The two Remington's came out fine, so I guess I'll do the rest.
I got out to shoot today, and I ended up taking six weapons, starting with the .357 and .45 pistols then the .22, .223, and .357 rifles, and finally the 12Ga shotgun.
I shot my first 50 reloads and then some.
I had spent a lot of time last night weighing all the reloads and weighing new ones, and comparing everything to see what the overall variations were from round to round.
I was a little depressed when I saw the variation in my weights, & I figured most of the variation was in lead. So when I started weighing shot drops I realized this was true. I also learned to improve my technique (in other words how much you jiggle the press and in which way) and get more consistent weights.
Amazingly, I only had a few funny crimps, and only 1 load that was disturbingly heavy and one that was disturbingly light. Disturbing that is until I started remembering that one grain is only about 0.002 oz. And until I weighed the factory loads and realized how much they varied as well!
I decided that 36 grains variation over the lot was pretty good, considering that if I threw out the lightest and heaviest of the shells that the variation suddenly became only 19 grains.
I weighed the factory ammo of different brands and sizes and types for variation and what I found is that 12 gauge shotshells would vary anywhere from 12.3 to 32.6 grains over the sample quantities which I had. In total I weighed nearly 200 shells.
Anyhow those loads all shot fine, there were no major variations in Kick from the gun or pattern on the paper, and I got to pattern several loads on paper with great results.
Because I was using mixed reclaimed skeet shot, I got some large patterns (but still with good centers.) Unfortunately I was having so much fun I shot that snot out of everything before I bothered to take any photographs.
I disassembled one of the 50 rounds for forensic purposes, but the other 49 shot without a single misfire, hangfire, or squib, and they all seemed to be, if anything, more consistent than factory loads.
I managed to pick up all my empties plus another 50 empty hulls at the range ,and I also bought some brand new #4 lead shot.
Right now there's a great buying panic in California and when I went to Sportsman's Warehouse I found no 9mm Luger bullets whatsoever left ! (and lots of other items were in short supply & they had jacked up the prices.)
$150 for 8 pounds of powder & $42 for 25# new shot. There was no Buckshot whatsoever to be had, and no bb shot or number 2 shot either.
Everybody is spending their Christmas money and they're spending it fast because they know that on January 1st the price of all this stuff is going to go up along with the new law changes.
Plus there will be fees and background checks for anyone who wants to buy ammo.
