Need some Advice/Opinions...

[ar10]

I started reloading a couple of months ago because of the high cost of bullets. I also thought is was pretty cut and dry, but there's all sorts of "little" things I found out the hard way.

I started out by buying the Hornady single stage kit that came with a hand primer tray, powder dispenser, one set of dies (.308), and a balance scale, and a can of One-Shot case lube.
The first thing I ran into was getting a number of stuck cases, six of them. I found out that you DON'T spray the case then put it in the press. Let it dry first. It'll save you a lot of time.

I pressed 14 "dummy" bullets because I forgot to buy a bullet puller. After doing some reading on THR I found the cheapest way to pull bullets and still be able to re-use them was the impact hammer. It works great, you don't have to beat the crap out of hammer, and it pulled even my live rounds that I screwed up.

All my bullets had a canelure so I needed to crimp them. I was way to aggressive on setting the crimp and really didn't look at the brass case during the crimping. The result was I compressed the neck at shoulder of the case. I did about 20 of them before I saw a prefectly round lip on the shoulder of each case. The moral is if you crimp watch the case and adjust the die every carefully. It's very easy to over do it.

I also bought an electronic scale because I wasn't convinced the balance beam scale was accurate. It is, just don't let scale move around when you set your powder on it.

 

[Shoney]

RustyFN: I do use a few Lee dies on the LNL. The problem is that they are too short to go all the way down because of their thick locking ring. I solved the problem by removing the lock ring entirely, and tapping the bushing with a hex-head lock screw. I get the adjustment correct then carefully remove the die/bushing and tighten the lock screw. Works for me!!!!!!

 

[lgbloader]

Although I use and prefer my Dillon 650, I have a great deal of respect for Hornady. I believe they do offer a variety of well-designed products. I use several of their die sets, and the Lock-N-Load bushings on my Rockchucker as mentioned above.

In my opinion there is merit in Dillon's seating dies vs. other brands - at least for mass quantities of loads such as for Cowboy Action shooting. Eventually, seating lubed bullets will result in lube build-up in the seating die, which can over time cause inconsistent seating depths. The Dillon die design allows the die to be cleaned without removing the die body from the tool head, thereby keeping you from having to re-calibrate seating depth when you clean it. This is a worthwhile feature to me.

My 650 is tricked out with most of the whistles and bells and I marvel at it every time I use it. But, I'm not blinded to other brands that do an equally proficient job of the process for other folks. Every machine has its personality, and once you get to know it, the process moves along pretty darn efficiently. Heck, years ago I loaded many tens of thousands of rounds of 9mm on a Lee Pro 1000 for God's sake. It had LOTS of issues, but you learn to work around them. Just like people, these machines have their strengths and weaknesses and you will only get into trouble if you ask it to do something you KNOW it's not really able to do.

stellarpod

Stellerpod,

That, my friend was poetic. I completely enjoyed reading your post and believe you to be a true gentleman.

Cheers, Mate.

 

[David Wile]

Hey Stellarpod,

Some years ago I bought a few thousand .223 and .308 Lake City surplus cases that were once fired. When buying surplus cases like this, they come in anywhere from clean to a bit dirty. Of all the cases, perhaps 2or 3 percent of the total had some staining on the brass that made me suspect these few had been laying on the ground for some time, and I simply discarded them. All considered, the surplus brass was a good buy for me.

First I washed all the brass in hot soapy water to clean them, and then I dried them in a low temp oven. After that, I lubed the cases and sized them all on my RockChucker. Then each case was trimmed to a uniform length and the case mouths were chamfered. Using regular RCBS sizing dies for each caliber, I found I did not have a problem with any primers being crimped. Occasionaly, there would be a case where the primer required a little more force to puch out during the sizing process, but I never had to do anything to open the primer pockets, and new primers seated just fine with the Lee Auto Prime. At this point, I had a few thousand uniformly sized, trimmed, and chamfered cases ready to be loaded. Now all my work on these surplus cases took a lot of time, and I spent several hours each evening for a couple weeks before I was finished.

In using the .223 and .308 for loading, I should point out that I always full length resize the cases, and I never shoot hot loads. Because of my milder loads, I find I can reload these cases over and over without the need to retrim, and I usually load these on my Hornady L&L progressive. Sometimes I put the cases in a block and spray them with lube, and other times I put them on a case lube pad and do it the old fashioned way. In any case, when they come out of the press as finished rounds they are messy, and I do not like to remove lube with cleaning media. Instead, I rinse the messy finished rounds off in a #10 can with about a quart of gasolene. I let them dry on a towel, and then put them in my vibratory cleaner to polish the finished cartridges.

So in answer to your questions, no, I do not find it necessary to remove any primer crimp, and because I do not shoot hotter loads, I don't find it necessary to trim my cases after my initial trimming. Some folks use a lube application die at station one to avoid lubing cases beforehand, but I have never tried this. I have always been comfortable with lubing my cases beforehand.

As to 30-06 brass, I also made a large purchace of Lake City Match ammo a good many years ago, and I pretty much did the same thing with this brass after using the ammo. I did not have to wash the brass, but I did trim all the brass to a uniform length after my initial sizing. Like the .223 and .308 brass, I did not have any trouble removing the primers and did not have to address primer crimp problems. While I sometimes run some batches of 30-06 brass on my L&L for use with my Garands, I find I do my bench rest loading of this brass the old fashioned way - on my RockChucker.

I have a good friend who has had a Dillon 650 for a long time, and I have used his machine a fair bit to learn how it works. I prefer the Hornady L&L over the Dillon 650, but I would also point out my friend prefers his 650 over my machine. Hey, they are both good machines, and to each his own. As to the "quick change" features of the Dillon and the Hornady (the Dillon tool head and the Hornady bushings), I think the Hornady is a better application, but I really could do without either one of them. I am one of those folks who never minded changed die sets for metallic cartridges. I use the Hornady bushings for my sizing dies now, but not for my expander and seating dies because I find I need to change them too often to make the quick change feature worthwhile. I have never put a L&L bushing adapter in any of my single stage presses. You know, the old dog and new tricks thing may be affecting my mindset.

I also do not have an auto case feeder and most of the bells and whistles you probably have. Yes, the old dog & new tricks thing again. But I do like my Hornady L&L just the way it came nearly a dozen years ago, and I still marvel at all it does with each completed stroke of the handle.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile

 

[stellarpod]

David Wile:

Thanks for the excellent recount of how you handle the process - a great illustration of how there is always more than one way to skin a cat. We all have a tendency to plod along in our trench, content with the way we've always done things, sure that it's the best. We can learn a great deal from each other's methods if we'll just check our preconceived notions at the door. I believe I've learned a few things from your post that I'll likely give a try. As for me, a homogeneous mixture of Blue, Green and Red gear allows my loading bench to hum along harmoniously.

Thanks!

stellarpod

 

[evan price]

IMHO, I would ditto the use of a progressive for the .223 and the pistol ammo. Dillon's a nice machine.
I would also advise a Lee Classic Cast Turret press instead of a single stage.

The reason is that you can use it as a single stage press whenever you want, plus be able to manually index the dies to get quicker production and then install the auto-index and run it as a semi-automatic- even faster.

I personally consider old-sk00l reloading a waste of time. If I were a bench rest shooter trickling each charge to within .05 of a grain, maybe. I just want blasting ammo.
Resize 500 case. Prime 500 case. Charge 500 case. Seat bullets in 500 cases. ETc. I want ammo NOW not after 500 cases are finally done.

With the turret system you have the option of running each single round of ammo from start to finish without needing to change dies or take the shell out of the press. Once you set up your dies, they are set until you mess with them. Buy spare turrets for each caliber, lock them in place, and you are set to load whenever the mood strikes you without needing to fiddle around setting up.

Also, if interrupted, you don't have loading blocks with half-finished ammo sitting around, with powder in the cases and no bullets.

I load pistol on a Lee Pro-1000 progressive. As pointed out they can be finicky and take some tinkering from time to time. But once setup right they run and run. Price is reasonable. If I had to load 1000 rounds a week I'd get a Dillon, for my 500 rounds a month or so I have a Lee.
I also use a Lee turret press that takes the same turrets as my Pro1K so I can do anything I want on the turret press, like develop a custom pistol load or have a turret with a collet puller in it.

 

[gallbrick]

Thanks a million guys!!! And David Wile, that was a helluva informative post on cleaning brass. Thanks. This post has become a LOT more informative than I thought it would be. Again,, thanks a million!!!

 

[Idano]

I personally consider old-sk00l reloading a waste of time. If I were a bench rest shooter trickling each charge to within .05 of a grain, maybe.

Evan, that sentence in your comment is a little alarming depending on what you mean by old school. If you mean by trickling every charge I agree and I do it for a two hunting loads; but if you mean verifying that your loads are not within 0.1-0.3 grains then that's not just old school but good safe reloading practices.

I load on a progressive and a single stage but I always use either one of my Uniflows powder measures or my Hornady powder measure to charge my cases. I check about every 50th dispense with ball powder and every 25th with flake powder. The only powder I weigh every load with is 3031 because it is a large extruded that doesn't dispense well and my load very hot but smoking flat and accurate.