What did you reload today?

[Certaindeaf]

600 rounds of 9mm, loaded up with 115 gr Berry's Plated Bullets

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Yay, a fellow buckts and jug man! Peanut butter?

 

[nammac]

Yay, a fellow buckts and jug man! Peanut butter?

Kirkland Chocolate covered Raisins

 

[Certaindeaf]

Kirkland Chocolate covered Raisins

Ha, I thought it looked kinda square.. those are really good containers.

 

[Lesliet]

Busy day, today! Off to the range in the am, burned through a bit over 700 rounds of 9mm training on a Steel Challenge stage. Needed a nap, after that and lunch... Then to the reloading room! 850 rounds of 9mm with 125 grain BBI's, 300 9mm with my "seconds" cast 135 grain poly coat bullets, ( fine for practice, just minor defects that make them maybe not the thing for a match) and 100 .45 ACP with some of the first batch of bullets from my new Lee 452-230-TC mold. Kind of finicky getting everything set up so they don't shave lead. We'll see if they chrono ok, tomorrow!

 

[fuqyeahammo]

Busy day, today! Off to the range in the am, burned through a bit over 700 rounds of 9mm training on a Steel Challenge stage. Needed a nap, after that and lunch... Then to the reloading room! 850 rounds of 9mm with 125 grain BBI's, 300 9mm with my "seconds" cast 135 grain poly coat bullets, ( fine for practice, just minor defects that make them maybe not the thing for a match) and 100 .45 ACP with some of the first batch of bullets from my new Lee 452-230-TC mold. Kind of finicky getting everything set up so they don't shave lead. We'll see if they chrono ok, tomorrow!

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I like your set up!!

 

[gmerkt]

I had some 200 gr. cast RN lead bullets left over from when I loaded for .38/200. Sized. .360. I resized them to .358. A couple of nights ago, I made some 200 gr. .38 Special loads. Slow and heavy, approx. 675 fps. You have to watch your length on those, the tip nearly grazes the forcing cone. Consequenty, you also have to make sure you have a hefty roll crimp to avoid inertial bullet back-out. That close to the cusp, it wouldn't take much to lock up the revolver. The bullet tips barely clear the forcing cone in a K frame, not much more room in my N frame .357.

 

[Lesliet]

You have to watch your length on those, the tip nearly grazes the forcing cone. Consequenty, you also have to make sure you have a hefty roll crimp to avoid inertial bullet back-out. That close to the cusp, it wouldn't take much to lock up the revolver. The bullet tips barely clear the forcing cone in a K frame, not much more room in my N frame .357.

How's the recoil on the heavier slugs vs lighter ones with about the same initial energy? (So far, my experience has been in automatics, I don't have a revolver to test this in, yet) In the ones I've tested, the heavy slugs with a fast powder seem to have a softer recoil impulse. Feels as if, while there may be just as much area under the impulse/time curve, the time is spread out a little more so it feels softer.

 

[gmerkt]

How's the recoil on the heavier slugs vs lighter ones with about the same initial energy?

I haven't tried these out yet. I loaded two batches. One with Hodgdon Tite Group powder, the other with Trail Boss. The heavy slugs have a longer in-bore time, consequently they are apt not to shoot to point of aim in modern revolvers. The older revolvers (which tended to have longer barrels) had sights regulated to heavier bullets. The result is the heavier bullets tend to print higher in "modern" guns.

In general, heavier bullets being pushed relatively slowly out of the barrel tend to produce less perceived recoil. Light bullets snap out the barrel, heavy ones loaf along.

Tite Group is a faster powder, works well with small charges, doesn't seem to be volume sensitive. Trail Boss is also a fast powder but has the property of being very bulky and fills the case. .38 Special cases are pretty roomy.

I was late to the party with Tite Group but I've found it to be very useful across a fairly wide range of what I load.

 

[Lesliet]

Tite group runs a little hot, but nonetheless, I have about half a 4 pounder left. It does make nice, snappy 125 grain loads for 9mm, but if you shoot a lot of it fairly quickly, the gun begins to glow a little. Accurate #2 has become my favourite pistol powder in just about everything I load. Runs a lot cooler, so poly coated slugs don't leave junk in the barrel, and the recoil impulse is pretty pleasant. I've been curious about Trail Boss, but haven't tried that one, yet... kinda sucks that most brick and mortar places are still limiting us to one jug of powder, whether it's 1 lb or 5, so I've chosen other things thus far. Probably going to have to bite the bullet, and order a couple of 5 pounders on Midway pretty soon.

 

[HaveGun]

Let my buddy borrow my .450 Bushmaster AR the other day. He wanted to see what the recoil was like in deciding whether or not to build one. He returned it all smiles and said it was like a 12ga auto and is definitely going to build one. He said it was the most fun he's had shooting an AR. I had to replace the ammo he shot up, so I loaded up 35 rounds.

20 rounds using 250gr FTX over 37 grains of Lil' Gun and 15 rounds using 225gr FTX over 40 grains of Lil' Gun. Still trying to dial in the rifle to see what loads it likes, so only doing small batches.

 

[Caveman Jim]

I pulled out another 1K bag of 223 out of my locker to prep. They have the PMC headstamp, they had been previously cleaned, deprimed and required resizing and trimming.
I'm halfway through it but taking a break due to the aches and pains from the cleanup last Saturday....

 

[Lesliet]

I've been slackin. After 9 hours working in 90+ degree heat, I just haven't felt up to heading to the range after work to do a chrono on the .45 acp loads. Maybe this weekend...

 

[ThunderMtnOrd]

I did a bunch of case prep on 308, 30-30 and 357... Only realy reloaded about 50 30-30 but hey i tryed

Working on 55 grain .223s yesterday and today. Have much more case prep to do, then will load a thousand 62 grain FMJs. After that, a thousand 69 grain Sierra's

After all that, through next week, .9mm, .45ACP, 10mm, .38 Special, .357 Mag, and if there is time before my next gun show, some 240 grain .44 Mag loads.

I am the proverbial one legged man.

 

[ThunderMtnOrd]

I like your set up!!

I need a wall rack full of bins like yours too.

 

[tac]

Going to start on some 7x57 here in UK. After the amazing donation of a few hundred of the 175gr bullets last year from an immensely kind person here I'm very keen to get a good load that works in both my old Mausers - hard, as the carbine, made in 1897, has a .285" bore in common with all the carbines, and the rifle, not much older, has the more usual .284".

Still, figuring it out is half the fun, right?

 

[Lesliet]

I need a wall rack full of bins like yours too.

Harbor Freight, they've got a couple of sizes of mount. The bins are so so, but they work, and the good bins from Inline also fit.

 

[ThunderMtnOrd]

Harbor Freight, they've got a couple of sizes of mount. The bins are so so, but they work, and the good bins from Inline also fit.

Thank you. I'll check them out.

 

[tac]

Sorry, I gerfot that some of you here like looking at old clunkers...



Taken from the hands of Pieter Huijsen on May 10th 1901 at Korranafontein Farm, Natal, after a two-day skirmish with the New South Wales Mounted Rifles who were keen to get blooded, but got taught a bloody hard lesson instead. In a classic Mack Sennett movie-style scene, a troop of these brave young men rode up a hillside to capture a couple of Boers on the ridge watching the column. Sadly, there were about two hundred more Boers on the downhill side waiting for them, and they mostly got killed and wounded. The ensuing skirmish came to an end the following day when the rest of the column caught up.

I've got the whole story if anybody gets interested - I've translated it into English, so you won't have to remember all your Afrikaans.

Huijsen was taken into captivity and given a POW number, but then disappears from the record. I'd like to think that he had a long and good life afterwards, and often imagine him and this little carbine as he rode off that May morning to his fate.

Here is his name, carved on the butt with a little penknife -

 

[Lesliet]

Very slowly and carefully working on .45 ACP for my CZ97b. Been having some issues with the loaded chamber indicator, which fell apart a few range trips ago. All the pieces were there, so I cleaned and reassembled. Occasionally, the slide doesn't go all the way into battery, short by not quite an eighth of an inch. Noticed some brass color on the side of the LCI, where it really seems it should be on the bottom of the pin; it's just the right size to hold it open the amount I'm seeing. Removed pin and spring, cleaned the extractor and gently stoned the impact part, carefully cleaned the chamber. Loading and chamber checking rounds both with a gauge, and the actual chamber. Being a bit of a booger to get the bullets to seat without shaving a bit, even though I have the seater set up with the seating stem all the way down, adjusting seating depth with the body of the die so as to have no crimp as the bullet seats. ( using a separate crimp die in the last station).
I think even with the crimp backed off all the way on the seating die, it still closes the bell a little as the bullet seats.

 

[RVTECH]

Sized, deprimed & tumbled a bunch of .30-30 today and re-cut my 'homemade' neck flaring die to a less aggressive angle - works much better!