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My first reloads turned out alright

John A.

John A.

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Well, at the concern of my wife, I didn't blow my stupid self up.

All 6 test loads went off without a hitch, cycled the action and locked the bolt back, and accurate enough to hit the gong at 25 yards each time. No overpressure signs, primer pocket looked fine, empties all landed in a neat pile, etc.

Not sure what more I could ask for, but I kick myself now for not doing this a long time ago.
 
That's how I felt when I did my first ones (.223's). I think I quadruple checked everything. So far the only problem I has was one that had a primer in upside down and I missed it when I loaded it.

You better watch out. I was going to only load .223 and 9mm. Now I have dies and supplies for 6 calibers.
 
I bought the stuff a couple weeks ago to do 12 and 16 gauge, and the 9mm was more of impulse, though I had planned to do for a while now, I just didn't have any more excuses not to and I pulled the trigger on a few of the inexpensive powder throwers and things I didn't already have.
 
Congrats John !!

If and when you find the time ....post a few pics of your setup...maybe a few words on the procedure, step by step.

If you please...I think the membership will be interested.
 
Awesome John. Welcome to another addiction! LOL
 
SHOOTER13 said:
Congrats John !!

If and when you find the time ....post a few pics of your setup...maybe a few words on the procedure, step by step.

If you please...I think the membership will be interested.
Click to expand...

It's a little unorthodox and certainly beginner grade, but it works.

A few years ago, a good friend gave me some of his reloading gear. He had been fighting cancer and said he didn't have the time or energy for it anymore and wanted it to go to a good home and I have hung onto it because not only did he give it to me, but I knew someday that I would use it. I admit that I've been thinking about him a lot after getting it out of the boxes. Chuck was a good guy.

He gave me a set of the really old Lee 9mm dies that you do by hand instead of a press that I will probably never use, and he gave me a regular newer set of dies, and gave me two small Lee hand presses some primed brass and a couple hundred CCI 500's to get me started.

So, to streamline the process, I have the deprimer die in one of the hand presses, and the expanding die the other so I don't have so many adjustments to make swapping them out back and forth so often, and I can sit on the couch watching tv with my family while I'm doing it so it doesn't take any time away from them. And then I have an old rock chucker press that I am using to seat them with.

reloading gear 003.JPG


The primer tool is just a simple Lee auto prime XR primer tool as seen here. http://www.grafs.com/catalog/product/productId/7690

And I'm polishing brass with a small Scout tumbler and tuf-nut walnut media. It handles around 300 or so 9mm brass at once. Does well after a couple of hours too, but surely not as good as an ultrasonic cleaner on the inside, but still not bad.

reloading gear 005.JPG

I'm storing brass in coffee cans and plastic tubs. Powder and primer are staying in a few 50cal cans.

reloading gear 006.JPG

The powder measure is just a simple Lee perfect powder measure dumping into a small Hornady digital scale. I did make up a stand for it so I can move it around because I'm rather limited in space on that bench because that space is shared for everything.

reloading gear 001.JPG

And for the shotshell loading bench, I mounted a Lee load-all2 and drilled a hole down through where the primers drop so they'll go straight into the trash.

reloading gear 002.JPG

That's about it. It's small and slow, but is keeping me honest allowing me the time to check and double check and triple check every round I put through everything.
 
Very nice setup John...thanks for sharing it with us !!

Before you know it...you'll be replacing it with a Dillon 550 !! :cool:
 
John, I'm really really happy for you. Hooray!

I still don't have any super high-volume loader. And I feel just fine with doing things in my own time.

I am sure you know, but what you have will make ammo just as fine as stuff costing a whole lot more!
 
Metal polish.

It's good for polishing old tarnished chrome and stainless gun bolts and things and cleaning a lot of grime off of them.

Works well with polishing brass too obviously.

Use gloves though when working with it. It irritates some peoples skin pretty bad.
 
nitesite said:
John, I'm really really happy for you. Hooray!
I still don't have any super high-volume loader. And I feel just fine with doing things in my own time.

I am sure you know, but what you have will make ammo just as fine as stuff costing a whole lot more!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm figuring that out.

All in due time. To everything, there is a season.
 
Please avoid using anything containing ammonia to help clean brass. Too much can can apparently leach something out of the metal leaving it brittle.

Lots of us buy the orange bottle of Nu-Finish car polish to go with corncob tumbling media. I have used it successfully with walnut media as well. It really brightens brass well and doesn't contain ammonia. Some folks just add a capful of mineral spirits to crushed walnut and then let the media spin around for a while to not clump and then add brass to the tumbler.

A used drier sheet cut up 2"x2" works wonders in your tumbler, grabbing lots of that black schmutz that is knocked out of dirty brass. Keeps your media cleaner forever.

This hobby is crazy fun and there are so many little hints and tips. I hope you didn't mind this post.
 
Of course I don't mind anything that anyone has to add. This is an open topic on an open forum.

Thanks for the advice on the dryer sheet. I'll try that. I have some Fresh Earth scent dryer sheets that I keep in the plastic storage tub with my ghillie suits and camo hunting clothes.

As for the brasso, I hadn't used it in my tumbler. I use it to clean and polish gun parts like most recently the 16 gauge bolt and elevator on the gun I got a few weeks ago, polish the little scratches out of my wedding ring, etc.
 
I've mentioned it here many times before; I do A LOT of my reloading in half-stages, perhaps similar to what you'll do John.

I might prep a couple hundred pistol cases in an hour or two, simply sizing/decapping with the first die and then flaring with my second die then prime them and bag 'em up for a rainy day. Then later on another opportunity comes and then it goes really quickly when I grab some bullets and in two easy steps I add powder and seat/crimp on a single stage press using just the final die and one handle pull. In an hour I can have a lot of finished cartridges

Of course, .223 takes an assload of more time just because of lubing each case with Imperial Sizing Wax prior to sizing, and then trimming the darn things after sizing. And then cleaning the lube back off before priming. You'd think that with only two dies instead of three it would go faster than pistol... but NOOOOO.... It can be a PITA.
 
Be sure the drier sheets have gone thru the drier cycle with the laundry! All you want is the leftover fine mesh not the waxy fabric softener.

Apologies, John. I have a tendency to try speaking to a broader audience but unintentionally make it sound irritatingly like I am commenting on just one person's post. Ask oli700... :)
 
Oh, one more thing before I go to sleep...

I know Brasso is great at hand polishing solid brass objects... I went thru a crap-ton of it in the Army for our uniform brass.

I meant that thin cartridge brass can maybe be made brittle when too much ammonia is put into its environment.

I didn't intend to sound like Brasso can't be used for brass (it's in the name for god's sake!) just cartridge brass.
 
nitesite said:
I've mentioned it here many times before; I do A LOT of my reloading in half-stages, perhaps similar to what you'll do John.

I might prep a couple hundred pistol cases in an hour or two, simply sizing/decapping with the first die and then flaring with my second die then prime them and bag 'em up for a rainy day. Then later on another opportunity comes and then it goes really quickly when I grab some bullets and in two easy steps I add powder and seat/crimp on a single stage press using just the final die and one handle pull. In an hour I can have a lot of finished cartridges

Of course, .223 takes an assload of more time just because of lubing each case with Imperial Sizing Wax prior to sizing, and then trimming the darn things after sizing. And then cleaning the lube back off before priming. You'd think that with only two dies instead of three it would go faster than pistol... but NOOOOO.... It can be a PITA.
Click to expand...

That's exactly how I am doing it. I have about 500 pieces of brass that's already primed that my buddy Chuck gave me with the equipment.

And I have about 300 pieces of deprimed and sized brass waiting that my youngest son and I did together while watching Adventure Time and the Regular Show on cartoon network.
 
cool, I must have been living in a tent when you posted this......

keep an eye on the static movement on that scale......I have one that will start going up and down a grain without any good reason
 
nitesite said:
Of course, .223 takes an assload of more time just because of lubing each case with Imperial Sizing Wax prior to sizing, and then trimming the darn things after sizing. And then cleaning the lube back off before priming. You'd think that with only two dies instead of three it would go faster than pistol... but NOOOOO.... It can be a PITA.
Click to expand...
huh, I give mine One Shot in a bag, mix them around, size them , trim, load , shoot.

Next 5 times around they don't get trimmed , One Shot, size , load, shoot
 
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