berettaprofessor
Member
Went to reload some 300AAC's with Hornady 110 V-Maxs last night. Why? Never reloaded that bullet and picked up some V-Maxs on clearance for a song. I use a Lee Classic turret with autodisc and autoprime for 223 and 300 when I want to make more than a test load.
First mistake....went to use some brass I bought at a local shop; $30 for 140 pieces seemed like a good price for brass at the time but I didn't look close enough and they were 223's that someone cut off and formed....and poorly. Hmmm...first round was hard to resize but seemed okay. On round 2 I stuck the expander decapper rod in a round and pulled it out of the die. Did it again on round 3. That's when I realized that 4/5ths of the necks of the brass were either LC and too thick, or sized to 0.310 OD instead of 0.334. How does one even do that? A few were okay, so I also don't know why most would be so small and a few normal. Lesson learned; look closer and don't trust others to resize. I'm chucking the lot because I don't want to measure 140 pieces to find the 10 properly sized.
Corrected my error, used my own saved brass, but along the way;
2) managed to spill the bullets all over the floor.
3) was loading with H110...which leaks like crazy from an autodisc
4) had to modify an autodisk (drill/tap/screw) chamber to get within the Hodgdon Reloading manual loads (19.0 grains). 1.18 was too small (about 17.8 grains) and 1.26 was too big (over 20 grains)
5) Forgot to prime a round before loading the H110...more spillage
6) Spillage filled up primer lever and a couple of primers hit the floor from the auto-prime before I knew to clean it. Ever try to find two silver primers on a grey concrete floor?
7) some of my own saved mixed brass had crimped primers (about 15%). So every few rounds I felt a primer not seat and had to remove the brass, ream the primer pocket, and then seat the primer properly.
No problems last week loading 150 SST's in the same setup; but I was using CFEBLK and sorted brass of one manufacturer being loaded for the 3rd time. Lesson learned, although for 110 VMax's, I'm still leery of using the CFEBLK since all Hodgson Manual loads for it are compressed.
First mistake....went to use some brass I bought at a local shop; $30 for 140 pieces seemed like a good price for brass at the time but I didn't look close enough and they were 223's that someone cut off and formed....and poorly. Hmmm...first round was hard to resize but seemed okay. On round 2 I stuck the expander decapper rod in a round and pulled it out of the die. Did it again on round 3. That's when I realized that 4/5ths of the necks of the brass were either LC and too thick, or sized to 0.310 OD instead of 0.334. How does one even do that? A few were okay, so I also don't know why most would be so small and a few normal. Lesson learned; look closer and don't trust others to resize. I'm chucking the lot because I don't want to measure 140 pieces to find the 10 properly sized.
Corrected my error, used my own saved brass, but along the way;
2) managed to spill the bullets all over the floor.
3) was loading with H110...which leaks like crazy from an autodisc
4) had to modify an autodisk (drill/tap/screw) chamber to get within the Hodgdon Reloading manual loads (19.0 grains). 1.18 was too small (about 17.8 grains) and 1.26 was too big (over 20 grains)
5) Forgot to prime a round before loading the H110...more spillage
6) Spillage filled up primer lever and a couple of primers hit the floor from the auto-prime before I knew to clean it. Ever try to find two silver primers on a grey concrete floor?
7) some of my own saved mixed brass had crimped primers (about 15%). So every few rounds I felt a primer not seat and had to remove the brass, ream the primer pocket, and then seat the primer properly.
No problems last week loading 150 SST's in the same setup; but I was using CFEBLK and sorted brass of one manufacturer being loaded for the 3rd time. Lesson learned, although for 110 VMax's, I'm still leery of using the CFEBLK since all Hodgson Manual loads for it are compressed.
