WrongHanded
Member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2017
- Messages
- 4,771
I had a significant eureka moment today, whilst reloading 200 rounds of .357Sig range ammo.
And it got me thinking about how my process has changed since I first started.
I no longer lube the cases. Instead I resize the body in a carbide 10mm die, then the neck in the .357Sig die. This means no lube inside the neck, and no lube to clean off outside. Because there's no lube to worry about, I also prime whilst resizing the neck rather than as a separate step.
I still weigh each charge (because I run at the top of the data), but now after I funnel a charge into the case, I throw another straight into the pan and set it on the scale. I handle the pan less this way, and let the scale settle as I complete the current cartridge.
But my eureka moment today makes things far easier, and yet I feel a little stupid for not thinking of it earlier.
Anyone who loads .357Sig knows that neck tension is important to preventing bullet setback. So case mouth flare should be kept to a minimum. Like many others, I bevel the inside of the mouth slightly with new brass to aid in seating, but pre-fired brass doesn't get this treatment. I've tried to flare as little as possible to preserve neck tension, because I discovered even a FCD doesn't fix it after the bullet is seated. This has proved to be my bane with the cartridge. Trying to get each bullet started requires a lot of force, and really hurts my fingers when I'm batching more than 50 rounds at a time. And too often the bullet slips out whilst the ram is going up. Like this:
Which is extremely frustrating.
What I realized today was that if I just hold the bullet on top of the case, and carefully raise the ram until the bullet is inside the die...
....It always seats! No fiddling or time wasting, just quick seating. And provided I keep focus and don't accidentally crush my fingers in there, it'll be far less painful on the finger joints than the old method.
I'm not sure what more I can do to streamline the process, but it's certainly far faster now than it used to be. Perhaps it'll help others too.
And it got me thinking about how my process has changed since I first started.
I no longer lube the cases. Instead I resize the body in a carbide 10mm die, then the neck in the .357Sig die. This means no lube inside the neck, and no lube to clean off outside. Because there's no lube to worry about, I also prime whilst resizing the neck rather than as a separate step.
I still weigh each charge (because I run at the top of the data), but now after I funnel a charge into the case, I throw another straight into the pan and set it on the scale. I handle the pan less this way, and let the scale settle as I complete the current cartridge.
But my eureka moment today makes things far easier, and yet I feel a little stupid for not thinking of it earlier.
Anyone who loads .357Sig knows that neck tension is important to preventing bullet setback. So case mouth flare should be kept to a minimum. Like many others, I bevel the inside of the mouth slightly with new brass to aid in seating, but pre-fired brass doesn't get this treatment. I've tried to flare as little as possible to preserve neck tension, because I discovered even a FCD doesn't fix it after the bullet is seated. This has proved to be my bane with the cartridge. Trying to get each bullet started requires a lot of force, and really hurts my fingers when I'm batching more than 50 rounds at a time. And too often the bullet slips out whilst the ram is going up. Like this:
Which is extremely frustrating.
What I realized today was that if I just hold the bullet on top of the case, and carefully raise the ram until the bullet is inside the die...
....It always seats! No fiddling or time wasting, just quick seating. And provided I keep focus and don't accidentally crush my fingers in there, it'll be far less painful on the finger joints than the old method.
I'm not sure what more I can do to streamline the process, but it's certainly far faster now than it used to be. Perhaps it'll help others too.