Growler215
Ultimate Member
Thought I would try to get a thread going to facilitate sharing of tips and tricks on reloading and reloading equipment. Interested in seeing what gems I can learn from other reloaders on here.
Some tips/tricks to try to get the ball rolling:
1) If you use a vibratory tumbler with walnut, corncob, or other media, you may not want to deprime until after cleaning the brass. That keeps from getting media stuck in the flash holes.
2) Your bottleneck rifle cases may not expand to their full headspace condition on the first firing, especially if you aren't firing a max load.
3) If you try to measure the headspace on a fired casing that has not been deprimed, you may get an inaccurate reading because the primer often gets set back a few thousandths of an inch during firing.
4) If you have both bullet and headspace comparators, you CAN accurately measure the headspace of a fired casing before depriming. Install the headspace comparator on your calipers as normal, then use the base of the bullet comparator with a bullet or headspace insert which has a hole larger than the primer, and mount on the other caliper blade. Zero it out and measure away.
5) To facilitate quickly setting up a mini-lathe type case trimmer such as the Forester original, keep a case on hand which has been trimmed to the desired length for each caliber. Insert already trimmed case in the trimmer, loosen the locking collar on the cutter, move the cutter until its just touching the already trimmed case, and move and lock down the locking collar to lock the cutter at this horizontal position.
6) If you have a set of "modified cases" for the Hornady O.A.L. gauge (used to measure the distance to the lands for a particular bullet), they can do double duty as dummy cases for setting up a case trimmer.
7) Once you have arrived at a seating depth that you want to use for a particular bullet, make an unprimed dummy round with that bullet seated to that depth. Then you can quickly return your seating die to that setting next time you want to use that type bullet.
8) The Lee Bench Plate system can be used to mount non-Lee equipment easily using a piece of 3/4" plywood cut to shape.
9) If you use a Lee Bench Plate for mounting your presses, lathe, etc to your reloading bench, replace the (4) 1/4-20 Philips screws that hold the z-brackets with (4) hex head flange bolts to facilitate quickly removing and installing presses/lathes/etc.
10) Hornady One-Shot lube can work well BUT you have to use enough AND let it dry for a few minutes before resizing.
That's all I've got for now. Anyone else?
Some tips/tricks to try to get the ball rolling:
1) If you use a vibratory tumbler with walnut, corncob, or other media, you may not want to deprime until after cleaning the brass. That keeps from getting media stuck in the flash holes.
2) Your bottleneck rifle cases may not expand to their full headspace condition on the first firing, especially if you aren't firing a max load.
3) If you try to measure the headspace on a fired casing that has not been deprimed, you may get an inaccurate reading because the primer often gets set back a few thousandths of an inch during firing.
4) If you have both bullet and headspace comparators, you CAN accurately measure the headspace of a fired casing before depriming. Install the headspace comparator on your calipers as normal, then use the base of the bullet comparator with a bullet or headspace insert which has a hole larger than the primer, and mount on the other caliper blade. Zero it out and measure away.
5) To facilitate quickly setting up a mini-lathe type case trimmer such as the Forester original, keep a case on hand which has been trimmed to the desired length for each caliber. Insert already trimmed case in the trimmer, loosen the locking collar on the cutter, move the cutter until its just touching the already trimmed case, and move and lock down the locking collar to lock the cutter at this horizontal position.
6) If you have a set of "modified cases" for the Hornady O.A.L. gauge (used to measure the distance to the lands for a particular bullet), they can do double duty as dummy cases for setting up a case trimmer.
7) Once you have arrived at a seating depth that you want to use for a particular bullet, make an unprimed dummy round with that bullet seated to that depth. Then you can quickly return your seating die to that setting next time you want to use that type bullet.
8) The Lee Bench Plate system can be used to mount non-Lee equipment easily using a piece of 3/4" plywood cut to shape.
9) If you use a Lee Bench Plate for mounting your presses, lathe, etc to your reloading bench, replace the (4) 1/4-20 Philips screws that hold the z-brackets with (4) hex head flange bolts to facilitate quickly removing and installing presses/lathes/etc.
10) Hornady One-Shot lube can work well BUT you have to use enough AND let it dry for a few minutes before resizing.
That's all I've got for now. Anyone else?
