What have you done in the reloading room today

Changed the Lee Turret over to the Inline quick change plate that I’ve had since last year. Set up my new Pro 6000 press. Actually ran a few rounds of 9mm on the new press. A productive day for sure.

Jeff

 

I made targets today. I use T99 aperture sights.. The large is minute of garbage can folowed by minute of dinner plate and minute of soup plate. The smallest is minute of mug.

 

That’s why I’m trying to get these Barnes to shoot.

Gun shoots Hornady Vmaxs well. But I hunt on both sides of the border.

 

Not today but yesterday afternoon. The Wife left for the afternoon and I went out to the garage and fired up the melting pot. I had a new Accurate 9mm mold that I wanted to try out. By the time I got everything set-up I was tired so I only cast about a hundred bullets. I figured that a guy recovering from the flu probably shouldn't be out in a cold garage!

This was my first time to cast at the new house and it took longer to get set-up the first time. I see a couple of new outlets being added in the garage.

 

Well finding all the stuff after a move is a victory on its own let alone finding the tools and being productive.... hope you feel better partner don't get pneumonia for bullets.

 

Trimmed up another 50 .308 cartridge cases. This time it's my once-fired LC. I already cut the primer crimp out, but as part of my deburring process, I stab the primer pocket on the uniformer (on my Lyman case prep machine.) Usually you get a little rub on them, even if they are clean... but these didn't, there was hardly any feel to them at all. I pulled 7 cases out and punched some #34 primers into them, they went in about as hard as I expected them to, and, in fact, one of them I had to hit with the Lyman cutter, again. But... the primer crimp is one thing, the primer pocket is yet another... and I need to make sure I'm not taking too much metal out of them, so I loaded those 7 up with a charge of TAC and a Nosler 168 BTHP. I'll fire those out of my M1a, and then check for blow-by or soot around the primer pockets before I get all excited about priming all those cases up.

Started to corral up the stuff I'm taking to my brother's for Thanksgiving... I built him a new AR upper for his cheapo DPMS carbine I gave him a few years ago. It has a crappy, carbine-length barrel on it, and the old delta ring forearm, so I built him one with a better mid-length gas, mid-weight barrel, and a free-float handguard.

Also getting my stuff organized for our annual Christmas trip to NV. I've got a pile of ammo I'm taking... most in .308. Test loads for both the M1a and the Savage 10, testing TAC against other powders, and the Hornady BTHP against the SMK and Nosler CC. I make a range sheet up with the loads already on it, and use a Sharpie to mark the ammo boxes for quick index, and load them in my big ammo box in order. It only took me about 25 years to figure that one out...

 

Deburred and pocket uniform 250 204 Ruger brass and more Rolling Stones.

 

I sharpy the load or test parameter on the side of each case. It looks like hell but it takes one lost label or dumped box....

 

I hadn't seen any for awhile either. I saw 250 Nosler pack available and bought it quickly.

 

I remedied my lack of 52 grain Barnes Match Burners and got birthday pricing from Midway. Since the rifle I use them in has iron sights, I should be plenty good out to 300 yards max. I didn’t realize these are flat based bullets. That might explain the slight edge these have in accuracy at the distances I normally shoot. I’ll save the Sierra loads for my scoped rifle. However, I have enough Match Burners to test in that rifle too, just in case they work.

 

There are other premium options that may serve you if you want to buy American. Patterson or alphas are competitive in the high end market and are made here.
https://www.grafs.com/catalog/product/productId/76153
https://alphamunitions.com/product/308-winchester-srp-small-rifle-primer/

 

Sorting clean brass by caliber. Winchester and Federal are further separated.

 

Got the 30-30 finally and grabbed my long brass to figure out chamber length. Well I sized one to the .375 datum and it's longer than 1.512. I guess I'll have to fire a few rounds to see what I'm actually working with. I have a bag of over 100 of my dad's reloads with a 170 rnfp and 26 grains of tac to work with.

 

I did the honorable thing today and loaded up 50 30-30 rounds. 20 are Hornady Interlock 170 FN with 34.0gr Win 748, mag primer. 30 are with 31.0gr IMR 4064 and 150gr Rem Core-lok, standard CCI LRP. Need to get back to the desert for some lever looniness.

 

“Marlins have really short, tight chambers…” said no one. Ever.

 

Loaded 24 32 H&R mag. 95 grain coated cast. With 4 grains of herco. I want to see how they perform before loading all 200 casings.

 

Did you get a Marlin 336? This should be interesting.

 

Model 94 win. I wish it was a 336