What did you do in the reloading room today?

I started out using the Frankford vibratory tumbler. It had a lid that was airtight, so no dust during tumbling. It was only dusty when separating the media, which I did outside. I still have that tumbler and the media, I have used it to clean some parts with, but for brass I’m sold on wet tumbling.
 
I loaded some 9mm with the Winchester 115gr. hollow-base bullet with 3.9 Titegroup. 1075fps with baseball size group from 25 yds, functions well, slide locks back. I will put them in production in the Dillon 550. Meantime I am dry tumbling some .223 FMJ bullets and some .45 acp cases. I always use a dry tumbler for a couple hours to get them clean enough to inspect and sixe & deprime, then into the wet tumbler. I have a de-humidifier in the basement and use the exhaust, which is warm, to dry my cases. I can dry 100 at the time, using plastic ammo trays from the trash can that are open all the way through.
 
Tumbled some muddy .308 and after a couple runs, could NOT get it shiny. Turns out my pins got filthy dirty and needed to be cleaned themselves. I cleaned them with purple power, rinsed well, ran the .308 again and bam, nice shiny brass again!

Nice & muddy
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Rinsed in bucket w dawn57411D9A-FB74-466D-92EC-5C0CCD9350F4.jpeg

After 2 rounds of tumbling still not bright (the 3rd round turned brown but didn’t get a pic!)1847EBC3-E803-4CDF-8B36-8DB60C7A5DCC.jpeg

Finally, nice and shiny :)A59B7E0B-8604-406D-8B2C-1C4024FF2542.jpeg

.223 cases at top for reference are lubed so not cleaned yet
 
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In the last few days I have prepped 2K 9mm cases and am in the process of loading, 1K already done. Also loaded some .270 Winchester to sight in a rifle
 
Tumbled 3k 9mm cases, sorted out all the NATO headstamps and stepped cases.
 
Finished my projectiles inventory, found more brass and stored it away, set up the powder measure to get ready to load up 38spl. Reorganized a little bit, put a few more things away.

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Whipped up some inert rounds for work. A lot of first time purchasers don't even know how to load a magazine or chamber a round. Hopefully this helps a little.

Made 9mm, 380 acp, 38 special and 308 win. Hopefully make some 40 s&w soon. I have dies, but load 10mm with em.

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I just finished an 8 pound bottle of IMR 4895 that I bought in late June. I had a bunch of LC pulled cases and a box of 2,100 30 Cal 150 grain FMJ Hornady bullets that I have been making into loaded rounds. I need some more buckets to hold the finished ammo.
 
Well not technically in the reloading room but for it. I am making a set of dies for my Case Pro 100. I am machining them out at work. Shh don’t tell anyone.
 

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Tumbled another 1500 45acp cases and sorted by primer size - about 1/3 were small primer.

I got it figured out on my 650. I just put in the decapping die and leave the pins out that hold the casings in around it. Then I pull each one out and look at it. And still be cycling the press. Much easier to see a big hole compared to a small one. With primers in. It screws with me. Lol
 
Loaded up 25 .58 musket rounds. Scoop up 61.8 gr of FFg equivalent, pour into a plastic tube, insert .577 minie' ball, done. Wish metallic cartridge reloading was this easy! The other side of the ease in reloading is the drudgery of cleaning up after the range time.
 
I like blue. I am setting up my blue with the 30/06 head to tinker with my Garands. They have not been out in a while. I have a bunch of 150 grain FMJ bullets, some IMR 4064, several thousand suitable primers, and 1,000 brand new Starline cases. It should be fun.
 
Well, not today, but this past week.....................

I have been collecting and buying bullets for YEARS, on top Of Years. I have struggled with the foot print buying in bulk makes. Boxes take up too much room on the shelf, can’t see what you have, and becomes a jumbled up mess. I started with bags, first just plain ziplocks. Then I discovered nicer bags, heavier, and with white blocks to label. This worked fine for years, but also became a jumbled up MESS…………….

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What to do?……………..

I received a catalog from Consolidated Plastics last week. This is the place I order all my bags. I never look at catalogs, they go in the trash that day, I no longer save them for additives to the terminal tests. In the trash. But, this day, I kept this one to look through……

Behold, I discovered Clear Plastic square containers! Hmmmmmmmm……… Nice foot Print,stackable, screw top lid……….This just might work………..I thought I would do a trial run at 48 containers.

I went with 32 oz, 3.75X3.75 Inch and I believe 5 inches tall……. 48 of them only got part of my .500 caliber bullets, but did it very well………..

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I was very pleased with this, and the foot print was much much less, it was organized, I labeled them, I could see what was what………….. Finally a proper solution….

I took stock, and ordered 96 more containers……. They came in Friday afternoon….. Guess what I did all day Saturday…………But here are the results………I still had to keep SOME factory type boxes because I ran out of containers…… I used 144 Containers for .510, .500, .474, .416, and 9.3. I did use a couple for .224 and I do have 6 left over……. In many cases I don’t have enough in some of these factory boxes to justify using one of the containers…….

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Now, this totally left barren two complete sections of shelf under the benches……… And, did not take up any more shelf space on the wall than was was dedicated before hand. Indeed foot print was vastly improved….. and now I have MORE SPACE FOR NEW BULLETS……… HEH HEH………
 
Oh, and in between all the reorganization of bullets, I did mange to load 500 rounds of 223 this past week..........................I also discovered while taking out all the bullets under the bench a bag of brand new R-P Nickel 223 brass........... 250 pieces........ Yes, I am putting Raptors in those.............

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Decided that I don't like loading handgun ammo. Bell this, crimp that, can't keep OAL the same for 5 rounds at a time with plated 230 grainers. Would rather load a 100 rifle rounds than 10 pistol rounds.
 
Took my cheapest guns out of the safe, to make room for my primers. Gotta protect the valuables ya know...
 
Getting back into the reloading shack this week, I decapped about 1200 5.56 cases, then swaged the primer pockets. I wet tumbled 1000 cases after that, but for the last 200, I sized and trimmed them first - without chamfering or deburring. I wanted to see if the wet tumbling would clean up the edges without having to take those extra steps. A quick look makes me think it will work fine for plinking loads.
 
Went to the range today and realized when reloading ammo I don’t need to set bullets to the max size as it will not fit all magazines. Came back home and reset correctly and primed and set another box.
 
Loaded up 75 rounds of 30 carbine. I ran 50 rounds of a good load I had worked up in my Universal carbine, but my new-to-me National Postal Meter M1 carbine has a much shorter leade and requires a shorter OAL for the bullets I am using (Bayou 115) so I also worked up test loads for that.
 
I have nearly finished my reorganization in the main room now. I mostly have been trying to sort out bras, and most of that being B&M brass that has been tossed around for years, here, there, everywhere. I think I have found most of it now, and have it "Canned" you might say. I have 2000 pieces of 375RUM that is unprocessed, and still in original boxes of 500. These are used to make 500 MDM brass, and none is available now, so hoarding that. Also have 2000 pieces of new Winchester WSM brass I bought about a year ago now, it is of course unprocessed and in original boxes of 1000 I believe. This is used for the B&M super shorts, cut and trim.

All the head stamped and processed brass is now in containers, seems I didn't have as much as I thought I had........ But still enough I suppose. The larger gallon size container holds 250 pieces of basic B&M RUM Brass.

You will see labeled Hornady 404 Thick Rim.... This is some basic no headstamp brass hornady made for 404 Jeffery several years ago. Pete from Quality Cartridge took this brass, and head stamped the various B&M's on it. 404 Jeff is
almost RUM, about .05 less at the base is all. It has worked out very good for most of the head stamped B&Ms. I have to designate this different from some earlier head stamped brass Pete did, which I did not know at that time, but he took
RUM brass, shaved the head down and restamped it. This caused the rims to be thinner than normal. Most of it was not a problem but some of it was. Thin rims on a Dangerous Game cartridge is not really desirable. The basic 404 Hornady
has been very good. Lucky, as not all Hornady brass is up to standards.

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And like always, I was able to load a few things up and do some test work this week. Finding all these bullets the last couple of weeks that have been in hiding, has caused me to want to load up some big bores and store away in case we have a Zombie apocalypse looming in our future....... Having visions of needing some big bores, in case the Zombies learn to hide behind TREES and such.................

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