What did you do in the reloading room today?

After seeing some of your organization levels, I’m absolutely not posting pictures of my gun room haha. In my defense, I went from a 14x24 enclosed attached garage back when I was single to a 12x12 room in the garage at my new house. Thanks alot, marriage. Had to squeeze 2x 8’ work benches and 2x 64 gun safes in there- it wasn’t and isn’t easy. But, I did shovel out a path to my benches and was able to sort through a 5 gallon bucket of brass and load 1600 .223 this weekend.
 
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I’ve been thinking about that round. What are your thoughts about it & how do you like it? Do they sell upper kits like they do for other calibers?
The only gun chambered in this round (to my knowledge) is the Desert Eagle. They sell the barrels so you can convert a Mk XIX to 429. It uses the same bolt as either 44 or 50, and uses the 50 mags. I have not bought a barrel yet, it is on my list. I had birthday pricing at Midway so I went ahead and got the dies for it. No one sells brass to reloaders yet, Starline makes the brass for the factory ammo but they must have some type of agreement with Magnum Research since they won't sell it (for now) to reloaders. The 50 brass necks down easily enough, though, so I thought I would make a couple of dummy rounds just to play around with it.

My attraction to it is that I can get the muzzle energy of the 50, but the cost of the 44mag bullets (about $0.14 each for Zero 240 JSP) will make it a cheaper round to shoot. And 1600 fps with a 240gn bullet is nothing to sneeze at!
 
yeah I loaded up the remained of my cast Keith 255gr .452s in .45 Colt. Need to size some more until I need to cast some more. I'm not sure which mold made these but I'm sure it's out there in my garage :D Probably a DC Lyman 452460
 
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The only gun chambered in this round (to my knowledge) is the Desert Eagle. They sell the barrels so you can convert a Mk XIX to 429. It uses the same bolt as either 44 or 50, and uses the 50 mags. I have not bought a barrel yet, it is on my list. I had birthday pricing at Midway so I went ahead and got the dies for it. No one sells brass to reloaders yet, Starline makes the brass for the factory ammo but they must have some type of agreement with Magnum Research since they won't sell it (for now) to reloaders. The 50 brass necks down easily enough, though, so I thought I would make a couple of dummy rounds just to play around with it.

My attraction to it is that I can get the muzzle energy of the 50, but the cost of the 44mag bullets (about $0.14 each for Zero 240 JSP) will make it a cheaper round to shoot. And 1600 fps with a 240gn bullet is nothing to sneeze at!

Thanks for the info. I do have a Deagle with the 50AE & 44 Mag uppers.


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Baked some more cookies. Cant find the mold I made these with anywhere...

It has to be a ln old .452 SWC Lyman DC mold in the box some where
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Ran 1000 9mm cases through the FART. Was getting some brass shaving in the seating die and noticed that the finish was kind of rough. Polished the die with 600 grit sandpaper on a wood dowel in the drill and reduced the bell on the flare about .003 and seems to be much better now. Definitely smoother feeling.
 
I loaded 400 .40 S&W until I ran out of WST. Headed down to Fuquay G&G.... they have no WST.

I guess I’ll come up with a new load using something else. I’m not going to worry about chasing down powder.
I used WSF for .40 with good results when I used to own a trans-am and had a mullet [emoji38]
 
It’s been a year since I last loaded!

Dusted off (literally) my presses, cleaned up my bench area, and began trouble shooting my 9mm 147gr RMR FMJ RN issue. It’s been discussed here and elsewhere but their in-house 147’s don’t work for all guns, specifically gen5 Glocks, CZ handguns (excl Scorpions), and M&P 2.0’s.

I found that I needed to seat these 147 FMJ RN at 1.10” to get them to fit my EGW gauge. This gauge is tighter than my 2.0 FS barrel but just barely.

I decided to try out some of the 147 FMJ FN pulls that I have from American Reloading and these seem like they’ll be the ticket. The profile of this bullet seems to work much better while maintaining a normal OAL. Loaded up 25 of these with 3.2gr titegroup vs my normal 3.4gr and will chrono and function test them tomorrow.

I may be trading all of my RMR’s, we’ll see.
 
Finished inventorying bullets and primers. My goal is to acquire enough to last through 8 years of a liberal administration. Or retirement, whichever comes first.

I loaded 400 .40 S&W until I ran out of WST. Headed down to Fuquay G&G.... they have no WST.

I guess I’ll come up with a new load using something else. I’m not going to worry about chasing down powder.
Lots of powders work well in 40. FWIW, two of my favorites are Power Pistol and BE86. Two that are more readily available and more likely to be stocked at local stores would be HP38/W231.
 
I was going to be a cool wet Sunday so I decided to try my hand at saltwater annealing. Back in June I bought everything to do it and a PID controller. Opened up the packages and decided that I was going to use the thermometer that came in the kit. Turned the Lee pot to 9 and poured in the salt. No where in the instructions does it say how much salt to put in the pot. Started out with the pot being 60% full and when it started melting I saw that it would not be enough so I poured a little more in. Some salt hit the heating coil and next thing I knew where the salt hit the coil was on fire. Unplugged the pot and got the flames out. Hand feed the salt into the pot this time. Watching the thermometer raise in temperature and it stopped around 400 degrees. Damn thermometer must be broke so I hooked up the PID controller and set it for 925 degrees. It too stopped at 400 degrees. Pot must be back. Going to call Lee in the morning to see about a replacement.

Now what to do? Setup the reloading bench and reloaded 60 rounds of 6.5 CM and 100 rounds of 9 mm.
Hell it is only 2:20, now what do I do the rest of the day?

Question for those who saltwater anneal. How do you dry your cases?
 
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I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on 200 of the .338, 300 grain A-Tips. The 285 grain ELD-Ms have given me low 5s when the nut that holds the trigger doesn't come unscrewed but it's always better to be better so I'll give them a try.
 
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@KnotRight, what is the purpose of annealing brass for reloading?

I’ve only ever reloaded pistol brass.


I know I can Google it, but where’s the fun in that?

As the brass is fired, resized and reloaded, the brass - especially the necks - gets work hardened. The same inside neck diameter will grip the bullet tighter and has higher springback, exacerbating the tighter grip. Plus, eventually the neck will split (which usually is not a catastrophic failure but can permanently score the chamber neck) and the case must be discarded.

Each time you resize and seat the bullet, grip increases and can cause increased chamber pressure with each loading, changing velocity and point of impact.

Annealing returns the brass to a softer condition and keeps the grip uniform from one loading to the next and lengthens case life until eventually the primer pockets loosen.

Bottom line is, your 4x fired brass performs exactly the same as your 10x fired brass.



Theoretically.




Better than Google.





Disclaimer, advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.
 
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@KnotRight, what is the purpose of annealing brass for reloading?

I’ve only ever reloaded pistol brass.


I know I can Google it, but where’s the fun in that?

The neck tension on bottle neck rifle brass will lose some of it tension (becoming hard) after a few firing. The bullet will not be held in the case with the same pressure after 4 or 5 shooting of the same brass. Annealing brings the brass almost back to factory specifications. I am sure @Toprudder explain it much better.
 
@KnotRight brings up an excellent point!

If the final sizing of the neck is with a bushing (from the outside), increased springback will cause each subsequent loading without annealing to have less neck tension.

If the final sizing of the neck is with a mandrel or ball expander (from the inside), increased springback will cause each subsequent loading without annealing to have more neck tension.
 
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It’s been a year since I last loaded!

Dusted off (literally) my presses, cleaned up my bench area, and began trouble shooting my 9mm 147gr RMR FMJ RN issue. It’s been discussed here and elsewhere but their in-house 147’s don’t work for all guns, specifically gen5 Glocks, CZ handguns (excl Scorpions), and M&P 2.0’s.

I found that I needed to seat these 147 FMJ RN at 1.10” to get them to fit my EGW gauge. This gauge is tighter than my 2.0 FS barrel but just barely.

I decided to try out some of the 147 FMJ FN pulls that I have from American Reloading and these seem like they’ll be the ticket. The profile of this bullet seems to work much better while maintaining a normal OAL. Loaded up 25 of these with 3.2gr titegroup vs my normal 3.4gr and will chrono and function test them tomorrow.

I may be trading all of my RMR’s, we’ll see.
So my test of 25rd of the FMJ FN was perfect. 3.2gr titegroup got me avg 1008fps and they shot great in both my 1.0 & 2.0 M&P’s. I sold & traded all of my RMR FMJ’s for more American Reloading FMJ FN, so I’ll do and accuracy test next before finalizing my load and cranking out 500+ on the SDB.

While trying to break down some of the test rounds using my Hornady puller, I realized that I don’t have a 9mm (#19) shell holder for my LCT. What I thought was the shell holder is actually a primer tool #19.

Anyone want a free, new but opened package Lee #19 priming tool holder? If it’s worth $3 to you, I’ll mail it.
 
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Sorted through a 10lb cat litter bucket full of 38spl, separated the nickel cases from the brass.
Put all the remaining yellow brass into 2 tall coffee cans.

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Anyone have a hack for loading 300BLK on a Dillon 550? 1/2 of the rounds fall off to the sides instead of down the chute.
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Anyone have a hack for loading 300BLK on a Dillon 550? 1/2 of the rounds fall off to the sides instead of down the chute.
View attachment 192044
It seems 300 BLK try to be difficult on my Hornady LnL too. Maybe because they are so top heavy. Any way to extend your shoot up on the front side?
 
Apparently there is a known issue that when using the Hornady 300 Blackout die set (custom grade series #546349) the seater die only threads into a typical O frame press by a few threads before it crimps the case mouth.

Install the die in a Forster Co-Ax press and it's ridiculous, the press is nowhere even close to reaching a full stroke before the crimp is applied buckling the shoulder because the bullet isn't seated to the proper depth yet.

My solution - I chucked up the alignment sleeve in the lathe and trimmed off about 3/16" from the top of the sleeve and re-profiled the area.

Success! The press now hits the bump stops at the bottom of the stroke without crimping the case mouth and I have full engagement of the locknut on the die body.
 
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While loading 45ACP on the Dillon SDB I noticed the powder funnel expander die was sticky and upon closer inspection found vertical scratches / scoring.

Pulled it out and chucked it up in the lathe. Hit it with some 400 then 800 grit paper at 1400 RPM, after a final polish it looks new again. I should probably do the same to the funnels in my 9mm & 10mm SDB's!
 
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While loading 45ACP on the Dillon SDB I noticed the powder funnel expander die was sticky and upon closer inspection found vertical scratches / scoring.

Pulled it out and chucked it up in the lathe. Hit it with some 400 then 800 grit paper at 1400 RPM, after a final polish it looks new again. I should probably do the same to the funnels in my 9mm & 10mm SDB's!
I had the same happen on my Dillon with 9mm. I gave them a call & the 1st question was “are you using virgin brass?” Yes I was, “tumble the brass on used media, the carbon acts as a lubricant.” and it does. I never had that issue with any other caliber in 29 years.
 
I had the same happen on my Dillon with 9mm. I gave them a call & the 1st question was “are you using virgin brass?” Yes I was, “tumble the brass on used media, the carbon acts as a lubricant.” and it does. I never had that issue with any other caliber in 29 years.
Wet tumbling the brass with Dawn will cause that as well. When I started using Wash-n-Wax, the problem mostly went away.
 
Pink_Vapor & Toprudder - you guys are on to something since lately I've been cleaning cases using a wet tumbler or ultrasonic the cases are just too clean. In the past I would often lube the cases because they had been shot in an open bolt subgun and were difficult to resize. They've been pulled out of the shell plate of my Dillon before, lubing cases solved that problem but I have not been lubing them as of late.
 
Pink_Vapor & Toprudder - you guys are on to something since lately I've been cleaning cases using a wet tumbler or ultrasonic the cases are just too clean. In the past I would often lube the cases because they had been shot in an open bolt subgun and were difficult to resize. They've been pulled out of the shell plate of my Dillon before, lubing cases solved that problem but I have not been lubing them as of late.
The symptoms I saw were 1) case was difficult to pull from the expander and 2) the expander (powder funnel on Dillon) had vertical streaks of brass. On the Dillon, the only caliber I had a real problem with was 45acp. I also had a similar problem with virgin 44mag brass. Dry tumbling did not help, I had to lube them.
 
I had picked up some old brass, bullets, and dies from a guy getting out of reloading. The die sets include 22-250, 243, 38-40, and 32 WCF. I don't have guns in any of those calibers, but I have had interest in all of those. The last two interest me because my dad had a Winchester collection that included those calibers (32 WCF and 38-40). I want to one day own Winchesters in those. The other two interest me because of their long range performance.

I sorted and decapped all the brass, and counted the bullets and added them to my inventory spreadsheet.

This afternoon, I will start loading up some rounds, since I am staying at home for a while.
 
Reloading the 40 - 204 Ruger and 6.5 CM rounds that I shot today. Also, got a 1 gallon baggie of rifle brass from the brass can. Going to tumble and resize the calibers that I reload. The rest goes into the storage cabinet.
 
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