whats the hardest round you've loaded?

DMW1116 said:

That’s about an inch better than I’m getting at 50 yards using HBWC. Lemme write down everything you did.

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For the 158gr, I loaded 120 each of 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1gr of BE with the Brazos RN. Then I tested two, 10 shot groups in each cylinder from a ransom rest. 3.1gr came out the best in cylinder 4 (found the targets, 2.9in edge to edge). You don't need the longer expander plug for those bullets.

For 148gr, I simply went to 2.7gr of BE because it works for almost everyone. Theoretically cylinder 4 should still be the best, so no need to test again.

Revolvers in bullseye competition will always lag behind 22s and 1911s. Also, shot line scores matter more. You can lose a leg match at the long line (50y), but you win matches on the short line (25y). My goal is to get ammo loaded so I can get back to dry firing.

224 Valkyrie, really not bad just the first time I dealt with VLD bullets and a new cartridge with the issues going on with twist and reamers.

7 Rem Mag because the case requires a lot of force to resize

.25 acp, hands down !
Small parts , big fingers, have to weigh every tiny charge…major p.i.t.a.

For me, probably .348WCF, for my Browning 71.

First off, the Brownings have a notoriously short rifling leade, so I was getting pressure signs at minimum loads. Then, using the recommended H4831, it felt like an artillery piece going off with the 20" barrel.

About that time, I started getting into cast bullets in rifle... and I started with the .348. I was afraid of jamming the rifling with a cast bullet... given my issues with jacketed bullets... which resulted in a bit of hand wringing. I even took 20 .348 cases and trimmed them down from 2.245" to 2.200"... to get the driving band out of the rifling. That was no mean feat... .348 brass is thick, and worse... it was Unobtanium at the time, so I didn't want to make a mistake and ruin brass I couldn't replace. In the end, stuffing cast into the rifling is no big deal, and fast powders work better with cast than slow powders.

Aside from that, the biggest handloading issues I've had are with .30-30. I've probably destroyed more .30-30 brass than any other cartridge... at least from handloading errors. Because the brass is so thin, I regularly bulge shoulders and crush necks. I've found one of the keys is trimming all of them to the same length... but I still bugger the brass up on occasion.

It would be 380 for me and it's more my fault than anything else. A small round with small bullets with a hand that handles them that shakes, has a numb thumb from a table saw nick, and decreased sense of touch in my fingers makes it fiddly. I have never crushed a case but fumbled cases and dropped bullets make it my most problematic. It strange that I don't have that problem with the only slightly larger 9mm. I guess size really does matter.

8x58R (Danish) isn’t hard to load despite lack of load data - but forming the obsolete cartridge cases from 45-90 brass is a real pain! (finding 45-90 brass isn’t so easy either!)

Forming 45-70 brass into .33 Winchester cases was pretty substantial effort. Form a little. Cut some length. Form a little. Cut some length. Rinse and repeat. That levergun is now gone. Replaced it with a model 71 ( basically an updated 33 Winchester model 1886). At least brass for the .348 Winchester was available at the time. 33 brass, not so much...

7.62 x 25, Tokarev, definitely the most finicky I've loaded. .25 acp is not the easiest either.

.380, 762x25, any 22 bore.

Hugger-4641 said:

7.62 x 25, Tokarev, definitely the most finicky I've loaded. .25 acp is not the easiest either.

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Yeah, the Tokarev is a huge pita.

.22 Hornet was an odd one for me. To get the best results (~ 1/3 MOA), I load them differently than I do any other round.

The difficult part was to try something different, kind of got stuck in my ways.

jmorris said:

.22 Hornet was an odd one for me. To get the best results (~ 1/3 MOA), I load them differently than I do any other round.

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I'd like to know what your hornet load was. Never been able to get under one moa with mine. Not particularly difficult to load on a single stage press, but never have gotten that accuracy [nor have ever destroyed a case].

Mine always shot around 1.5-1 MOA until I tried just sizing enough of the neck to hold the bullet, leaving the rest of the neck and body of the case blown out.

The load is 13.0 of lilgun and a 35 grain Vmax but it’s the odd case sizing that made the difference.

Mini30SS said:

Forming 45-70 brass into .33 Winchester cases was pretty substantial effort. Form a little. Cut some length. Form a little. Cut some length. Rinse and repeat. That levergun is now gone. Replaced it with a model 71 ( basically an updated 33 Winchester model 1886). At least brass for the .348 Winchester was available at the time. 33 brass, not so much...

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I actually have fourteen .348 cartridges that need a home!
It would be unlikely I would ever need them - getting too old to take on so many projects!

jmorris said:

Mine always shot around 1.5-1 MOA until I tried just sizing enough of the neck to hold the bullet, leaving the rest of the neck and body of the case blown out.

The load is 13.0 of lilgun and a 35 grain Vmax but it’s the odd case sizing that made the difference.

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Thank you! I'll give that a try.

By the way, if turkey hunting with the hornet is legal in your state, the hornet with a 55gr FMJ bullet is a great load and destroys almost no meat.

Lots of interesting replies.

For me, 357 SIG. Not much neck to work with.

Reloading 9mm Luger is hind teat. I have trouble handling those tiny cases and projectiles with my meaty clubs, plus the tapered case requires additional effort to resize.

gwpercle said:

9mm Luger

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lightman said:

9MM with cast

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Nope! I refuse! If its hard to hold/load/deal with i quit!

.223 is about the most annoying ill deal with....and thats rare.

9mm got difficult after I bought a Wilson case gauge.

32sw and 32acp are hard on fingers, but they ain’t got nothin on 25acp. I borrowed the kit to load a few and there is a reason I currently don’t own a .25acp or reloading kit for that chambering.

.243 Rockchuker. Parent case is .257 Roberts fireformed, trimmed and neck sized.
My rifle is a Mauser action with heavy Douglas barrel and oversized stock with beaver tail/benchrest forend. 1/4 moa at 100. Pita to load for.
I would consider selling if someone hated themselves enough to want it.

On the other end of the spectrum, .30US (.30-40) is dead stupid easy to load. Fitting it to the magazine of a Krag is almost as easy. If anyone wants to find a cartridge easier to load than the .30-30, the .30US is it.

Some people get lucky and find success with cast in 9mm easily. Many do not. I was in the latter group. Even though I used PC, my first attempts leaded badly. After probably more than a dozen attempts I found success. I believe that the biggest things were to make a custom large expander plug and go big on the bullet.

Next was probably the 357 AR Max. This is a wildcat similar to the 350 L that uses necked up 223 brass. The necking up is done in multiple stages with multiple annealing steps. And then I found that with just necking up and then trimming to max acceptable length, the brass tended to get too short after the first firing. This then messed with headspacing. I had to come up with custom expander plugs to expand the entire case a little during conversion, then do a full length size and then trim the brass. I also started with the Lee 200 cast bullet but the meplat was too big and would get chewed up during feeding. I ended up making a custom mold for bullets with a smaller meplat. I eventually ended up with a 16" AR that would shoot five 200 gr bullets at 2000 fps into a 2 MOA group at 200 yards.