What did you do at your reloading bench today?

ToolAA · Sep 7, 2020

erwos said:
Cranked out and gauged 450 9mm rounds in prep for the PNTC tournament in a week or so. Also lubed+sized+deprimed a hundred 223 cases. Also did some clean up and organization, which I know isn't sexy, but is necessary from time to time.

Cleanup is important. Sometimes that’s what motivates me to sit down and crank out some rounds. BTW. Today at the reloading bench I almost finished building the case loader. Thank you again for your thread.

If you haven’t noticed my reloading bench is also my electronics workbench. Needs to be cleaned up again.

glueru · Sep 7, 2020

lkenefic said:
I've seen conflicting data on 231 for 45ACP. I've been using this powder for decades and have seen 5.8gr being max loads... or 6.2gr being max...depending upon whose 230 gr bullet you're using. ..

Nosler 230gr... 5.8 gr max
Speer 230gr... 6.2 gr max

Just curious... which flavor 230gr bullet are you using? I predominately shoot 200gr SWC on top of 5.2gr 231 and a WW primer... but I've got close to 400 230gr FMJ bullets...

thanks, same here. Looked again in my older load book, from the 1990's
and indeed it shows a much higher load than today's recommendation.
Going to settle on 5.2 gr, do a few and test them.
Problem now is the Winchester primers not firing, the CCI's, no problem.
So waiting for a 6lb firing pin spring, up from the Glock OEM 5lb.
Just scored about 8K Tulammo primers Sunday, of all kind, mostly LP and SP, 1k each of LR and SR.
So, have a shitload of +P 45acp's LOL, if I trusted the brass more it would be ok, sorted out the military and any corroded brass, any that showed any sign of die wear, those will be bullet pulled and powder saved.
Not sure about depriming the new CCI primers, and saving those, sounds a bit much and risky.

erwos · Sep 7, 2020

Man, yours is a lot nicer than what the bullet feeder I built. Then again, we'll see what happens when I build out my 223 case feeder... maybe I'll make it a little cleaner.

glueru · Sep 7, 2020

If anyone was watching Amazon over the weekend, there was a blow-out sale on Lee Loadmaster's, most pistol calibers, $300, free shipping. 6 of each, all were gone within a couple hours.
Yep, grabbed a 45acp #90945. 5 station progressive press, complete.

erwos · Sep 7, 2020

All I will say is that I hope you have a lot more success with your LM than I did. It was just a never-ending list of stuff to tweak, and ain't nobody got time for that. (OK, some people do, I did not.)

My Dillon 650XL sometimes requires a tune-up here or there, but it's radically more reliable than my LM was.

lazarus · Sep 7, 2020

glueru said:
thanks, same here. Looked again in my older load book, from the 1990's
and indeed it shows a much higher load than today's recommendation.
Going to settle on 5.2 gr, do a few and test them.
Problem now is the Winchester primers not firing, the CCI's, no problem.
So waiting for a 6lb firing pin spring, up from the Glock OEM 5lb.
Just scored about 8K Tulammo primers Sunday, of all kind, mostly LP and SP, 1k each of LR and SR.
So, have a shitload of +P 45acp's LOL, if I trusted the brass more it would be ok, sorted out the military and any corroded brass, any that showed any sign of die wear, those will be bullet pulled and powder saved.
Not sure about depriming the new CCI primers, and saving those, sounds a bit much and risky.

Huh, interesting. CCI primers are supposed to be harder than Winchester primers. I have had two light strikes on CCI primers so far, on my Glock 17 with a lighter striker spring. Was going to try Winchester primers next to see if they are easier to set off (that was out of maybe 100 or so rounds).

Otherwise was going to go back to a regular weight striker spring (zero failures out of a couple thousand factory rounds).

No failures on any other platforms. G21 eats them up fine with factory weight striker spring, though that’s CCI SPP. Haven’t loaded any LPP cases yet. (Only have Winchester LPPs. SPPs I’ve got federal, win and CCI)

John from MD · Sep 7, 2020

lazarus said:
Huh, interesting. CCI primers are supposed to be harder than Winchester primers. I have had two light strikes on CCI primers so far, on my Glock 17 with a lighter striker spring. Was going to try Winchester primers next to see if they are easier to set off (that was out of maybe 100 or so rounds).

Otherwise was going to go back to a regular weight striker spring (zero failures out of a couple thousand factory rounds).

No failures on any other platforms. G21 eats them up fine with factory weight striker spring, though that’s CCI SPP. Haven’t loaded any LPP cases yet. (Only have Winchester LPPs. SPPs I’ve got federal, win and CCI)

Federal is the softest primer and Winchester is above them.

glueru · Sep 7, 2020

never an issue with CCI's, these Winchesters, a whole other story.
I've had a Lee Pro 100, yes, lots of tweaking, but i like that, I'm not into speed loading, I go slow, look into each case, check the powder
I'm a old copier/printer technician, so used to tweaking

lkenefic · Sep 7, 2020

Finally! I got my bench put together to the point where I'm actually starting to process brass... Depriming once fired Federal brass (.308) and getting ready to wet tumble for the first time.

The Dillon is still a work in progress. I reinstalled the large primer system and I'm getting ready to work on the 45ACP toolhead. There's a little surface rust I need to take care of one of the dies.

lazarus · Sep 8, 2020

lkenefic said:
Finally! I got my bench put together to the point where I'm actually starting to process brass... Depriming once fired Federal brass (.308) and getting ready to wet tumble for the first time.

The Dillon is still a work in progress. I reinstalled the large primer system and I'm getting ready to work on the 45ACP toolhead. There's a little surface rust I need to take care of one of the dies.

I’d tumble before depriming. Less crap in the primer pockets (also because I am lazy and do resize and deprime in one step and you want your brass cleaned and then lubed (for rifle brass) before sizing)

lkenefic · Sep 8, 2020

lazarus said:
I’d tumble before depriming. Less crap in the primer pockets (also because I am lazy and do resize and deprime in one step and you want your brass cleaned and then lubed (for rifle brass) before sizing)

It depends upon what I'm reloading for... these rounds are destined for a Remington 700 that I turned into a single-shot prone gun. I (more or less) follow this guy's process for reloading for precision rifle. I'm nowhere near the round count this guy puts through his rifles, but it's a sound approach... albeit a bit anal-retentive... he does clean cases again after he lubes/sizes before trimming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKWpmShM4yY

I'll be setting the Dillon up for 45ACP... as you said, I inspect cases and tumble before I do anything else, but then I'm off to the races on a progressive press... I size, deprime, and re-prime on the first station, then charge and seat a bullet, rinse/repeat... When all goes well, I have no problems cranking out 400 rounds in an hour.

steves1911 · Sep 8, 2020

Put together 250 5.56 with 64gr gold dots and h335.

Speed3 · Sep 8, 2020

lkenefic said:
It depends upon what I'm reloading for... these rounds are destined for a Remington 700 that I turned into a single-shot prone gun. I (more or less) follow this guy's process for reloading for precision rifle. I'm nowhere near the round count this guy puts through his rifles, but it's a sound approach... albeit a bit anal-retentive... he does clean cases again after he lubes/sizes before trimming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKWpmShM4yY

I'll be setting the Dillon up for 45ACP... as you said, I inspect cases and tumble before I do anything else, but then I'm off to the races on a progressive press... I size, deprime, and re-prime on the first station, then charge and seat a bullet, rinse/repeat... When all goes well, I have no problems cranking out 400 rounds in an hour.

Unfortunately my process is even worse. It really depends on purpose. Plinking ammo, full length size and go. PRS stuff anneal every 3rd firing, wouldnt lube bullets and necks.

Shooting for bug holes, this is what I do.

Deprime
Brush necks and clean primer pockets
Tumble
Anneal
Full length size with a neck bushing .001" tighter than I want
I expand the neck back out with a mandrel to desired neck size
Tumble
Trim, chamfer and deburr, then brush necks
Prime
Lube necks with dry lube and load bullet

erwos · Sep 8, 2020

lazarus said:
I’d tumble before depriming. Less crap in the primer pockets (also because I am lazy and do resize and deprime in one step and you want your brass cleaned and then lubed (for rifle brass) before sizing)

One option is to get a second drum for your tumbler and do the initial wet tumble sans stainless steel pins. It'll get clean enough for sorting and brass prep (including sizing), and then you can do a second run through WITH pins on the deprimed prepped brass. Heck, for pistol cases, you wouldn't even need to do the second run, they'd be clean enough. It's definitely on my list of things to buy down the road.

Muleskinner · Sep 8, 2020

prepped 1500 .357 magnum rounds since i'm out of small standard rifle and pistol primers. Was told by someone in the industry that Federal has allocated all primers made for the next 3 years for their industry partners. I was also told that some distributors have purchased a large number of primers from a European manufacture and are bringing them to the states for retail sale but no word on if/when this will happen.

lkenefic · Sep 13, 2020

Worked the wet tumbler today... processed 500 45ACP cases and 50 .308WIN's. I should have the RL550B ready to go any day...

DaemonAssassin · Sep 13, 2020

Did another inventory of powder and primers on hand. Need to get more W296, IMR3031, and Varget at some point.

erwos · Sep 13, 2020

I'm also due for a large (well, as large as I can legally do in MD) powder order. I'm about halfway through my TG (which I use for 9mm), and I'm basically out of CFE223. Was thinking about trying some Ramshot TAC this time around for 223.

lkenefic · Sep 13, 2020

Load Development for 45ACP on the Dillon: new 200gr lead SWCs... starting at 5.2 gr WW231 working up to 5.8 in 0.2gr increments. Loading 20 rounds each (testing four 5-shot groups). I'll make a trip to the AGC range some time this week... then, I'll be set for .45ACP practice ammo...

ToolAA · Sep 13, 2020

Making progress on my 3D printed bullet orientation/feeder.

https://youtu.be/nJQmHhXho-8

What did you do at your reloading bench today?

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