Great.
Well, I picked up an old jeweler's bench (free
) and got the press securely bolted down onto its new home. The bench is light, but it's screwed into a huge 8' x 10' bookcase loaded with crap - so it's rock steady.
[Photo will be posted to that thread sometime soon]
I also bought a Frankford Arsenal vibratory tumbler and some walnut media, so I cleaned some cases for 30 min, and then my GF trimmed some cases down with a file once we figured out that 2.484" = 2 30/64" on the calipers graduated in 64ths of an inch. My friend let me borrow his RCBS case trimmer that he never uses (HMMMmmmm, I could tell by the rust under the layer of cat hair and dust
) and his 5-0-5 powder scale. So I retrimmed all the cases (they were almost all spot-on
) and loaded up a primer tube with WLR and the powder dispenser with Hodgdon H4350.
It would have been nice if I had cranked down the magnum powder measure before trying to set the powder charge
since then powder wouldn't have rained down all over the shell plate. :banghead:
I probably also could have waited until
after I calibrated the powder bar to load the primer magazine, but
NOoooo. :banghead:
I saw some cool knobs on Ebay to replace the powder bar adjustment screw - I'm already tempted.
The Dillon XL 650 video showed the powder bar having a spring wrapped around it and the funnel neck - is that an old system, superceded by the failsafe bar, or am I missing that?
Powder load is 56.8 grains (10% less that 62 - Hodgdon basic reloader manual 2005, pg 21)
I'm using Speer 150 grain FMJ-BT #2018.
I'm aware that this is a substitution - someone check me on this.
Cases are headstamped "R-P 30-06 SPRG"
After I finally got all of that set up, I lubed up my 10 cases and proceeded to run them through the press. Has anyone noticed that their cases hang up on their way from the tube to station one? This seems to be an intermittent problem for me. Depriming and resizing went smoothly, repriming was fine (there is a fine circular scoring visible on every seated primer - does anyone else observe this?), charging with powder was OK, the powder check was set properly and functioning fine, though the bullet seating was almost at the top of the cannelure, so I backed the seater off a 1/2 turn and that seemed fine. Maybe I ought to have checked that earlier, and without a shell plate full of other cases. I think that readjusting the bullet seat at this point would probably risk overcharging the case in station 3.
But, pressing on (Ha! Get it!
Pressing on?
) I got all of the cases smoothly, and hopefully properly, loaded. I can see how a progressive press could be a real challenge for someone who has NO idea what is going on and zero mechanical aptitude. I managed to not blow myself up in a graduate chemistry lab for 10 years, though other people surely tried to do it for me, and I think I pulled through OK. I wiped the lube from the cases, and then wiped them completely dry with a paper towel lightly moistened with carburetor cleaner, carefully avoiding the primer area.
The cases were all below the max. C.O.L. and the case necks and COL were all slightly shorter as compared to Korean surplus 30-06 (headstamped "K A 7 3") that easily chambers.
The newly reloaded cartridges were difficult to chamber (I tested 3) and I couldn't see any rifling marks on the bullets (which suggested to me that there is sufficient freebore), so I blackened one with a marker and chambered it with a slight shove on the bolt.
There's a slight lengthwise scratch on the neck, but what I considered significant was the ring extending halfway around the base near the web - maybe 1/4" up from the extractor groove. There is also light, even removal of marker all the way around the case shoulder. It's that last bit where the cartridge resists chambering - I guess I need to turn down the FL resizing die another 1/8 turn or so? It was adjusted to contact the shell plate at full elevation....
I'm using an RCBS FL 2-die set (14801).
Has anyone experimented with squaring the dies in the press as per Sierra Handgun Reloading Manual, 4th ed. pg 139?
Does anyone unload their powder and primers, or do you just leave the press all set up with labels indicating powder and primers?
Thanks again for all of the helpful info.
Topgunner