First time loading for .308 Winchester and need some help/advice.

[Member 5605]

Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?

Toss them in the pins. No need to add an extra price or step with walnut. The soap is efficient enough to clean the cases, you'll never know you had anything on them at the end.

 

[AMT]

Toss them in the pins. No need to add an extra price or step with walnut. The soap is efficient enough to clean the cases, you'll never know you had anything on them at the end.

That makes sense.

The more i contemplate the steps i want to take, the more i lean to just doing one (1) step, and just cleaning the tumbler more often.

 

[DizzyJ]

I absolutely plan on running them through a cleaner prior to assembling.

I am trying to decide if i want to run them through a vibratory cleaner with walnut shells prior to throwing in the wet tumbler for a super shiny end-product.

As someone mention previously, the oils tend to get the wet tumbler "dirty" and it needs to be cleaned more often. Cleaning it isn't "THAT" big of a deal, it's just a pain and I don't like scrubbing it out....

I might used the walnut media as the "sacrificial" cleaner. Then I can just dump it and start over with fresh/clean media every-so-often.

Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?

I wet tumble in HOT water with pins and a decent amount of Dawn to get the lanolin out of the inside of the cases.

 

[orygun]

Ok, ok.
I've dry tumbled for years.

What wet tumbler do you fans recommend?

 

[Sniperwannabee]

can someone post a link for a place to buy the correct lanolin

 

[Member 5605]

can someone post a link for a place to buy the correct lanolin

Lanolin Oil USP Grade by Velona - 4 oz | 100% Pure and Natural Carrier Oil | Refined, Cold pressed | Skin, Hair, Body & Face Moisturizing | Use Today - Enjoy Results https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZJWYTE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_34o1Fb9XBKAT3

Look for "pure lanolin", should be a honey colored liquid. No additives.
This one works, there are others too. Should be about $10/4oz

2oz lanolin, 10-12oz iso
I've made it once, still have 1" in bottom of spray bottle.
2oz lanolin used and going strong.

 

[partsed]

Ok, ok.
I've dry tumbled for years.

What wet tumbler do you fans recommend?

I have the Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler that I bought off Amazon.

 

[partsed]

Midway has it on sale for $149.00

 

[gmerkt]

Some presses are designed to go over center, with the linkage topping out the ram, and then going slightly past. This means that you have to pull it back to top on your way back down. The engineering principle? Who knows? Maybe a second bump to the sizer, maybe something else. You can both see and feel this if you watch the linkage instead of the case as you size.

You will not notice this by feel if you load with carbide dies and maintain clearance between shell holder and carbide ring when the ram is up. Contact between the shell holder and the carbide insert can fracture the carbide, which is oh so smooth, oh so hard and oh so brittle.

Keep over-center (RCBS and others) linkages lubed up! Those pins undergo an extreme sheering force when the linkage goes over center. Unless you maintain those linkages, they will develop some slack.

Other presses are designed to go to the top and stop. The Lee Classic Cast in one such.

This is the "camming over" discussed earlier in the thread. I've used and own each design. And I've never figured out an engineering advantage to the extent that I've noticed any difference on the result obtained. You've got to wonder at the stresses on die base and press components at the moment of maximum travel on the over center design. But then again, RCBS is still in business making them.

Yes, you don't want to adjust a carbide sizing die (as shown in the RCBS video) so it's subjected to the camming over effect.

I must also add that I've never yet stuck a case in a die. That's not to say that I haven't been distracted as others have been and inadvertently placed a dry case in for sizing. But, I've found that the RCBS case lube and pad that I've used for years pretty much make that an impossibility. After sizing a lubed case with the RCBS lube, there remains enough residual lube in the die to be sufficient to do another case. You can feel the difference but the case won't get stuck. In fact, when the die gets well-lubed itself, sometimes you can skip every other case on the pad. As I said previously, I try to use the lub pad in such a way that minimal lube gets on the neck and shoulder with the base/web area getting plenty.

 

[tac]

Like many old f*rts here and over where you are, I've used Imperial sizing wax almost since it was invented and never had a case stuck. With only fifteen different loads to cater for these days, I'm still very much a novice when it comes to reloading, having only started in 1968. Until 1997 I used to reload an awful lot more, but with only a single cartridge-firing handgun to cater for these days, my crank-em-out by the thousand Dillon press was pretty much redundant.

It looked nice though, until I sold it at a HUGE profit to a shooter in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where an ordinary Joe can have an ordinary handgun that looks like a handgun, and do three-gun and IPSC the way it was meant to be.

I still have my faithish Rockchucker for rifle and a Lee turret for my .357Mag.

 

[po18guy]

ALSO!!!! Check and make sure the tiny little vent is free and clear!! And it IS tiny.

Those tiny little holes can be cleaned with a welding tip cleaner (they're cheap), a pin or needle I suppose, or a high E string from a guitar. If you try a toothpick, you will have quite an adventure when the tip breaks off in the hole. An over-lubed junk case run into the sizer would probably 'hydraulic' it back out, but all we want is clean dies.

 

[DizzyJ]

I have the Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler that I bought off Amazon.

View attachment 790873

This right here.

 

[ThunderMtnOrd]

I'm fairly new to reloading. So far I've only loaded pistol. 9mm, 45ACP, 45 SUPER, 44AMP, 357AMP, 50AE. Probably a few thousand rounds total. So, I understand the basics. This is the first time loading for rifle and I'm starting off with .308 Winchester. I have some questions and am hoping for help.

• I am using an RCBS #15501 .308 Winchester Full Length Reloading Die Set.
• I am trying to process mixed brass. It is mostly LC brass.
• I am using Hornady One Shot spray lube (as that I all I have right now).
• I set up the FL / deprimer die in my Rock Chucker.
• I have an old cookie sheet and lay out 15-20 brass on it. I spray it with the One Shot, and agitate the brass so they roll around and get a coating of lube all over them.
• I grab a shell and insert it into the #3 shell holder and cycle it up to pop out the primer and size the shell. It seems like every LC brass is expanded and is extremely hard to cycle through the sizing die. The other non-LC brass cycles with minimal effort.
• Around the 100th shell (mostly LC, with a few others mixed in) I ripped the rim off a case. Yup! Stuck case! I found on YouTube how to remove it, and thankfully I had the stuff to succeed.

Now I'm ready to continue. But first…..

Lube recommendations? Is the "home made" lanolin and rubbing alcohol really "that good"? Does anyone have any suggestions for something that doesn't come in a paste and needs to be applied to each individual shell (like Imperial Sizing Wax).

Am I doing something wrong?

I am open to any and all suggestions.

Why does it seem the LC brass is wider, as it is significantly harder to run through the sizing die?

Thanks & sorry for making this post so long. I wanted to include pertinent info.

Thanks!

Much of your LC 7.62 brass has been fired in machine guns. Many times it is stretched beyond its elasticity. I have had the same results as you. I even turned a few thousandths off the bottom of my FL sizing die to get the military brass to size enough. I still get some that won't comply. Oh well, toss 'em.

 

[AMT]

Thanks for all the assist, hints and tips! It has gotten me a long way. Thank you!

I've finished popping the primers and have cleaned the brass. (thanks to the lanolin and 91% ISO Alcohol - AND letting it dry first!!! hahahaha)

Next will be sizing to length. Then hitting the primer pocket and touching the case mouth on the Layman shell case prep machine.

Got another question..... according to Hodgdon website (I am not sitting in front of my reloading manual right now) is suggests to use "Federal 210M, Large Rifle Match" primers. Being that primers have vaporized, is there a reason for 210M (Match) primers? Is there that big of a difference between Fed. 210M and Fed. 210? Others on the interwebs have suggested that Fed. 210 and CCI 200 works just fine too.

It has been suggest to NOT use Large Rifle Magnum primers (Fed. 215 or CCI 250) in place of the Large rifle primers (Fed. 210 or CCI 200).

I am not competition shooting. These are not being loaded in a bolt gun. They are for an AR-10. I just want to be able to group fairly ok at 100-150 yards. "Group fairly ok" to me is hitting an 10" paper plate in a group as big as my hand.

Would using any "Large Rifle" primer be ok to use, as long as it is not a "Magnum" primer?

Thanks again!

 

[BigDog67]

I can think of no reason to use Match or Benchrest primers unless that what you are loading for. Standard LRPs should be fine.

 

[tac]

If you use the highest price primers then the BANG might sound a little posher.

'Match' grade anything, where ammunition or components are concerned, usually means that the manufacturing process machinery is slowed down considerably to allow better and more even tolerances to be achieved than you would find at the more usual 100,000 an hour for bullets, and half a million for primers.

There are no elves sitting at the end of the line measuring each one, at least, that's what I'm told.

 

[DizzyJ]

While I certainly dont think you need a match grade primer for what you're doing, you probably SHOULD consider the thickness of said primer, especially in an auto loading platform.

In my experience, the bench rest, or "match grade" primers have thicker cups which can help to avoid slam fires. I have used them for working up loads in my ARs and bolt actions mainly because they afford me the ability to push the load harder.

You'd have to look them up on a chart to see if there's a difference in thickness between the ones they recommend and the ones you're thinking about switching over to.

 

[DizzyJ]

PS:
I've also used magnum primers for the same reason as listed above.

 

[tac]

Let's be honest here, Gentlefolk. Match grade primers are just the leg articulations of apis apis, for the huge number of shooters who use them in their BR and match-grade rifles. These are the people for whom anything more than a raggedy hole with five shots in it at any distance is a personal affront to their image, and quite right too - we'd all like to shoot like that smiling guy in the magazine.

However, for most of us who are trying to place a SINGLE bullet right THERE in the boiler room of our intended supper, grouping is not necessarily, well, necessary.

We are hoping for the one clean, sure humane shot that achieves our, uh, aim.

Standard primers are just fine.

This three-shot group was shot with standard primers in a much-used and much-loved 37-year-old .308Win rifle -



If you can beat that using Match primers, then good luck to you.

 

[ron]

No run the primers you have. Run what you brung. Love the one your with. Reloading data lists
components they used. Check out the One Book One caliber Load Data. Contains all major powder
and bullet manufactures. In order to achieve excellent accuracy use quality components. Good brass
with uniform neck tension. Quality bullets and powder. These 5 shot @ 100 yard groups are made
with LC once fried same year brass, 168 Sierra Match Kings, WLR primers and THE BEST 308 powder.
IMR 4064. IMHO Same load I use in my M1A.