FMJ.
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Thank you. Decided to order some and give it a try.
 
I've had great luck with th eggleston bullets in 9mm. They smoke a bit, but load just as you would a fmj with excellent and consistent results at a nice price.
 
I finally got around to it...
Loaded up the rest of my 9mm, about 750 rounds.
Finished prepping my 5.56 brass and loaded about 50 test rounds. Now to wait for the snow snow to melt.
 
Wet tumbled 60 pieces of 308 win brass. Will trim and prime later today
 
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Broke my decapping pin a few weeks ago, so no loading in this weather. I did sort a bunch of brass though, just to feel productive.
 
Started pin tumbling .45acp, got 2 50cal ammo cans done tonight, will do the other 4 tomorrow and start loading on Sunday.

Picking up some shelving tomorrow, hope to post some pics.
 
Started resizing about 500+ 223 brass. I was using Hornady Unique wax for my lube. It works great. Use a very little. I have not cleaned the resizing dies in about a year. Halfway through the 500 cases, I decided to clean the die with brake cleaner. Then started back resizing with the same amount of wax and the first case got stuck. Bent the spindle and broke the expander getting the case out of the die. Lucky I have 2 sets of 223 dies. Finish the brass and placed an order for 2 more spindles.

I have been using the Hornady wax for 2 years and this is the first case that I got stuck at that time.
 
Ikarus1 said:
with .223? you must have better eyesight than my 17 year old. Good luck cranking out the rounds safely.
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What @Beef15 said. I stand when I run the Dillon, I have a press mounted light, and have no problem seeing down into the cases.
 
Bought another die set and a bunch of small pistol primers. This makes 3 years of collecting reloading crap and I've yet to load a single round.....had to feather dust my loading bench :/
 

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Gspec said:
Bought another die set and a bunch of small pistol primers. This makes 3 years of collecting reloading crap and I've yet to load a single round.....had to feather dust my loading bench :/
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You see now, that just makes me sad. All that equipment and a nice set up with so much potential. Even wet tumbling - a man after my own heart. What's the hold up?
 
Charlie R said:
You see now, that just makes me sad. All that equipment and a nice set up with so much potential. Even wet tumbling - a man after my own heart. What's the hold up?
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My wife calls my yearly renewed interest in shooting/reloading my "post deer season slump". Holds me over till boating season....lol I don't really have an excuse though, so this may just be the year!
 
Gspec said:
post deer season slump". Holds me over till boating season
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OK, so you have about 2.5 months, you better get cracking. Its easy. You will get all of the advice you ask for on this forum and on occasion, some that you don't ask for, but there are a lot of people here who have been doing it for a long time. Some even remember buying the first lots of smokeless powder (you know who you are).
 
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GSPEC, I do the same thing, maybe. I want to start shooting 6.5 CM but do not have the funds for the gun and scope right now. Just bought a set of dies and gauge. When I go to the range I am looking for some 6.5 brass (surprising the first trip I found about 75 cases). Once I get 750 to 1000 pieces of brass then I start looking for the gun. I did that with my first 308.
 
I see nothing wrong there. lol I'm also a brass hoarder. I've got huge section in my man cave with stacks of sorted brass in Rubbermaid containers, 80% of which I don't have a firearm chambered in......yet ;)
 
Loaded 200 rounds of 223. 128 using Shooters World Tactical Rifle and 72 using H335. All under a Hornady 55 FMJ. Ran out of Tactical Rifle. Gun show this weekend and I will get a couple more pounds of it.
 
Prepped and loaded 200 rounds of 9mm and ordered more bullets. Did not realize how low I was. Whoops!!!
 
Loaded up 3 round of 178gr ELD-X over some IMR 4064 to see what the accuracy node was gonna be.
This was this afternoon at roughly 125yards

I ganked the second shot. The one far right. But I have hopes on this load.

PPU 308 Brass FL sized and trimmed to 2.008
CCI magnum LRP
178gr ELD-X
41grs of IMR 4064
COAL 2.810
FPS- unknown. Gonna chrono the next set then chase for speed and accuracy as I am planning on making it to hawk's ridge this year

Load testing by Brandon S, on Flickr
 
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