What should I get next?

[ddgarcia05]

I have the lee hand press and dies. Limited brass about 150 9mm pieces. 1 lbs of powder, 1k primers

I have nothing to clean the brass with and no loading trays.

Should I concentrate on getting more powder, a local shop has a few lbs left.

Or should I buy a tumbler/ultrasonic?

 

[WestKentucky]

Harbor freight tumbler and walnut media. A bottle of nufinish. A large pile of lead, a medium pile of primers, and a small pile of brass...in that order. A pound of powder goes a long way in 9mm and any other small handgun cartridges. Primers do too, but you can figure that out really easy. Brass lasts a while as 9mm is relatively low pressure.

 

[omgtkk]

You'll be surprised how far that lb of powder goes. I assume you have bullets. Do you have a caliper? If not, that should be on your list. Get your loading tray, a vibratory tumbler, and some crushed walnut shell from Petco. You should be good to go. Enjoy!

 

[splattergun]

A tumbler is a luxury in your case, IMO. A wiping rag would suit you just fine for cleaning 150 cases, or just wash them in a gallon of hot water with a tablespoon of Dawn, some salt and about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Soak for 20-30 minutes, rinse well, then dry in a 150 degree oven for 30 mnutes. Hand loaders lived without tumblers for many decades before they became "necessary" less than 2 decades ago.

Get a loading block. YOu'll find it indispensable, whether you have 150 pieces of brass or 1500.

 

[ddgarcia05]

Caliper, yes. Should delivered tomorrow along with the press.

 

[Jlr2267]

Go ahead and order some breech lock bushings. How are you throwing your powder?

A set of calipers are needed for loading everything but revolver loads.

 

[ddgarcia05]

Already orders several breech lock bushings.

 

[rcmodel]

Buy Loading blocks first.

You can very safely reload dirty brass.
You can very safely reload without a dial or digital caliper.
I did it for years many years ago.

Buy a $.99 cent birthday candle, or $1.98 Magic-marker instead to smoke or color your test rounds and determine chamber contact, or seating depth.

But you can't safely shoot double charged loads, or spilled powder on the bence while charging cases without loading blocks.

Charge 50 cases at a time, set them in the block as you charge each one, then carefully look in all 50, and compare the powder charge levels in all of them side by side.

Only then should the first bullet be taken out of the first box!

Dirty or clean cases makes absolutely no difference at all.
Too much powder in one case, or none at all might shoot your eye out!

rc

 

[TenDriver]

D, use those trays I sent you for loading blocks. They'll work great if you use both trays to load 50 at a time. That's what I do here. 9mm trays work great for 9mm and 223. 44 trays work great for anything using a #2 shellholder. (Right after I typed that I realized I might have sent you crappy trays. They should still get it done though).

100 of the 150 are tumbled, sized and belled. All you've got to do is prime, charge, seat and crimp.

Out of curiosity, what powder are you using? If also think about a digital scale, but back it up with a bean scale.

 

[KansasSasquatch]

I see no mention of a reliable scale....stay away from cheapo electronics.

 

[ddgarcia05]

Unique powder and frankford digi scale. I don't have a balance scale. Sorry guys I'm loading on a budget. I'll work a few more off duty details in the coming months to get more equipment.

I used the vinegar, soap and salt cleaning solution just now on a handful of 223 I picked up.

 

[Wreck-n-Crew]

Harbor freight tumbler and walnut media. A bottle of nufinish.

Good tumblers for the price. I have loaded thousands of rounds with my little tumbler. If you plan on doing this for a while you will need it anyway, but it can wait. I use the walnut too but I just bought a jug of the Lyman red with lube already in it. Tumble and lubed thousands and still lubing well. They have bottles of the lube from Lyman or use the Nu-finish.

You'll be surprised how far that .lb of powder goes.

better than a thousand rounds of 9mm, depending on the powder really. I can get on average 1400 rounds+.

Loading trays are nice to do a good visual check and charge many rounds at one. Definitely cheap to buy and saves time and injury. Did you get a bullet puller? In the future a digital scale would be advisable too.

 

[BYJO4]

A scale is a must to verify your powder charge.

 

[ddgarcia05]

As for loading trays I plan to go to harbor freight and buying a brad drill bit set and making my own out of some wood I have stored out back.

 

[Jlr2267]

Calibrate that FA scale before every use. Mine drifts a couple tenths of a grain over time. Not a huge deal unless you are loading max with a fast powder.

If you don't mind me asking, are you active military?

 

[ddgarcia05]

LEO

 

[KansasSasquatch]

I wouldn't use salt nor vinegar on brass. Both can lead to dezincification, which isn't good. If you're dead set on using either, make dang sure you rinse it thoroughly afterwards. Any trace of salt left inside the brass will be fired through your barrel. Salts (in primers) are make make certain types of ammo corrosive.

 

[Moreno]

I have only been loading for 40 plus years....... and have never washed brass yet. Wipe it off with a rag. It doesn't matter one whit if it has some dark color to it. The only thing you need to worry about is that it doesn't have any mud on it from being dropped on wet ground. If you put your fired brass in your pocket, or a cloth bag and it rattles around a bit by the time you take it out to load the bag has rubbed the smoke off the brass.
I loaded for 35 years with no tumbler. You don't need a tumbler. Yes, you can make the brass shiny with one, but shiny brass is for looks only.

I also loaded for over 30 years with no calipers. Nice, but not necessary.

You do need to verify the powder charge. A scale is a must. As RC mentioned an overcharge can be catastrophic.

You will need some way to seat primers. Does the hand press have a primer arm included?

 

[caz223]

You're starting out way better than I did.
I had a Lee loader kit, I borrowed a block of wood, and bought a 1.99 plastic hammer.
But from day one I was bit, that kit paid for itself in an hour.
After 20 years of reloading, I still look back and remark how good that lee loader ammo was, for how little I spent.

Can anyone remember the days of boxes of 9mm ammo for $3.99?

Anyway, back to the point. I loaded for years with no way of cleaning the brass, aside from a rag, a little polish, and some steel wool for the really bad ones.
I shot the same 200 pieces of .41 magnum brass for 10 years, at 100 rounds a week.
I retired that set of brass when I got 1000 new starline cases (Sale price too good to pass up.), I still got 180 or so of the original 200 cases left. After 10 years of no cleaning, and loading the same brass over and over, I've never had one split while shooting. It really is amazing, now that I think about it.

 

[Sheepdog1968]

I took a local reloading class to learn. One of the two instructors was a national revolver competitor. He told us that he never bothers to clean his brass and it works just fine.

 

[gamestalker]

You really do need a loading tray. They are necessary and make things go a lot smoother by eliminating spills, but more importantly by providing an organized lay out by which to inspect powder charges prior to seating bullets, a must. My first loading tray was home made and I still use it along with my more expensive trays.

And tumbling is never a bad thing, it helps in identifying a bad case, but by no means a must. HBF has inexpensive tumblers and media. When I first started reloading, I didn't tumble my brass for the first couple years, and accuracy was stellar. I just cleaned the lube off with either soap and water, or alcohol when I could afford to. So for the time being, just make sure you inspect the brass for debris inside, and make sure you get all the lube off and out of the case, other than that, you'll be just fine.

I would most certainly pick up a scale. Verifying powder charges is a must, in my opinion.

HF also has $10 dial calipers, so I would pick one up. I find this aspect important, and especially so when loading high pressure AL cartridges.

Other than those few items, you should be just fine for the time being and can add to your tools as you go.

GS

 

[TenDriver]

The advice about the cheap electronic scale is sound. That being said, many of the scales sold as reloading scales are cheap electronic ones that are rebranded. My cheap electronic scale has served me well, but I do verify what it says with an Ohaus beam.

 

[spitballer]

I bought a cheap ($50 on sale) ultrasonic leaner for small batches of .223 brass. It does not have a heated tank but if I preheat the solution it stays very hot during the ten-minute process. With the ultrasonic cleaner you'll probably have to clean up the bottom of the cases on the inside with cotton swabs. Also it leaves a bit of soot on the underside of the shoulders as well. Nevertheless I consider my ultrasonic cleaner one of the best fifty bucks I ever spent. Remarkably clean, just make sure you get a big box of cotton swabs for detailing the cases when they get out of the wash.

 

[bocefus78]

I vote digi scale and a nice bright light with a flexible arm to go on your bench. You cannot have too much light in your reloading room/bench.

 

[rcmodel]

harbor freight and buying a brad drill bit set

Buy the Forstner drill set.

http://www.harborfreight.com/7-piec...ium-nitride-coated-forstner-bit-set-1903.html

They drill smooth flat-bottom holes.
Brad point bits aren't big enough.
And Spade point bits don't cut as clean as Forstner's, and leave a hump in the bottom of the hole so cases won't set level.

rc