Made My First Batch Of Ammo

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WheelGunMan

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Just finished making my first batch of 50 rounds. Forgot to raise ram with cartridge up a couple of times when charging and got powder all over the place. Finally got a routine going. Pretty darn fun I must admit.

I'll take them out to the range tomorrow and see how I did. I used 4.4 grains of Hodgdon Titegroup with 125 grain TMJ's in .38 Spcl cases. I was amazed of how little of powder that is. Looking forward to shooting them and then making more.
 
Don't get in a hurry when reloading, or when you have something pressing on your mind. I have made mistakes due to a broken filling in my tooth. Not worth the problems.
Have fun at the range.
 
Congrats.
Attention to detail is key

As you learned, it’s not hard, you just have to do everything right.

Take your time and relish shooting that first round. It’s scary wondering if it’ll fire or blow up. But once it goes bang and the hole is in the target you’ll be so proud!

so hope to hear how it goes
 
It is important that .38s have a good tight crimp. A hard push on the bullet should not move it into the case. If it does, run the rest through the (now adjusted) seating die again.
 
Congrats! I loaded my first round (.40 S&W) nearly 10 years ago now, with lots of help from THR.

.38 cases are tall and it’s dark down there... get a good light and/or a mirror, but in any case double check every time. .357 are worse but usually those charges take up more of the empty space.
 
I have two single stage presses, so one step at a time. I use two empty plastic pistol ammo trays to hold the fifty cases.
When I size them I take one out, size it and put it in the other tray.
When I flare the case I take one out flare it and put it in the empty tray.
When prime the cases same process, take one out prime it and put it back into the empty tray.
When I charge the case I seat the bullet at the same step and when all the bullets are charged and bullets set.
I will take one at a time and crimp them and put them in the empty tray.

I quit useing just one tray while reload. At my age it leaves room for mistakes so one step and it goes in to another tray.

I know people who put all of their primed, flared cases in a tray and load them all up one after another after another while all in one tray.
For me that leads to a chance of a double charge of powder.

Do you have a seperate crimp die or are you readjusting the seater die to crimp?
I have been picking up crimp dies and extra seater dies to use as crimp dies. I am useing the Hornady Lock n Load presses so once set a quarter of a turn and i,m loading. Another quarter of a turn and I am ready for the next die.
No screwing in the dies and screwing them back out.

Have fun with this and enjoy the benifits of reloading.
 
I have two single stage presses, so one step at a time. I use two empty plastic pistol ammo trays to hold the fifty cases.
When I size them I take one out, size it and put it in the other tray.
When I flare the case I take one out flare it and put it in the empty tray.
When prime the cases same process, take one out prime it and put it back into the empty tray.
When I charge the case I seat the bullet at the same step and when all the bullets are charged and bullets set.
I will take one at a time and crimp them and put them in the empty tray.

I quit useing just one tray while reload. At my age it leaves room for mistakes so one step and it goes in to another tray.

I know people who put all of their primed, flared cases in a tray and load them all up one after another after another while all in one tray.
For me that leads to a chance of a double charge of powder.

Do you have a seperate crimp die or are you readjusting the seater die to crimp?
I have been picking up crimp dies and extra seater dies to use as crimp dies. I am useing the Hornady Lock n Load presses so once set a quarter of a turn and i,m loading. Another quarter of a turn and I am ready for the next die.
No screwing in the dies and screwing them back out.

Have fun with this and enjoy the benifits of reloading.
I adopted an almost identical process. It just sorta made sense that way.
 
I have two single stage presses, so one step at a time. I use two empty plastic pistol ammo trays to hold the fifty cases.
When I size them I take one out, size it and put it in the other tray.
When I flare the case I take one out flare it and put it in the empty tray.
When prime the cases same process, take one out prime it and put it back into the empty tray.
When I charge the case I seat the bullet at the same step and when all the bullets are charged and bullets set.
I will take one at a time and crimp them and put them in the empty tray.

I quit useing just one tray while reload. At my age it leaves room for mistakes so one step and it goes in to another tray.

I know people who put all of their primed, flared cases in a tray and load them all up one after another after another while all in one tray.
For me that leads to a chance of a double charge of powder.

Do you have a seperate crimp die or are you readjusting the seater die to crimp?
I have been picking up crimp dies and extra seater dies to use as crimp dies. I am useing the Hornady Lock n Load presses so once set a quarter of a turn and i,m loading. Another quarter of a turn and I am ready for the next die.
No screwing in the dies and screwing them back out.

Have fun with this and enjoy the benifits of reloading.
I bought a reloading tray. I thought about a plan of attack on how I was going to do it so as to assure minimal handling. Here is what I came up with.
First, I deprimed and sized all casings. Then put in the new primers with a RCBS Universal hand primer unit and placed all in reloading tray. Removed primed round from reloading tray and put in expanding die where I charged it with powder that I measured on beam scale with a powder dipper and tickler. Rotated to bullet seating die and seated bullet. Then rotated to crimping die and crimped. Put finished bullet in ammo box that is labeled with all pertinent information.

My only screw up was I neglected to raise the cartridge into the expanding die and ended up dropping powder onto open case and platform. Did that about three times untill I finally developed a rhythm.

All in all, I'd say it went pretty well
 
Congrats on joining the reloading ranks! I hope your ammo is safe and accurate, and that you're having fun!

It's important to develop a rigorous process to avoid mistakes and with time you'll find it's easy to stick to the script once you have one.

Some thoughts on case handling to avoid a double charge on a single stage, My loading process is as follows:

- resize and deprime
- wet tumble
- put in tray mouth up
- expand, placing in tray mouth down (to show unprimed case head)
- prime, placing in tray mouth down (to show primed case head)
- charge with powder, placing in tray mouth up (to avoid spilling powder, and to show primed case heads on uncharged cases)
- once all 50 are charged, hold tray up to light to examine for no charge or double charge
- place bullets atop all 50
- seat bullets, returning to tray mouth (now bullet) up
- Crimp, placing in ammo box as crimp is applied

This makes it easy to visually see what stage a cartridge is on to avoid forgetting whether I already charged a case or not. If it's un charged it's primer side up and as we know upside down cases don't hold much powder.
 
Much to my surprise all 50 of my very first reloads went bang and my pistol did not explode. I was actually stressed that I did something wrong even though I stepped thru my written out reloading process very carefully. Checked with 3 reloading books and the Hodgdon website to make sure my load and COL was safe. After the last round went bang and I realized all was well with the world, I got a really big smile on my face and I was hooked.
 
Just finished making my first batch of 50 rounds. Forgot to raise ram with cartridge up a couple of times when charging and got powder all over the place. Finally got a routine going. Pretty darn fun I must admit.

I'll take them out to the range tomorrow and see how I did. I used 4.4 grains of Hodgdon Titegroup with 125 grain TMJ's in .38 Spcl cases. I was amazed of how little of powder that is. Looking forward to shooting them and then making more.

It's gonna be a good time, I can promise you that... you'll be shooting more just so you an reload more.
 
Everybody was a beginner once. My only suggestion is to slow down and imagine the next procedure clearly in mind before moving to it. Never rush or get distracted by anything.
 
Welcome to the wonderful, oft confusing and frustrating world of reloading. I started with 38 Special reloading in '69 (Lee Loader, Bullseye, CCI primers and some generic cast bullets). I had one squib in '70 and from that I formed a habit I still use today; I look in every case before I seat a bullet. If you use safe methods today, not getting lazy and skipping any, you will develop habits that will become a regular part of your reloading...

Go slow, double check everything, and most important, have fun...
 
Much to my surprise all 50 of my very first reloads went bang and my pistol did not explode. I was actually stressed that I did something wrong even though I stepped thru my written out reloading process very carefully. Checked with 3 reloading books and the Hodgdon website to make sure my load and COL was safe. After the last round went bang and I realized all was well with the world, I got a really big smile on my face and I was hooked.
The relief when they did not blow up is huge. I love tightgroup and it's a great economy powder but you may consider a slower powder for a while. Unique is my favorite and is good in everything should you not like it in the 38. The margins for error in fast powders are very small, and that's why I mentioned it. Glad it all worked out.
 
It is satisfying to bag game with your own hand loads.
This last deer season i hand loaded 243 for myself and 7mm08 for my brother.
My brother got the first shot off and bagged a nice doe.
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I shot five whitetails, a small buck and four does.
All one shot/one kill.

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What ever reason you choose to reload for when you see the results of your efforts it is self rewarding wheather shooting paper, steel or animals to serve on the diner table.
 
Highland that's some good eating right there! Up here we are only allowed one so I try to make it 200+ LBS if I can get lucky enough. We had it figured out generations ago "The original free range and organic" meat supply.:thumbup:
 
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