Reloading Stuff - Dream come true...

[juniustaylor]

Decided to buy some reloading equipment because I'd been wanting to for a long time. I didn't buy all of the nice stuff like other folks have but so far it's all worked out. The most expensive piece is the digital RCBS scale. Anyway, I've only loaded .30-30 Winchester and 9mm Luger. I bought the stuff to do .243 Win, but I don't have any empty cases as of right now. I've been using the Lee Hand Press and it's done a good job from what I can tell. Sure it's nothing fancy, but I don't have room to dedicate to an entire reloading operation. Dining room table is my laboratory for practically everything haha.

Here are some pictures.

[juniustaylor]

The 9mm Luger are Blazer Brass cases. I used 5.5 grains of Power Pistol with at 124 grain Winchester FMJ bullet. I need to look at some more literature because I think I've cheated myself a little. By my calculation, this should go around 1075 fps, which should be more than ample for blasting. This literature is from the Hornady loading manual. The Lee info that comes with the die set said I could use up to 6.6 grains of Power Pistol with a 125 grain FMJ bullet with a velocity of 1235 fps (Max Load). The starting load is 6 grains, so I'm not quite sure on this one.

The .30-30 ammo is loaded with 30 grains of Hodgdon H4895 and a 160 grain Hornady FTX bullet. I'm hoping that it will go around 2200 fps. It stinks that I can't match Hornady's 2400 fps range with the LEVERevolution ammo, but this will certainly do. Even out to 150 yards with a .30-30 will certainly be something in itself.

[rottenrick]

JT how are you cleaning the brass?? Like you I'm going to be working with a friends Lee handloader. The things have been around about forever. What I'd be trying to load would be the 30-30, 9mm, 9mm MAK, 7.62x39. Guess I'd start with 9x19. Any tips??

[juniustaylor]

The brass I had was in decent shape already (9mm) the .30-30 brass was new Winchester and Remington brand. I do not have a tumbler right now, but one is coming to my house and is somewhere in the mail system as we speak! I've got a lot of .38 Spl brass I can put in there, I plan on buying a set of Lee carbide dies for .38/.357. My 9mm dies are carbide, that's why I didn't bother with lube/tumbling them this time.

If you don't have a cheap tumbler yet, here is one $30.
https://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/ ... BSR0052001

I did not buy this one as Google didn't help me find it. I ended up buying the Frankford Arsenal Quik-N-EZ tumbler off Amazon. I still saved some money, but not that much.

Handgun loading is super cheap. With one pound of powder you should be able to load over 1000 rounds. 1lb = 7,000 grains. Normally handgun cartridges are using less than 7 grains of powder. The only tip I have for handgun ammo is to make sure you expand the case mouth enough for the bullet to start positively. My first batch wasn't expanded quite enough and made loading a tad difficult. The second time around they were excellent after I expanded those cases a bit more.

[rottenrick]

Thank you JT. I'll still read 'Reloading for Dummies' though. I'll have to work it over in my mind a bit before I leep into the unknown. Thanks again

[juniustaylor]

If you haven't really reloaded ever, then that book should do a decent job explaining it. I've not read that book, so I can't say for certainty. My dad reloaded and I watched him do it and he'd let me do .243 ammo on my own. Loading .30-30 Win was a new one for me, but the operation is all the same. Loading handguns has to be pretty precise. It takes such a small amount of powder to create a lot of pressure real fast.

The cartridge overall length (COL) is very important as well. I kept the 9mm in a happy medium. Minimum was 1.150" and Max was 1.169" and mine were around 1.155" - 1.160".

Whatever die set you use, read the directions very carefully - especially when using the bullet seating die. The reason being is that it can double as a crimper as well. Normally they say to screw the die in until it touches the shell holder and then back off or screw in so many turns depending on if you want the die to do the crimp or if you're going to use a crimp die instead. Just follow the directions is all I can say.

Normally the reloading manuals do a decent job of explaining the operations involved. The Lee Modern Reloading is supposed to be a decent resource, however, a lot of folks are turned off by it since it says "Lee this and Lee that" every couple sentences. I'm sure he's just proud of his equipment and made it for a particular reason so whatever.

[rottenrick]

JT, with out having read the manual it might be for liability purposes. You know some military tech manuals are, they so redundant, that even if you're half way paying attention you can't or shouldn't be able to screw something up. I also learned something else, no matter how hard you try, nothing is sailor proof.

[juniustaylor]

@rottenrick, I know what you mean about military tech manuals... nothing is Airman proof either.
I loaded up some .38 Special ammo tonight (May 7). I did get to shoot my Win '94 and Beretta 92. My .30-30 ammo did not go as fast as I had hoped. Also, there is a tad too much pressure, primers starting to barely unseat. So, next time around I'll use 29.8 grains or so of H4895. The 9mm ammo shot the speed it was supposed to. I was able to use a chronograph to see the speeds. My average with the .30-30 was around 1973 fps or so, I was really hoping for 2200 and expected to see that due to the data from Hodgdon's website. Anyway, that's a no-go. The 9mm went around 1068 fps, which is about what the data showed it should go.

.38 Special Ammo

[hvacken]

Wow, thanks for posting pics of that! I've been seriously thinking about picking one of those up to reload .380's. I'm not a high volume shooter, so I think one of those would be just fine for me.

[juniustaylor]

hvacken it would definitely be fine for you. I am the same way, not a high volume shooter plus I just don't have room to dedicate to a full setup. When I reload, it'd be around 100 rounds at a time which is the quantity I've reloaded every time whether it was .30-30, 9mm, or 38 Spl. I have stuff to load .243 as well, but I don't have any empty brass, just a bunch of boxes of loaded ammo in the closet. Some folks whine that they could only do a box or two before their hand or arms got tired. I feel that I could probably do 200 or more rounds at a time with no problem. It depends on how you use the tool.

I'm glad you liked the pictures.

[juniustaylor]

Forgot to mention, I did get my tumbler in the other day. I tried 50/50 corncob and walnut mix. I bought both of those at a pet store, way cheaper than buying it from a reloading resource. Keep that in mind. Anyway, it got the cases pretty clean, but decided to follow them up with uncooked rice. Well, the rice came out a bit dark and the cases were even more clean. I may try using rice exclusively with a bit of case polish (not Brasso) to see what kind of results I can get. I only tumble about 100-200 cases at a time. I bought a $2 collander and a $2 cleaning bucket from Wal-Mart as the media separator. There may have been a cheaper route, but seriously, reloading doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive. The nice toys sure would be nice, no doubt about it, but you can make do without them.

[hardcorekeith]

Cool! I kinda want one of those to crank out a few rounds while sitting at work.

[dfunk]

Bookmarked for future use...near Christmas!

Seriously, good work Junius. I've learned quite a bit in this section as I'm a reloading rookie and I'd love to start shooting .45 auto cheaper. I also don't have the scratch or square footage to dedicate a gun room, so this would be up my alley, too.

[rottenrick]

JT We used to use crushed walnut shells to clean jet engines up until about 1972 when a sailor came up with the idea of the rustlic cart (pumped soap into the aircraft turbine, while spinning it with a huffer, no ignition). Walnuts shells worked just fine, but took too much time. Just a little aircraft trivia. If it will work for a turbine, it will sure work on brass.

[rottenrick]

JT, BTW Great pictures!!