Recent content by Linear Thinker

Do you wash cases after tumbling? You should, to avoid the abrasive tumbling media residue wearing out your reloading dies or gun chambers! I wash mine either in an ultrasonic cleaner, or by just soaking the tumbled brass in a bucket full of hot water and some 409 or SimpleGreen. After rinsing...

I would go beyond the BP cleaning routine with the corrosive-primed cartridges. While the BP residue is entirely water soluble, the corrosive salts from mercuric primers are not necessarily so. The WWII USGI corrosive primer cleaner is cheap, available at any gun show, and chemically...

The off-center flash holes are just the beginning of the problems with A-Merc brass. Wrong diameter and wrong depth primer pockets, incorrectly annealed brass resulting in neck splits upon 1st firing, wrong diameter and thickness rims, lack of rim groove - these are just some of the issues I...

Please don't re-use the 58-year old powder of uncertain origin, condition and burning rate. Your eyes and nose are not the right tools to evaluate it. Unless you pull down lots of it, and have a Universal receiver to get the pressure curves - dump it. It makes a great lawn fertilizer. Powder...

The answer depends on what kind of shooting you do. Are you loading for your belt-fed, or the NRA HP 600 yard matches, or for Palma style shooting at 900+ yards? Or perhaps hunting loads? My 2¢, based on personal biases, suppositions, prejudices and 30 years of reloading experience both...

Another member of A-MERC fan club here. One of the fellow CAS shooters gave me his 45 Colt brass supply, as he was switching to another caliber. Most of the A-MERC brass split upon firing the 1st reload, with mild Cowboy-type loads. I tossed the rest. I cannot understand how a domestic maker...

This mold is dedicated for 8x56R cartridge, which uses bullets somewhat larger and heavier than the rest of 8MMs. No other mold maker makes 8x56R specific bullets, AFAIK. For that matter, Lee is the only bullet sizing die maker for .329, unless you ream out a smaller die from another make...

I shoot Beretta Stampede 357s in CAS matches. Made by Uberti (which is owned by Beretta), the Stampedes are different in design than most SAA clones, with a safety bar inside the hammer. They are sturdy revolvers, I shoot both the wimpy CAS loads and the full-power 357 Mags through mine. No...

38 Special is the easiest caliber to load, most any fast-to-medium speed pistol powder will work. I started loading with Bullseye decades ago, the standard target load: 2.9Gr Bullseye under 148gr lead HBWC. My current favorite is W231 - much cleaner than Bullseye, and very economical. Tried...

Made a few mistakes over 30 years of handloading, here are a few thoughts: 1. Don't even think of doing anything else while handloading. Lock the door so that the kids, the dog, the spouse, whatever don't disturb you. Double-charges, squibs and other exciting mistakes will happen if you...

These look to be home-cast, Lyman 358271 or similar mold. Excellent for 38 Special or 357 Mag. Bullets don't go bad, just load them and shoot them. Weigh them 1st, of course, before deciding on a load. LT

After ~30 years of reloading, including commercially, I have a few answers: 1. Contaminated primers. Don't clean guns anywhere near your reloading bench. Don't even store a can of WD-40 near your reloading equipment or supplies. Other than that, no worries. I handle primers with my fingers...

Geewizz, you are worried over nothing. Both 30-06 and 308 are US military calibers, with billions of cases in private hands. Brass in both calibers is free for the taking at any DCM match. Most competitive high-power shooters have buckets full of it. That also means that derivative calibers...

All domestic commercial 45ACP brass is fungible, except: 1. A-Merc = junk, pick them out and throw away. The brass is all wrong. 2. NT (non-toxic-primer) marked brass may have small-primer pockets, you will need to sort them out. AFAIK, only Winchester and Federal load NT 3. Some military...

Reloading Berdan brass is the last-ditch option, for brass that is not obtainable otherwise. 2 challenges: 1. Decapping. There are 2 ways I know of and tried - the claw method, where you pierce the primer and lever it out with a hook. The hydrostatic method (water cannot be compressed) relies...