Exposure
Member
This is a thread I put together to help a lot of the people who have no idea what is involved in reloading and are interested in getting started.
Until recently I was a completely in the dark about reloading and thought a general post about reloading would be a big help. So without further delay here we go.
Disclaimer: Use everything I present here at your own risk. ALWAYS check your load data carefully and proceed slowly while working up loads.
Like many here I have had an interest in reloading for quite some time. Until recently I had never even seen, let alone used, reloading equipment. I purchased two reloading manuals and read the forums, but I still was kind of nervous to delve into this.
After much help from the fine members here I took the plunge and purchased all of my reloading equipment. It turned out to be very straightforward once everything was setup.
However, had I been able to view a complete online pictorial of what went on beforehand I probably would have ordered my equipment earlier.
Here is a basic guide to reloading to help get some fence sitters (like I was!) to take the plunge. This is all really basic and will leave all the "old hands" bored to tears. But it tells the story that I was looking for before I got into reloading. I am hopeful that this might help some people who are where I was 3 months ago.
I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but the steps I present here have provided escellent results so far!
This will be for .45 ACP but will apply to any straightwalled pistol case.
This article was written using mostly Lee equipment. While some of the procedures are specific to this hardware all of the principals will be the same no matter what brand you own. If it sounds like I am cheerleading for Lee in this it is only because this is the only equipment I know!
The first thing you are going to need is at least two reloading manuals. The two pictured here are both instructional and offer a ton of load data.
Once you have read your book(s) and have a basic grasp of reloading concepts you are ready to get started! So here we go.
To start with we are going to need to clean our dirty brass in a tumbler. The tumbler is nothing more than a vibrating bowl full of crushed corn cob, or whatever media you choose to fill it with. You throw in the dirty brass and turn it on for a couple of hours.
When the time is up you dump the whole lot into your media seperator.
You then close it up and give the handle a few turns and all the cleaning media falls into the bucket while the brass stays behind. Kind of looks like bingo night doesn't it? A brief word on safety and lead exposure is warranted here. I don't know if it is true or not, but I have read that the tumbling media becomes heavily contaminated with lead. This is due in large part to the lead compunds used in modern primers. Supposedly the lead builds up in the cases and is then scrubbed off by the cleaning media. When you turn the seperator over it does tend to spew a fair amount of dust. If the dust is truly filled with lead residue then it would be a particularly nasty thing to inhale and/or settle all over your reloading area. I take my brass outside to do the seperation. Whether this theory is true or not, doing this messy job outside will at the very least help to keep the dust down in your work area.
And what do you get for your effort? Clean shiny brass!
Now with our clean shiny brass we can move to the fun part.
The first thing I am going to do is check my load data in my reloading manuals. I see that for .45 ACP with 230 grain FMJ bullets using Bullseye powder I should start with 5.0 grains and have a finished overall length of 1.24 inches. This is in line with what my other two data sources say so I feel comfortable starting with this load.
Here is the press, it is a Lee Classic Turret. Notice on the top the piece with the four holes, that is the turret itself. Each hole will accept a die. Each die performs at least one, and sometimes two, functions in the reloading process. Notice at the bottom of the press there is a clear piece of tubing running out of it. That tubing is attached to the ram. The ram is a hollow tube that the brass sits on throughout the reloading process. Every time the lever on the right side is pulled toward the operator the ram travels up to meet the die positioned over it. Each time the ram is pushed back away from the operator the ram returns to the bottom of its stroke and the auto-index feature of the press rotates the turret to advance to the next die in the reloading sequence. By the way, the clear plastic tube attached to the ram is designed to catch the spent primers when they are popped out of the brass.
These are the dies that fit into the turret. This is obviously a 4 die set. There is also a powder measure (the yellow bit), and the instructions, which have a fair amount of .45 ACP load data on them. So now with two reloading manuals and the load data included with the dies I have a good reference for a beginning powder charge. It's good to have more than one source to go to for a starting charge. If all are with a few tenths of a grain of one another you know you are in the ballpark.
Now we need a way to fix the shell onto the top of the ram. We do that with shellholders. They do exactly as their name implies, they hold the shell against the ram throughout the reloading process. Some die sets come with them and some don't. The die set pictured above did come with the correct shellholder. I bought an assortment of shellholders that cover pretty much every round out there. The little white card on the left is a reference to show which shellholder fits what round, very handy.
A close up of an empty shellholder and one with a casing mounted in it. Notice the center is hollow. This allows the spent primer to fall through and the new primer to be pressed into place.
Installation just amounts to using finger pressure to snap the proper size shellholder onto the top of the ram.
Okay, now we are getting close to actually loading some rounds! All the dies are now screwed into the turret according to the manufactuers instructions, the shell holder is on the ram, the brass is cleaned, let's get started.
Here is a pic showing unsized brass. Notice the case mouth on the left is severely out of round.
We take the unsized brass and put it in the shellholder, we make sure the ram is positioned under the resizing and decapping die. Decapping was one of those words that had me confused for a while. It just means depriming.
So with the unsized brass in place we pull the lever and raise the ram all the way to the top. Two things are going to happen, the spent primer will be popped out, and the case will be reformed to factory dimensions. Now if we were to interrupt the loading process and pull the shell out we would see this:
The case mouth has become round again, and the spent primer is popped out. Keep in mind you wouldn't normally be pulling the shell out at this point. I only did it to illustrate what has happened on that first stroke of the ram.
Back to the reloading! With the ram at the top of its stroke and the shell in the resizing die we are going to prepare to put a primer in place to be pressed into the shell. If you didn't have your safety glasses on yet, put them on, NOW. Don't risk your eyesight, primers are extremely powerful and potentially very dangerous.
Here's what the primers look like. This is a box of 100.
They get loaded into this nifty little device called the Lee Safety Prime. It keeps you from having to handle them and really helps to speed up the process.
The safety prime sits on top of the press, held in place by a small plastic bracket. When the ram is at the top of its stroke on the resizing die you simply grab the base of the safety prime, like so.
And then slide it right onto the primer arm which is attached to the ram. Once in place you snap it down like so.
And when you pull it back you have this. A primer in the primer arm ready to be pressed into the shell.
So at this point we run the ram all the way back down to its lowest position. Removing the shell from the shell holder we can see what happens. The primer has been pushed up through the ram and shellholder to be seated in the shell, well if there was a shell in there that is!
And here is a properly primed shell. The primer is flush with the brass and we are ready to go onto step two.
Running the ram up and down has automatically advanced the turret on the press to the next stage. In this stage we will be dropping our powder charge into the case and slightly flaring the case mouth. The flare is designed to open the case mouth just a bit bigger than the bullet as to make bullet seating easier.
The powder is added through a Lee Pro Auto Disk powder measure. The "disk" portion is a selection of round disks with different sized holes drilled in them. Depending on which sized hole you line up on the disk under the powder hopper it will give a very repeatable charge on each case. Here you can see the powder disk underneath the powder hopper. When a case is on the ram and brought to its uppermost position the disk will move to the right and the powder that fell from the hopper into the hole in the disk will fall through the hollow flaring die right into the waiting case.
And here is what that looks like. Note that the ram is at the top of its stroke, you can just see the rim of the shell sitting there, it's hard to tell in the picture but the disk is at the end of its travel and has dropped its powder charge. When the ram is run back down the disk will sit under the powder hopper again and be charged for the next shell.
To make sure that we have the right hole in the disk selected it is important to charge a bunch of cases and weigh them to make sure we are getting consistent charges that match up with our load data. As you'll recall the load data called for 5.0 grains of powder. I cycle the press ten times, dumping the powder back into the hopper each time. On the seventh cycle I start weighing the charges to see how close I am. Here is what I saw on numbers seven through ten.
Spot on! We can move onto the next step.
The press has advanced to the next die position on the turret which happens to be the bullet seating die. I put a bullet in the case, like this, and run the ram up to the top to seat it. The flared case mouth makes it very easy to start the bullet.
Remember the load data said we needed a finish length of 1.24 inches? Let's see what the micrometer says.
Hmmmm, 1.392 inches. Way too long. To fix that I adjust the knurled knob on top of the seating die down in little by little.
After some trial and error I got it. 1.24 right on the money.
Only one step left at this point, crimping the round into the case. The turret has once again progressed to the next position and we are ready to perform the final step of making a round of .45 ACP I use a very light crimp which seems to work good for me. You can decide what you like for your particular firearm. Much like the bullet seating die the crimping die is adjusted with the knob on top of the die.
Sucess! The first round is made up, the press is back at position one and we can roll on with serious production!
Good luck!
Until recently I was a completely in the dark about reloading and thought a general post about reloading would be a big help. So without further delay here we go.
Disclaimer: Use everything I present here at your own risk. ALWAYS check your load data carefully and proceed slowly while working up loads.
Like many here I have had an interest in reloading for quite some time. Until recently I had never even seen, let alone used, reloading equipment. I purchased two reloading manuals and read the forums, but I still was kind of nervous to delve into this.
After much help from the fine members here I took the plunge and purchased all of my reloading equipment. It turned out to be very straightforward once everything was setup.
However, had I been able to view a complete online pictorial of what went on beforehand I probably would have ordered my equipment earlier.
Here is a basic guide to reloading to help get some fence sitters (like I was!) to take the plunge. This is all really basic and will leave all the "old hands" bored to tears. But it tells the story that I was looking for before I got into reloading. I am hopeful that this might help some people who are where I was 3 months ago.
I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but the steps I present here have provided escellent results so far!
This will be for .45 ACP but will apply to any straightwalled pistol case.
This article was written using mostly Lee equipment. While some of the procedures are specific to this hardware all of the principals will be the same no matter what brand you own. If it sounds like I am cheerleading for Lee in this it is only because this is the only equipment I know!
The first thing you are going to need is at least two reloading manuals. The two pictured here are both instructional and offer a ton of load data.
Once you have read your book(s) and have a basic grasp of reloading concepts you are ready to get started! So here we go.
To start with we are going to need to clean our dirty brass in a tumbler. The tumbler is nothing more than a vibrating bowl full of crushed corn cob, or whatever media you choose to fill it with. You throw in the dirty brass and turn it on for a couple of hours.
When the time is up you dump the whole lot into your media seperator.
You then close it up and give the handle a few turns and all the cleaning media falls into the bucket while the brass stays behind. Kind of looks like bingo night doesn't it? A brief word on safety and lead exposure is warranted here. I don't know if it is true or not, but I have read that the tumbling media becomes heavily contaminated with lead. This is due in large part to the lead compunds used in modern primers. Supposedly the lead builds up in the cases and is then scrubbed off by the cleaning media. When you turn the seperator over it does tend to spew a fair amount of dust. If the dust is truly filled with lead residue then it would be a particularly nasty thing to inhale and/or settle all over your reloading area. I take my brass outside to do the seperation. Whether this theory is true or not, doing this messy job outside will at the very least help to keep the dust down in your work area.
And what do you get for your effort? Clean shiny brass!
Now with our clean shiny brass we can move to the fun part.
The first thing I am going to do is check my load data in my reloading manuals. I see that for .45 ACP with 230 grain FMJ bullets using Bullseye powder I should start with 5.0 grains and have a finished overall length of 1.24 inches. This is in line with what my other two data sources say so I feel comfortable starting with this load.
Here is the press, it is a Lee Classic Turret. Notice on the top the piece with the four holes, that is the turret itself. Each hole will accept a die. Each die performs at least one, and sometimes two, functions in the reloading process. Notice at the bottom of the press there is a clear piece of tubing running out of it. That tubing is attached to the ram. The ram is a hollow tube that the brass sits on throughout the reloading process. Every time the lever on the right side is pulled toward the operator the ram travels up to meet the die positioned over it. Each time the ram is pushed back away from the operator the ram returns to the bottom of its stroke and the auto-index feature of the press rotates the turret to advance to the next die in the reloading sequence. By the way, the clear plastic tube attached to the ram is designed to catch the spent primers when they are popped out of the brass.
These are the dies that fit into the turret. This is obviously a 4 die set. There is also a powder measure (the yellow bit), and the instructions, which have a fair amount of .45 ACP load data on them. So now with two reloading manuals and the load data included with the dies I have a good reference for a beginning powder charge. It's good to have more than one source to go to for a starting charge. If all are with a few tenths of a grain of one another you know you are in the ballpark.
Now we need a way to fix the shell onto the top of the ram. We do that with shellholders. They do exactly as their name implies, they hold the shell against the ram throughout the reloading process. Some die sets come with them and some don't. The die set pictured above did come with the correct shellholder. I bought an assortment of shellholders that cover pretty much every round out there. The little white card on the left is a reference to show which shellholder fits what round, very handy.
A close up of an empty shellholder and one with a casing mounted in it. Notice the center is hollow. This allows the spent primer to fall through and the new primer to be pressed into place.
Installation just amounts to using finger pressure to snap the proper size shellholder onto the top of the ram.
Okay, now we are getting close to actually loading some rounds! All the dies are now screwed into the turret according to the manufactuers instructions, the shell holder is on the ram, the brass is cleaned, let's get started.
Here is a pic showing unsized brass. Notice the case mouth on the left is severely out of round.
We take the unsized brass and put it in the shellholder, we make sure the ram is positioned under the resizing and decapping die. Decapping was one of those words that had me confused for a while. It just means depriming.
So with the unsized brass in place we pull the lever and raise the ram all the way to the top. Two things are going to happen, the spent primer will be popped out, and the case will be reformed to factory dimensions. Now if we were to interrupt the loading process and pull the shell out we would see this:
The case mouth has become round again, and the spent primer is popped out. Keep in mind you wouldn't normally be pulling the shell out at this point. I only did it to illustrate what has happened on that first stroke of the ram.
Back to the reloading! With the ram at the top of its stroke and the shell in the resizing die we are going to prepare to put a primer in place to be pressed into the shell. If you didn't have your safety glasses on yet, put them on, NOW. Don't risk your eyesight, primers are extremely powerful and potentially very dangerous.
Here's what the primers look like. This is a box of 100.
They get loaded into this nifty little device called the Lee Safety Prime. It keeps you from having to handle them and really helps to speed up the process.
The safety prime sits on top of the press, held in place by a small plastic bracket. When the ram is at the top of its stroke on the resizing die you simply grab the base of the safety prime, like so.
And then slide it right onto the primer arm which is attached to the ram. Once in place you snap it down like so.
And when you pull it back you have this. A primer in the primer arm ready to be pressed into the shell.
So at this point we run the ram all the way back down to its lowest position. Removing the shell from the shell holder we can see what happens. The primer has been pushed up through the ram and shellholder to be seated in the shell, well if there was a shell in there that is!
And here is a properly primed shell. The primer is flush with the brass and we are ready to go onto step two.
Running the ram up and down has automatically advanced the turret on the press to the next stage. In this stage we will be dropping our powder charge into the case and slightly flaring the case mouth. The flare is designed to open the case mouth just a bit bigger than the bullet as to make bullet seating easier.
The powder is added through a Lee Pro Auto Disk powder measure. The "disk" portion is a selection of round disks with different sized holes drilled in them. Depending on which sized hole you line up on the disk under the powder hopper it will give a very repeatable charge on each case. Here you can see the powder disk underneath the powder hopper. When a case is on the ram and brought to its uppermost position the disk will move to the right and the powder that fell from the hopper into the hole in the disk will fall through the hollow flaring die right into the waiting case.
And here is what that looks like. Note that the ram is at the top of its stroke, you can just see the rim of the shell sitting there, it's hard to tell in the picture but the disk is at the end of its travel and has dropped its powder charge. When the ram is run back down the disk will sit under the powder hopper again and be charged for the next shell.
To make sure that we have the right hole in the disk selected it is important to charge a bunch of cases and weigh them to make sure we are getting consistent charges that match up with our load data. As you'll recall the load data called for 5.0 grains of powder. I cycle the press ten times, dumping the powder back into the hopper each time. On the seventh cycle I start weighing the charges to see how close I am. Here is what I saw on numbers seven through ten.
Spot on! We can move onto the next step.
The press has advanced to the next die position on the turret which happens to be the bullet seating die. I put a bullet in the case, like this, and run the ram up to the top to seat it. The flared case mouth makes it very easy to start the bullet.
Remember the load data said we needed a finish length of 1.24 inches? Let's see what the micrometer says.
Hmmmm, 1.392 inches. Way too long. To fix that I adjust the knurled knob on top of the seating die down in little by little.
After some trial and error I got it. 1.24 right on the money.
Only one step left at this point, crimping the round into the case. The turret has once again progressed to the next position and we are ready to perform the final step of making a round of .45 ACP I use a very light crimp which seems to work good for me. You can decide what you like for your particular firearm. Much like the bullet seating die the crimping die is adjusted with the knob on top of the die.
Sucess! The first round is made up, the press is back at position one and we can roll on with serious production!
Good luck!
