To reload or not to reload....

[survivalshop]

Good luck finding the powder you want . Kinda hit & miss with just about all types .

Primers are starting to get , well I wouldn't say plentiful , but there are more out there.

Be careful & read up & practice , have fun .

 

I weigh my brass & put them in weight categories , even the same head stamp.

Edited November 15, 2013 by survivalshop

[shibiwan]

Got everything set up and running. Reloaded about 15 rounds with 175SMK + CFE223 (46.2gr) + Fed 210 primer. Taking my time to ensure consistency (COAL = 71.12 mm = 2.8")

 

Brass should be pretty good. FGMM, Remington Premier and Lake City NATO brass. 

 

Question - how much force on the lever is required for a full length sizer + deprimer? I'm pushing down quite hard and pulling up with almost the same amount of force, even with lubed up rounds. Wondering if it's the die (Lee Pacesetter).

[98Z5V]

Lube inside the case neck, too?  If not, that'll cause the sizer ball to stick like that.

[bubbasks]

It can take some effort at times. Personally my favorite case lube is RCBS Case Slick. I tried hornady's spray that came with my kit and it didn't work nearly as well.

[shibiwan]

It can take some effort at times. Personally my favorite case lube is RCBS Case Slick. I tried hornady's spray that came with my kit and it didn't work nearly as well.

 

Ah... I should try that too. I'm currently spraying the Hornady stuff into the sizing die every couple of rounds.

[98Z5V]

Are you putting lube on the cases themselves?  That needs to be done. 

[shibiwan]

Are you putting lube on the cases themselves?  That needs to be done. 

 

Yep, but only a little... not lubing the inside enough I suppose.

[Dane Armory]

Yep, but only a little... not lubing the inside enough I suppose.

Shibi... Lube the outside of the case but DO NOT lube the inside of the case. It can cause a situation where the powder sticks in the wet lube and is unburned and laying in your barrel after the round is fired. Polish the sizing ball if it is sticking.

[seasprite]

When I tried Hornedy one shot I swear every time I was going to stick a case. Switched to Hornedy's Unique brand of case lube and its been smooth and easy ever since.

[planeflyer21]

You need VERY little lube inside the necks.  I use both the RCBS and Lee case lubes, both work fine with no powder issues or misfires…or sticky resizing.

 

Using a lube pad, I place ONE drop of the lube on the pad and then spread it out with my finger tip.  This is sufficient to do scores, if not hundreds of cases.  Applying just enough pressure to roll the case on the pad, then pick it up and place the mouth of the case against the pad and twist, with a little bit of downward pressure.

 

While I've on occasion wiped a case down with a paper towel because it felt too lubed, I haven't gone to the extremes some others have…like retumbling brass to get the extra lube off.

 

With a sufficiently minimal amount of lube on each case, what little there is gets spread super thin(ner) on the expander ball and the rest of the neck.  It doesn't seem to leave any more lube than tumbling leaves on brass polish.

[survivalshop]

I have used the RCBS lube & pad for 20 + years or more & am using the Dillon spray lube now & its been working great . The cases have to be lubed ether individually or sprayed, to resize . Clean the inside of the die often to keep build up low & if your die has a vent port , make sure it stays clear.

RCBS & others sell a brush to lube the inside of the case for sizing .I tumble my brass with Walnut or corn cob media before I start & then size , de-prime , then they go into the Tumbler with hot water , some dish soap , Lemishine & SS tumbling media & it looks better than new , when done . The mixture removes every thing but brand new looking brass.

[shibiwan]

Yep... I picked up an RCBS lube pad and Case Lube-2 earlier today and everything is as smooth as butter. Like SS mentioned, minimal lube on the inside. Light lube everywhere else and no more fighting with the press. :D

 

Another issue... every once in a while, I get a stubborn primer that doesn't want to fully seat, so it sticks out past the case bottom by about 0.02-0.03"... wondering if I can get a hand priming tool and fix them.

 

I'm tumbling them with a rouge-walnut polishing compound (I got like 30 lbs of the stuff sitting on my shop floor). Everything comes out shiny and new. :)

Edited November 16, 2013 by shibiwan

[98Z5V]

The cases have to be lubed ether individually or sprayed, to resize . Clean the inside of the die often to keep build up low & if your die has a vent port , make sure it stays clear.

RCBS & others sell a brush to lube the inside of the case for sizing .

Yep.  Ill lube the pad for the outside of the brass, roll it, then roll that brush in the lube and hit the inside of the necks.  They all go into hot water washing after that, and back into the tumbler for Round 2 of the tumbling.  <thumbsup>

[texas30cal]

Just my opinion but that rcbs stuff is way too messy. I have had great results with the Hornady one shot, I lay my tumbled cases in rows on a paper towel and spray, allow to dry, roll 1/2 turn, respray and allow to dry, if not allowed to dry it does not work. I also found a device that Lyman makes for lubing the necks, it's a little plastic tray that holds brushes for cleaning the necks and has a tray for their dry powdered lube, it also has ears for attaching it to the bench and a cover. After spraying I hit the inside with the brush and give it a quick dip in the powder, then straight into the press.

[survivalshop]

Yep... I picked up an RCBS lube pad and Case Lube-2 earlier today and everything is as smooth as butter. Like SS mentioned, minimal lube on the inside. Light lube everywhere else and no more fighting with the press. :D

 

Another issue... every once in a while, I get a stubborn primer that doesn't want to fully seat, so it sticks out past the case bottom by about 0.02-0.03"... wondering if I can get a hand priming tool and fix them.

 

I'm tumbling them with a rouge-walnut polishing compound (I got like 30 lbs of the stuff sitting on my shop floor). Everything comes out shiny and new. :)

Check the primer pocket for build up , which may be keeping it from going all the way in or a primer crimp may also cause this problem  & or your primer seating may need adj. , if that machine has that ability . 

My guess is primer crimp . If so , you can get a tool made by various manufacturers to remove it or lightly de-burr it with a case neck de-burring tool.

[unforgiven]

http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/06/cost_comparison_factory_loads.html    Found this FYI.

[planeflyer21]

I'd like to see that updated to present costs.

 

I don't believe the "cost per round" analysis, even with the dates used (well…maybe the 12gauge).  Once you start getting up into the thousands of rounds, the cost savings is exponential.

 

Montana Gold 124gr 9mm FMJ 3,750 count, $365/ea.

Winchester 231 powder 8# bottle, $144

CCI #500 small pistol primers 5K, $130/ea

Same used brass as that guy above.

 

Using a healthy load of 4.1gr of W231…would give us enough powder for 13,658 theoretical perfect loads.  Let's drop that down to 13,000 to account for powder spillage.  That makes the powder the most bountiful in our pricing, so we have to purchase more primers and bullets.

 

To have enough for ALL the powder, we would need four packages of the 3,750 bullets and three packages of the primers, bringing their total numbers up to 15K each.

 

Bullets-$1,460

Primers-$390

Powder-Still $144

Brass-used

Total- $1994

 

$1,994 to load 13,000 rounds of 9x19mm (with 2,000 primers and bullets left over…more on this later).

 

The highly hearlded Winchester White Box is $156/500 rounds at Midway USA (average pricing, remember?), CCI Blazer Brass is $250/1,000 rounds.

 

So the WWB would cost $4,056 and the CCI BB would cost $3,250 for an equivalent 13K rounds of ammo…with nothing left over but the same used brass.  That's $0.25/round for the CCI BB and $0.312/round for the WWB.  Our loads are at $0.153/round are a 38% savings over the CCI and a 47% savings over the WWB.

 

With bullets and primers left over…we need more powder. SHAZAAM!!! The sickness begins!!

 

But wait! That's not all!!

 

Let's cut the cost of our projectiles in HALF by using hard cast lead!

 

So our $1,994 investment becomes $1,264 when using lead bullets.  That gets our cost down to $0.097/round.  Just call it a dime a bullet.  So the cheap CCI BB is 250% higher than our reload and the highly regarded WWB is 312% more expensive.

 

And that's for the least expensive centerfire handgun round on the market.

 

Ask MikedaddyH how much he saves loading his 10mm rounds.  Those factory loads are EXPENSIVE!!

 

And I'm pretty sure you won't find factory 10mm loads like Mike is loading (probably cause a charging elephant to do a back-flip, while grasping its chest in a final trumpet of death).

 

I know loading for .25-20 I'm saving thousands of percent.  Factory boxes of 50 are now almost $70.  Even with premium bullets, I can get that down to $0.25/round…same price for a box of factory reloaded 9mm Luger.

 

With .25-20, the reloader can go from "heavy" .22 Long Rifle ballistics up to .223 Remington and anywhere in between those two.

 

One dude on another forum loads special longrange .30-30, with video posted of him shooting 2 liter bottles at 600 yards.

 

Reloading is far beyond awesomeness!

[Magwa]

I use a pocket primer cutter and hand cut in each primer pocket and also use a tool to ream the inside of the primer pocket it does not take much but that hole is punched and leaves a piece of brass on the inside of the primer hole that will cause the flash to be one sided and you want uniform flash to ignite your powder. not a one sided flash....

[planeflyer21]

I don't screw with the flash hole or primer pockets…unless there is a military crimp.  More often than not I can fanagle a primer into crimped primer pocket.  Those I can't get a quick spin of a hole-deburring/chamfering tool, then get a primer in there.

 

Have you noticed how vaired the flash holes are from brass maker to brass maker?

[Dane Armory]

I use lyman and RCBS primer pocket tools... Quick spin on the pockets to clean and champher. The crimps are a PITA but the RCBS tools works great. Dillion makes a military crimp removing tool for about $100 that is super fast.

This is part of the brass prep, get use to it.

[shibiwan]

What does a "military crimp" look like? Is it a circular crimp around the primer hole instead of the 4-line "box" crimp that I sometimes see on 5.56? If so the LC brass is military crimped and I'll have to prep those better then.

[204 AR]

Not to turn this into a "one shot case lube" thread, but fwiw I've loaded thousands upon thousands of rounds using nothing but that for years.  How I do it is stand them all up in loading trays and after shaking up the can of one shot, spray at an angle so a little bit gets in the mouth of the case. Just spray them row-by-row, and when done turn the tray 180 degrees and spray them all the same again. Do it this way and you won't have stuck cases or hard press operation.

 

Also I loaded on a Rock Chucker for 25 years before moving to an old RCBS Ammomaster progressive I bought second  hand last spring.  I'm not going back, even for precision loads.  For rifle loads with stick powder I simply throw a charge a few tenths under the target weight, then just before seating the bullet I pull the case from the press, dump the powder on the pan of the Chargemaster, then use it to trickle up. Pour back in the case, replace it in the press and carry on. While much slower than simply dumping powder, it's still way faster than single stage and just as accurate. I've not found any reason ammo loaded on a progressive should be any less accurate than a single stage, and yes I check bullet runout.  With good dies I can't tell a difference between presses.

[Dane Armory]

What does a "military crimp" look like? Is it a circular crimp around the primer hole instead of the 4-line "box" crimp that I sometimes see on 5.56? If so the LC brass is military crimped and I'll have to prep those better then.

YES !

On 5.56 brass its Federal , Lake City, PMC some Rem and a few others.

On 7.62/308 brass its Win, Lake City, Fed mainly.

[shibiwan]

YES !

On 5.56 brass its Federal , Lake City, PMC some Rem and a few others.

On 7.62/308 brass its Win, Lake City, Fed mainly.

 

Ah thanks. I did deburr/cleanup the primer holes on the LC and everything went smoothly - 32 rounds in under 10 minutes. Barnes 175 gr BTHP, Fed 210 primers, 46.0 gr of CFE223.

 

Can't wait to test it out at the range.

Edited November 17, 2013 by shibiwan

[planeflyer21]

What does a "military crimp" look like? Is it a circular crimp around the primer hole instead of the 4-line "box" crimp that I sometimes see on 5.56? If so the LC brass is military crimped and I'll have to prep those better then.

 

Yes!

 

You will also see a type of tri-crimp on other military ammo, three little distortions holding the primer inside.