What did you do at your reloading bench today?

[4g64loser]

Neck turning some .260 brass.

 

[Sticky]

Been casting and loading 225gr subs for the 7.62x35, even made some patriotic rounds...

Just picked up some ADG brass for the 300wsm, stuff is priced like gold! Been working with some 200.20x Bergers and it seems to like em.

 

[Growler215]

Loaded up 25 rounds of 450 Bushmaster with 395 gr sub-x bullets. Five different powders, 5 different charge weights for each. I plan on shooting these over a chronograph, and using the data from that to pick a charge weight (for each powder) for future subsonic load development testing.

 

[4g64loser]

Been casting and loading 225gr subs for the 7.62x35, even made some patriotic rounds...

Just picked up some ADG brass for the 300wsm, stuff is priced like gold! Been working with some 200.20x Bergers and it seems to like em.

View attachment 436143

View attachment 436144

Very cool. The Murica magazine load.

 

[lazarus]

Loaded up some more 9mm this morning with Ginex, since I verified the loaded rounds plunk test as expected. Finally have restored my 9mm buffer, which feels good. I have very mixed feelings about Ginex SPPs; they don't go in very smooth, and my Primer Pro doesn't like them much. But I have to admit you can really crunch them deep without undue effort, which is a big plus to me.

I also lucked into 1k of 124gr STREAK pulls from American Reloading, so I think some night-shoot-specific ammo is in my near future.

Nice. I picked up some 230s 45s from them awhile back. I figure those will be extra fun. Nice and lazy and large diameter. Sadly, no night shoots for me unless someone wants to invite me over to their private range/land. My range shuts down about sunset. So unless it is a real overcast day, it never gets THAT dark before I have to go cold. One evening I need get to practice with my G17 and G21 WMLs and some shooting because it was heavily overcast and dark as heck by the time I had to go cold.

 

[erwos]

Shot ~120 of my most recent 5.56 reloads to test reliability, and chrono'd some of them. Velocity was about 3100fps out of my 18" AR-15, and more like 2550fps out of my 9" SU-16D9. I was very happy with that, since that's about what I need to make my BDC scope work. SD was a little high (45fps), but given that I was throwing with a case-activated powder measure across mixed brass and at least two kinds of 55gr FMJ, I think that's acceptable. I'll see if I can't get it down a bit when I load the heavier stuff.

When I got home, I finished reloading the rest of the 55gr 5.56x45 on my Mark7 Evolution. At least I'm set with 5.56x45 for the foreseeable future - which is good, because my old stash of steel-cased ammo is finally running out.

 

[usa259]

A couple of half hours over the past few evenings after dinner and prior to gym...

 

[smdub]

Bought some inline fab mounts for the more rarely used presses this year and mounted the base on the downstairs toolbox. Really liked it so ordered a couple more adapter plates including some blanks and was fitting one to the Rock Crusher press. Not sure it would be sturdy enough for that but only one way to find out. Had to drill almost 1" 82deg countersinks for the bolt heads - that was a PITA. I need to figure out how to CNC them if I ever do that again. Also have to get slightly longer bolts but its otherwise done. Now to go machine the die adapter...

 

[85MikeTPI]

A couple of half hours over the past few evenings after dinner and prior to gym...

standard birdshot, standard field loads, or something more interesting?

 

[usa259]

Target loads for clays targets, 1oz #8, probably around 1250'ish fps, out of o/u, from my experience out of the M2 knock off about 30-40 fps slower.

 

[erwos]

Went to range again, more test-firing. 7.62x39 with Berry's plated bullet over 23.1gr CFE BLK was OK. Accuracy at 25yds was vaguely acceptable, but it opened up pretty bad at 50yds. I may try bumping the powder load to whatever the starting load for FMJ is, since this seems indicative that they're losing stability early on. (For reference, my old Yugo ammo shot like a laser beam in comparison.) Also discovered that my Maxim 9 more-or-less tolerates Ginex SPP, which was a nice surprise. Need to seat it reasonably deep, but it lights off, which is more than I can say for CCI.

Loaded up another couple hundred 9mm when I got home to replenish the stockpile.

Not sure what the next project will be. Part of my problem is that the vast majority of my shooting is 9mm and 22lr, so I'm not really finding myself super short on rifle ammo.

 

[Growler215]

Range day!

Continued load testing with 69 gr SMKs in my 5.56. Five 5 shot groups with 5 different loads plus a reference group with Frontier 68 gr BTHP-M.

Then I brought out my Winchester M70 Featherweight in .308. I hadn't fired this gun since a hunting trip in Canada in 1997. Today I was doing load testing with 150 gr FMJ-BTs. Sighted in first and just had to bring the scope down 2 moa. Not bad for 26 years and 4 moves, especially since it was last sighted in with 165 gr Gamekings. Because the barrel on this gun is so thin, I just shot 4 shot groups and still had to stop and let the barrel cool down between groups.

 

[smdub]

Went to range again, more test-firing. 7.62x39 with Berry's plated bullet over 23.1gr CFE BLK was OK.

How fast are you getting? I thought the Berry's plated couldn't exceed ~1500fps. Would love to be able to load those Berry's in .303 British. I can be below the military load but will still need enough for the gun to cycle.

 

[erwos]

How fast are you getting? I thought the Berry's plated couldn't exceed ~1500fps. Would love to be able to load those Berry's in .303 British. I can be below the military load but will still need enough for the gun to cycle.

Berry's 7.62x39 projos are officially rated to 2000fps. Lyman provides data to 2200fps. There are people online who have pushed them to higher than that with apparently no ill effects, but that's not what I'm going after.

I didn't have a chrono on me that I could use with my Sig 556R (Magnetospeed being somewhat finicky about mounting). I may load up another batch and try out my LabRadar on them (coming today, supposedly). Hopefully I procured a x39 conversion kit for my 650 at some point...

The problem with using Berry's in general for me is that 7.62x39 is 25-35c per case, and if you can't recover your cases, the cost of the bullet is only a fraction of the cost of shooting that caliber. The mental math I do is 25c per case, 12c of powder, and 9c per primer. That's 45c not including the bullet. Berry's bullets are 15cpb; PPU is ~21cpb.

If you're shooting a bolt action like the CZ, no problem, you can retain those cases and now you're talking the difference between 36c and 42c per shot (which isn't cheap, but is livable for low volume use). But with a semi-auto, those things fling brass to the moon, and it's often forward where retrieval isn't easy. 61c vs 67c? Six cents to deal with the hassles of loading and shooting plated just doesn't seem worth it to me. Heck, you could make a strong argument that reloading 7.62x39 period still is not a smart plan for semi-autos if it's not for some sort of terminal effect boost over the imported steel-case stuff due to how you lose pretty much the entire cartridge anyways.

The only reason I'm doing this at all is because 1) I got some super cheap "scrap" brass (the better of which, it seems, holds up fine to mild pressures), 2) I made a promise to myself that I would be able to reload everything I shoot, and 3) it is useful if I need to shoot at somewhere like NRA HQ, where they've banned steel-jacket ammo.

 

[lazarus]

Went to range again, more test-firing. 7.62x39 with Berry's plated bullet over 23.1gr CFE BLK was OK. Accuracy at 25yds was vaguely acceptable, but it opened up pretty bad at 50yds. I may try bumping the powder load to whatever the starting load for FMJ is, since this seems indicative that they're losing stability early on. (For reference, my old Yugo ammo shot like a laser beam in comparison.) Also discovered that my Maxim 9 more-or-less tolerates Ginex SPP, which was a nice surprise. Need to seat it reasonably deep, but it lights off, which is more than I can say for CCI.

Loaded up another couple hundred 9mm when I got home to replenish the stockpile.

Not sure what the next project will be. Part of my problem is that the vast majority of my shooting is 9mm and 22lr, so I'm not really finding myself super short on rifle ammo.

If it helps, I saw similar performance with Berry's and CFE BLK out of my SKS until I bumped the load to I think 24gr? Something around there. I got good (for my SKS) grouping out to 100 with it. My range doesn't go past that, so no way to check, right now, at longer distances.

 

[lazarus]

Berry's 7.62x39 projos are officially rated to 2000fps. Lyman provides data to 2200fps. There are people online who have pushed them to higher than that with apparently no ill effects, but that's not what I'm going after.

I didn't have a chrono on me that I could use with my Sig 556R (Magnetospeed being somewhat finicky about mounting). I may load up another batch and try out my LabRadar on them (coming today, supposedly). Hopefully I procured a x39 conversion kit for my 650 at some point...

The problem with using Berry's in general for me is that 7.62x39 is 25-35c per case, and if you can't recover your cases, the cost of the bullet is only a fraction of the cost of shooting that caliber. The mental math I do is 25c per case, 12c of powder, and 9c per primer. That's 45c not including the bullet. Berry's bullets are 15cpb; PPU is ~21cpb.

If you're shooting a bolt action like the CZ, no problem, you can retain those cases and now you're talking the difference between 36c and 42c per shot (which isn't cheap, but is livable for low volume use). But with a semi-auto, those things fling brass to the moon, and it's often forward where retrieval isn't easy. 61c vs 67c? Six cents to deal with the hassles of loading and shooting plated just doesn't seem worth it to me. Heck, you could make a strong argument that reloading 7.62x39 period still is not a smart plan for semi-autos if it's not for some sort of terminal effect boost over the imported steel-case stuff due to how you lose pretty much the entire cartridge anyways.

The only reason I'm doing this at all is because 1) I got some super cheap "scrap" brass (the better of which, it seems, holds up fine to mild pressures), 2) I made a promise to myself that I would be able to reload everything I shoot, and 3) it is useful if I need to shoot at somewhere like NRA HQ, where they've banned steel-jacket ammo.

I feel that. If I setup my tripod brass catcher right on top of my SKS, I can deflect about 80% of my brass back on to the bench, or it'll bounce and land right around my bench. Half of what goes bouncing way in front of the bench I manage to find in the grass.

I think I am going to give up any more reloading for 7.62x39 past the supplies I have. I might even consider just selling them off. That said, I got 500 pre-primed "seconds" cases from RMR a couple of years ago for something like 15cpc. Checking them with a case checker and calipers, around 250 of them are fine. About 200 of them are sized a little under (but should be safe to load), about 30 of them are sized large and just need a pass through the resizing die. 20 are trash and sized way off or damaged cases. I need to de-prime them at some point to reuse the primers.

I had also bought 200 federal pre-primed cases early in COVID for around 25cpc. And I've collected maybe 50-60 range brass that can be reloaded and generated maybe 50-60 of my own from brass cased boxer primed commercial loads.

I have around 800 Hornady .310 FMJ 123gr bullets I picked up at a good price awhile back, that box of Berry's plated that I've barely used anything out of, other than working up a load. And 400 mystery 123 FMJ that I think is probably hornady I got really cheap. Oh, and I have around 250 PPU .309" bullets that work okay, but not great. And 2# of CFE BLK.

But I also have at least 1500-2000 rounds of commercial 7.62x39 non-corrosive steel case and maybe 300 brass cased 7.62x39.

At the rate I am shooting it all up, just the commercial stuff is like 10+ years of shooting my SKS. Add in the reloading supplies and I've got like 2 decades worth.

 

[Harrys]

A bud new to reloading gave me a call as he was having issues loading some 350 grain 45/70 rounds. He said when he loads as the manual said his lever action will not chamber the round and the round will not seat. He trimmed his cases to 2.095 like the manual said and set the COL to 2.450. So, he stopped by with his Rossi SST 45/70 brandy new a very nice lever action. So I set up my reloading system to the same specifications and he was right the case would not load. So, I tried it in my Henry 45/70 and the same thing it would not load.

I then loaded one of my 350 HC and 350 Berrys to the same specification, and they loaded fine in both guns. I took a better looks at his 350 grains. I mic it out and they were 0.458 however when I compared his rounds to mine, they were different. The cannelure was shallow to the head and the round was fatter/bulgier than my rounds which were more tapered. We trimmed a test case, and it was not until we trimmed the case down to 2.405 did the round chamber. I asked where he got the bullets and he said he bought 50 of them in a bag at a gun show as they were marked 0.458.

I said the case trim was well below the SAAMI standards and do not recommend using the heads. I ended up giving him some of both my HC lead and Berrys 350 grain pills. Gave him a lesson on how I do my loading. He loaded up about 10 with no issues. When he got home, he loaded up the rest and all did the plunk test.

The attached picture shows the pill on the right that caused the issue. You can see there is not enough taper to fit in the chamber and the mark left from hitting the lans and groves.

 

[Harrys]

speaking of loaded finished some 350 grain 45/70 hard cast and the last of my FTX 325 grains Hornady.

 

[erwos]

If it helps, I saw similar performance with Berry's and CFE BLK out of my SKS until I bumped the load to I think 24gr? Something around there. I got good (for my SKS) grouping out to 100 with it. My range doesn't go past that, so no way to check, right now, at longer distances.

Yeah, my plan is to crank them all the way to 25, 26, 27, maybe even 28 (like Gavin at UR did). Having a LabRadar will make it much easier to determine velocity (and BC, interestingly enough).

I think I am going to give up any more reloading for 7.62x39 past the supplies I have. I might even consider just selling them off.

Hit me up if you do.

 

[GuitarmanNick]

I feel that. If I setup my tripod brass catcher right on top of my SKS, I can deflect about 80% of my brass back on to the bench, or it'll bounce and land right around my bench. Half of what goes bouncing way in front of the bench I manage to find in the grass.

I think I am going to give up any more reloading for 7.62x39 past the supplies I have. I might even consider just selling them off. That said, I got 500 pre-primed "seconds" cases from RMR a couple of years ago for something like 15cpc. Checking them with a case checker and calipers, around 250 of them are fine. About 200 of them are sized a little under (but should be safe to load), about 30 of them are sized large and just need a pass through the resizing die. 20 are trash and sized way off or damaged cases. I need to de-prime them at some point to reuse the primers.

I had also bought 200 federal pre-primed cases early in COVID for around 25cpc. And I've collected maybe 50-60 range brass that can be reloaded and generated maybe 50-60 of my own from brass cased boxer primed commercial loads.

I have around 800 Hornady .310 FMJ 123gr bullets I picked up at a good price awhile back, that box of Berry's plated that I've barely used anything out of, other than working up a load. And 400 mystery 123 FMJ that I think is probably hornady I got really cheap. Oh, and I have around 250 PPU .309" bullets that work okay, but not great. And 2# of CFE BLK.

But I also have at least 1500-2000 rounds of commercial 7.62x39 non-corrosive steel case and maybe 300 brass cased 7.62x39.

At the rate I am shooting it all up, just the commercial stuff is like 10+ years of shooting my SKS. Add in the reloading supplies and I've got like 2 decades worth.

This is the only brass catcher I have found that works for an SKS. I recover 100% of my brass, now. Load the gun, attach the catcher, release the bolt and shoot without concern about where the brass will land.

http://www.brasscatchers.com/pics/128.jpg

Available from: http://www.brasscatchers.com/store/brasscatcher.html#Anchor-7431

I suggest checking clearances around the stock to insure it does not mar the finish while shooting. Some material removal may be needed as the stocks vary.