Reloading ammo

[dodge man]

Soundguy, I also have a 03A3 that shoots pretty well. Probably wasn't shot much. My Garand on the other hand is no tack driver, it doesn't shoot bad but not anywhere near as good as the 03A3.

 

[the old grind]

Couldn't agree more SG, & that's what I like about "rollin' yer own". Gets to where nothing is 'junk' in your own eyes once the right load is realized, tho' some with the roughest bores are among the most forgiving of ammo choice. Example: I have a 1917 GEW that's seen better days but shoots Fed P-S, mil-surp, or my own fodder to minute of soda bottle standing offhand with 'irons' . It's often those modern sporters that demand extra fuss with MOA consistency in mind.

I don't suggest everyone will enjoy reloading, various goals etc, but you don't have to buy a bench-full of gear if you can team up with another of like mind and interest. Gary's got the right idea, for sure, & someday either guy stands to get a great deal on the other's 'half' of the investment if/when the other ages out of the hobby.

SMLE is the one that taught me the most about what to do (Lee collet neck-sizer), or not do to extend case life. (eg: Mere shoulder-bump [to maintain head-space] and anneal every third firing, never FL-size) btw, R-P brass is my pick for .303 Br, Win for .223 & 22H, S&B for 8x57... Can't comment on HGs due to limited loading there, but ... I always advise learning or re-leaning with long, rimmed pistol fare, say .44 Mag with 2400 etc.

 

[Soundguy]

The thing with smle is the liberal chamber. Once you get fore formed brass, neck dizing will get you more loads. On my 03A3, it had a replacement bbl, likely arsenal job, and appears to have not been fired at all or perhaps only proof testing after the rebbl. Essentially made it a brand new hun as far as chamber and more goes.

 

[hutchman]

The thing with smle is the liberal chamber. Once you get fore formed brass, neck dizing will get you more loads. On my 03A3, it had a replacement bbl, likely arsenal job, and appears to have not been fired at all or perhaps only proof testing after the rebbl. Essentially made it a brand new hun as far as chamber and more goes.

My SMLE .303 looks like sewer pipe down the barrel ... after removing all the copper fouling (which probably filled in all the potholes) I think mine slugged closer to .316. By accident I shot those Speer 125gn bullets (can't think of model number off top of my head) that are intended to be used in 7.63x39 (they measure .311) and I had a super tight group at 100yds which shocked me. The only thing I could come up with to explain why they were so much better was these bullets kind of have a hollow base so I'm guessing the open skirt helped the bullet obturate and seal the bore rather than rattle down the barrel which dramatically increased the accuracy. Kind of like using HBWC with powder puff target loads in a revolver.

My 1903 has a new Criterion barrel I picked up from the CMP ... the original barrel on it was sewer pipe too. The original stock was butchered so I didn't feel bad getting a new stock & barrel and restoring it (not like it was collector). It is a tack driver.

My biggest education was reloading for a FN FAL that I built from a Sarco new parts kit (the one from Argentina). I had RCBS .308 dies and they wouldn't push the shoulder back far enough on once fired military brass to allow the bolt to go back into battery. The die was bottomed out on the shell holder, I couldn't go any lower ... I had to grind a few thousands of the bottom of my die! That was fun! It forced me to use my cartridge comparator gague to set the die up. I've since moved on to the Dillon carbide .308 die (a small base die) which made feeding the beast a bit easier ... but only to learn what the M1A/M14 guys already know ... you can only reload full house loads around 4 times before you get case head separation.

I had never before in my life experienced case head separation until I got the bugs worked out of my freshly built FAL and decided to go He-man (1911 45 ACP, .30 cal rifle, 12ga shotgun) at the next 3 gun competition and lost time because I had two case head separations during the match ... my brass was on the 5th maybe even 6th reload. Yea, I knew the paper clip trick but never had to do it before. I learned the hard way reloading for a .30 cal semi-auto was a different animal. It was fun ... learned lots of stuff nobody around me had experienced before.

 

[Soundguy]

Yup, I have seen .315 easilly, and also yup on hollow base bullets helping.

 

[sdef]

Advance warning : If one only wants to make loads for plinking, a lot of the following is overkill.

I handload and chronograph (CED) each recipe for my 357 mag., 40 S&W, 45 Auto, .44 Spec. and .44 Mag. and tailor each load to a particular gun. Yes it makes a large difference. All of my handguns are compacts with relatively short barrels and they chronograph better than any published factory load I have tested (or the OEM publishes for long barrels), other than Buffalo Bore. Man, I can't get within 8% of Buffalo Bore's loads in anything I load for. So I use Buffalo Bore for my self defense ammunition of choice that I do not want to load for, for whatever the reason, with a large bonus that their blended powder has no flash. Plus they use my bullet of choice- Speer Gold Dots.

I am telling you all of this to preface my equipment and methodology and that I am very **** retentive. I have found by testing that bullet selection parameters and OEM, powder type and amount, setup of equipment for bullet seating and primer seating, along with neck retention are all very important, more than many would realize if they did not actually test each load recipe as I do.

I use the Hornady Classic single stage for installing primers (I have standardized on CCI) before the cases (I have standardized on Starline) go over to the progressive press, for fixing individual rounds that have some kind of issue noticed during loading on the progressive press, or any other specialty type item, such as removing Berdan primers from military cases. I have a complete set of dies for each caliber setup specifically for this press.

I use the Hornady AP for all of the other processes. I also have a complete set of dies specifically for this press. And I have several sets of powder dispenser assemblies for the various calibers so I do not have to change settings when I switch calibers. Caliber changes for me simply means I swap out pre-adjusted die assemblies mounted in quick turn/lock assemblies. I also measure the powder dispensed on a RCBS electronic power dispenser and other parameters every few rounds and make minor adjustments throughout the whole process as I load. So I guess in other words, all of my loads are custom made for each gun I load for and the quality control is very high.

My process is relatively slow for a progressive press, but my end products are stellar in performance. If I had things to do over again, I would get the Dillion 650 for the progressive press. The Hornady AP has been cranky and I had to modify shell plates, springs, etc. to get it running reliably for each of my calibers; a lot of folks had this same issue. This press was new ~ 10 years ago. I understand the newer Hornadys may have better setups, but I would check into it carefully.

One of the most important safety devices I have- and WILL NOT load on the progressive press without, is the RCBS Lock-Out die. This has saved me grief a few times by totally locking up the press whenever it mechanically detects a significantly high or low powder condition in the case prior to bullet seating. I can't stress enough how important I feel this die is. I have other types I have purchased and tried, but nothing comes close to the safety and reliability of this device. It is not an easy device to learn how to adjust. But once figured out- it works wonderfully.

 

[hutchman]

One of the most important safety devices I have- and WILL NOT load on the progressive press without, is the RCBS Lock-Out die. This has saved me grief a few times by totally locking up the press whenever it mechanically detects a significantly high or low powder condition in the case prior to bullet seating. I can't stress enough how important I feel this die is. I have other types I have purchased and tried, but nothing comes close to the safety and reliability of this device. It is not an easy device to learn how to adjust. But once figured out- it works wonderfully.

Amen brother .... preach it! I've been singing it's praises too!

 

[Fastowl]

Glad to hear that you are getting the LNL. I have been using the Hornady LNL progressive for a few years now and enjoy using it. I do not try to set speed records with it and there were 2-3 issues with the design when I got it. I subsequently wrote a letter to Hornady after using it for a couple of years and then ran into some of their engineers at the annual NRA convention about a year later. They were aware of my letter and in fact one of the engineers was in charge in implementing some of the changes that I had suggested. They have been very helpful and responsive on broken part replacements, etc.

That being said i have used it for 9mm, 40 and 45 ACP in pistol rounds and 223, 6.8 REM and 308 so far with the dies sitting waiting on me to do 243, 6.5x55, 300 WM, 270 and 30-30. I too am concerned about proud primers and as such I tend to run the brass through the machine on a priming only run just to make sure I focus on proper primer seating. i also check the finished product one more time to make sure the primer is not proud. The progressive machine really speeds up straight case loading (pistol), not such a big difference on rifle IMO as I stop to clean off lube after resizing a large run of rifle brass.

Another word of caution about primers. I had some 308 rounds that I had loaded that did not weigh out properly and was concerned the powder had not dropped properly (I was using Varget at the time and the extruded powder doesn't measure as well as ball powder and was a bit light on the load in a couple of cases). Anyway I was using an inertial bullet extractor (it looks like a hollow plastic hammer that you put the round inside, hit it on a hard surface and the bullet will come out of the case after 1-3 whacks) because I wanted to reload the cartridges to ensure they were loaded properly. Anyway while whacking away one of the primers detonated. Fortunately the bullet was already mostly out of the case and stayed inside of the hollow hammer. However the primer blew out the top and ended up embedding itself in the ceiling. i had been whacking it on the floor and fortunately the primer missed my head as it flew by. I now use a press mounted extractor that doesn't rely on such violent action to separate the components. If you do some googling you will read about similar events that have happened with those inertial extractors (I know there are many that will comment that they have never had an issue with them, just saying).

Best of luck, stay safe and have fun!

 

[Soundguy]

I'm one of those with many thousand rounds pulled with the hammer, including sealed milspec projectiles, and horridly over crimped milsurp. If you had a primer det, it may not have been seated fully, and the seating action drive anvil and mix together. Sounds like the rounds were suspect in procedure anyway... just say in...

 

[Gary Fowler]

My buddy and I spent most of yesterday setting up the Hornady AP press and adjusting dies. I still has a little quirk of not fully indexing to full position occasionally. It does perfect without a shell in the shell holder and never misses a beat but put in a shell and about 1 out of 4 pulls on the handle will be a bit out of place on the shell holder. I really have to keep an eye on it to keep from crushing a shell. I think I finally got the primer feed to working right (most of the time). Still got a few bugs to work out but at least finally made 50 rounds of good ammo.
Thanks to YouTube for showing me how to adjust the shell plate pawl as I didn't find anything in the manual on how to do it.