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Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 14th, 2011, 6:58 pm
by juniustaylor
25 yrs old and reloading. Got a few oddball guns, nothing really out of the ordinary. I'm glad to hear that some folks have good luck with handpick. I think it just depends on who you have that is doing the picking. Whether or not they give a crap about really giving you the nicest one out of a bunch or if they just ripped you out of $10.

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 17th, 2011, 8:24 am
by lklawson
The Only Sarge wrote:I got skivvies older than you.
The Great Underwear Famine is over. Use the "3 Hole Rule." 2 in front, 1 in back, then replace. ;)
1976.....whew! I am old.....
I feel older every day. But I understand the desire to have a firearm made the year you were born. I'm a bit older than the gent, but I suspect not quite as, um, "experienced" as you are yet.
I am really happy young folks are getting into collecting.
Now get to reloading!
Reloading sounds great but there are a lot of Barriers to Entry.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 19th, 2011, 9:37 pm
by juanace
I got my Wolf spring kit a few days ago. My update,

Replaced the hammer spring with the 20# one. I can pull the trigger on DA every time with some difficulty. WIll skip the 19# one. So I will go to the 18# and test fire when I get some ammo. It is a pain to remove the hammer spring, but is about three times the pain to get it back in to position to get in the pin. I did not change in the SA pull that much. Also installed the 20# recoil spring and is as little tuff to pull the slide back, but doable. I can imagine with the 22# recoil spring got to be a pain. Still have to replace the firing pin spring with the kit one. More to come after testing. No ammo.

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 19th, 2011, 10:36 pm
by robalan
Hunters & Anglers has a good mini course on reloading. It is real cheap and fun even if you don't decide to do it later own.

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 20th, 2011, 6:28 am
by The Only Sarge
Reloading can seem intimidating at first. In reality it is not at all.
It is inexpensive to start. The satisfaction far outweighs the effort.

Anyone interested can utilize a forum, such as this one, for unbiased and helpful info.

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 20th, 2011, 4:15 pm
by Byrd
What Sarge said...I started reloading almost 40 years ago, and it is almost as fun as shooting. It sure allows you to do a lot more of it! It is not difficult, you just have to pay attention. It allows you the versatility to make loads that are tailor made for your gun. A few years ago, I put an Ed Brown match grade barrel in my Kimber Custom .45ACP and spent the entire winter developing a load for it. I borrowed 35 MM film cans of different powders from friends so I had a variety, used different shape & weight bullets. I experimented with different load charges, seating depths, different crimps. I shot the weapon off sandbags @ 50 ft. I kept all the targets, kept a loading journal with all the data in it so it was repeatable, and ended up with a load that will consistantly put five .452 slugs into one hole that measures .920. That is all I feed that gun now. It took months to find the one that gave me the accuracy I wanted, and made the gun function like I wanted. It was a blast!

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 20th, 2011, 6:02 pm
by The Only Sarge
Now you went and did it.
Every young buck on this forum is Googling "FILM CAN" to find out what that is :)

You touched on something I find very important to any reloader, regardless of their experience.
Your own loadbook. Mine is about as old as yours friend and thicker than Gone With The Wind.

Every load I loaded since about 1970 is in there. My notes on that load etc.

I humbly submit it (your loadbook) is the single most important tool any reloader can have. Not presses or dies...but your loadbook.

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 20th, 2011, 7:11 pm
by Byrd
Agreed! Your notes are invaluable, once you get some experience behind you and learn what a specific gun likes you can make ammo for it that is better quality than factory ammo. I used to shoot in an informal match (years ago) and I used a 6 in. Python. I cast the bullets for it (148 gr. wadcutter) and I weighed the bullets I used in the match so they were all the same, the brass was trimmed to the same length, the primer pockets reamed, and each charge hand weighed. I went way overboard, but I have trophys for the effort! Reloading is fun!

Let's take a poll; how many know what a 35mm film can is, and how many loads can you get out of one full of powder? There is probably a digital device that will tell you that :D

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 20th, 2011, 7:18 pm
by The Only Sarge
LOL....probably is an iPhone ap for it......

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 21st, 2011, 10:29 am
by lklawson
Byrd wrote:Let's take a poll; how many know what a 35mm film can is
I used to use them for storing all sorts of nick-nacks for suitcase and pocket travel. Sometimes I'd stash 'em in the glove box. They'd get filled with change, pills, sometimes even liquid. A bazillion years ago, when I was in Boy Scouts, they got used for emergency kits: First Aid kit (a few bandaids, a little tape, a bit of gauze, and one sterile wipe), sewing kits, tent repair kits, etc.

Now I use Altoids cans for these things. The film can was better, despite having less volume, because it was a water-tight seal.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 21st, 2011, 10:52 am
by lklawson
The Only Sarge wrote:Reloading can seem intimidating at first. In reality it is not at all.
It is inexpensive to start. The satisfaction far outweighs the effort.
I don't feel particularly intimated but I submit that reloading has a more extended ROI than most advocates are willing to admit.

Most of the time reloaders (God bless them) tell me about how much cheaper they can make their 9mm loads than factory loads. I commonly hear $5/50, sometimes less. My friends will then break down the components by how much they paid: powder, bullets, primers, cases. Yup, sounds good. But most often they fail to include the cost of their setup: press, dies, scales, etc. These can be a significant investment and need to be amortized out along with the ROI schedule. And that ROI schedule will be different for every shooter. Some of us, such as myself, are now suburanites and don't have a free range (or friendly private property) particularly close. This is a semi-fixed cost which increases the per-session cost and limits shooting time/sessions, which has the effect of extending the ROI out even further. Then add in other commitments. Using me as an example, Judo two nights a week, Western Arts one night, Cub Scouts one night, Church one day, and a wife who'd dearly like one night a week of my time, which leaves one night a week for any other commitments which might have cropped up. Yeah, I know it's choices, trade offs, I made and I could dump one of my martial arts for more time to reload and shoot, but I'm saying that I don't think I'm particularly atypical. And this limited range time due to other commitments, again, pushes out ROI.

Last time I did the math for myself, the ROI was well past a year or more. :(

Now, I'm not downing reloading. I'd love to be able to do it. I'm just saying that "it's not that expensive to start," "you save money over factory ammo," and other financial based arguments simply aren't always applicable. I totally grok working up your own private load and some of the other reasons.

I've got a couple of C&R's in oddball calibers that I'd love to reload for and, for me anyway, those would be the entry point. Loading 9mm Largo, 7.62 Nagant, or .38S&W could be very good. Once I passed that barrier to entry for me, I'd probably load .38 and .357 for my Ruger and .45LC for my SAA. Probably shrug and start doing 9mm Para at that point too.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 21st, 2011, 10:59 am
by juniustaylor
Kirk, another option is the Lee hand loaders. They're about $25. You are limited, however, on what you can load them with as far as rifle. Pistol seems to be okay as bullets are usually all about the same and the dipper that Lee provides will be smaller and measure the powder pretty well. A cheap(er) powder scale would be the Lee safety scale ($24) that you could use to verify the charges. I have never got to use one of them but I have watched several youtube videos on the matter. Does seem like a pain in the butt, however, it looks pretty dang neat. There is a video of Mr. Lee using his own product. Takes him 40 seconds to completely load a rifle cartridge.

You can use those film canisters for fishing for catfish. Drill some holes in it on the sides. Drill a small hole in the cap and in the bottom. Put your line through the center holes. Fill it with your stinky bait. Keeps the bait from falling off, or getting "stolen" by the fish. :)

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 21st, 2011, 11:38 am
by lklawson
juniustaylor wrote:Kirk, another option is the Lee hand loaders. They're about $25. You are limited, however, on what you can load them with as far as rifle. Pistol seems to be okay as bullets are usually all about the same and the dipper that Lee provides will be smaller and measure the powder pretty well. A cheap(er) powder scale would be the Lee safety scale ($24) that you could use to verify the charges. I have never got to use one of them but I have watched several youtube videos on the matter. Does seem like a pain in the butt, however, it looks pretty dang neat. There is a video of Mr. Lee using his own product. Takes him 40 seconds to completely load a rifle cartridge.
Thanks. That option does lower the barrier for entry.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Re: Soon to be P -64 owner.

Posted: October 21st, 2011, 10:21 pm
by juniustaylor
This is Mr. Lee using his own product.



Also, I wanted to clarify, when I said that the rifle ones are limited. What I meant is that the dipper that is supplied is usually not going to load the amount of powder that you need unless you're using a certain kind of powder that is on the chart. That is why it would be best to get a scale so you could weigh your own charges. The other thing is a caliper. They can be found at a decent price at Harbor Freight for about $10 or so on sale.

I'd kind of like to buy one or find one somewhere on the cheap to see how well they work for myself. Will be a project. Surely one can find them on eBay or gunbroker for cheap.