What have you done in the reloading room today

Went through the motions of loading 223 enough times to be satisfied that my temporary layout could get bolted in as a permanent layout. Then I bought the lag bolts and got them secured. I may swap the rear bolts on my Lee presses for through-bolts with washers because I felt one slip a bit as I snugged up the lag bolt. The fronts are 1/4x4 lag bolts in a 4x4 run tight. The rears are just in a double “screwed and glued” 3/4 plywood. Either way, they aren’t budging right now and getting tooling cleaned up on the PW duomatic again is a bigger concern. I would buy 16ga and .410 if it weren’t so expensive to buy tool change kits.
 
48 rounds of .41 Magnum. MBC 215-grain LSWCs with 15.3 grains of 2400. Avert your eyes if you're one of those who can't stand anything but a full ammo box.
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I think I may forego loading separate "target" and "hunting" ammo for this gun. The load that shot best with Unique is less than 100 fps slower than my best load with 2400. Doesn't seem worth doing both.
 
Deprimed the brass from my range trip. There was a BUNCH of PSD head stamp .223(117to my count) and a bunch of 9mm(196 to my count) range brass, then swaged the .223.

The 20" WOA .223 barrel is shooting pretty darn well with only ~50 rounds down it. Shot a 1.2moa 10 round group with the 75bthp/TAC load off of my progressive, and a 1.8moa 20 round group with Norma 55gr fmj's. I'm looking forward to seeing what it will do when I start tailoring loads for it!

300mp/110 TAC-TX's will be discontinued from further load development, it's just not working. I will however be trying different seating depths with H110.

300mp/125 TNT's was pretty good! 19.0&19.2gr shot 1.2" 5 shot groups at 100, 1813&1823fps, decent ES/SD. Groups opened up, velocity went down, and ES/SD were terrible on the higher charges. I'm starting to get the feeling this is a ~1.5 moa gun, which is fine for what I'm doing with it.
 
Walkalong said:
Shot the 12 rounds of 8208 in 6 Dasher this afternoon (Round 2 of testing. Needs some more, but I could load 31.2 for the match in two weeks and be happy.

So...........I documented it all in the reloading room afterwards. Copied on the hard drive, three external drives, and the drive on my little laptop I'm on in the living area.

An IT fellow once told me.....If you don't have it in three places, you don't own it. Every once in awhile I update the external hard drive I keep in the safe. :)
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Once in the reloading log, added to the index cards for per powder loading and on the Pewer it's mine and then juniors.
 
@AJC1 s post above just reminded me.... RELOADING LOGS! That jogged a memory that I lost all my electronic reloading log data when a hard drive crashed in the early 2ks. I do have some paper logs from the late 90s before I converted to electronic, and most of my favorite loads are still there, but that electronic loss hurts because it was vast. I have to decide now if I am going to go with computer or paper logs from now on.
 
3sport said:
@AJC1 s post above just reminded me.... RELOADING LOGS! That jogged a memory that I lost all my electronic reloading log data when a hard drive crashed in the early 2ks. I do have some paper logs from the late 90s before I converted to electronic, and most of my favorite loads are still there, but that electronic loss hurts because it was vast. I have to decide now if I am going to go with computer or paper logs from now on.
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If your logging electronic, keep index cards at the bench to hang while making each run. I just write powder, bullet and oal on it so many loads per card fit. I segregate by powder.
 
Putzed in the room a bit this morning. Cleaning and putting stuff away.
I may be done reloading until next Winter as it looks like I have plenty of ammo until then.

Found a little tin box that was my Dad's that I had forgotten about.
Opened it up again and decided I should separate all the junk in it.
Hundreds of copper gas checks, possibly for his 219 Donaldson Wasp.
There was small chunks of lead, tiny screws and springs and hardware that I have no idea what it is.
And miscellaneous primers!
I should have taken a picture.........

CQB45ACP said:
And the quilt?
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Mom made that maybe twenty years ago or so.
Dedicated to times past, hunting, fishing and camping when I was young.
3sport said:
@AJC1 s post above just reminded me.... RELOADING LOGS!
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All my logs are old school. Pen and paper.
 
3sport said:
@AJC1 s post above just reminded me.... RELOADING LOGS! That jogged a memory that I lost all my electronic reloading log data when a hard drive crashed in the early 2ks. I do have some paper logs from the late 90s before I converted to electronic, and most of my favorite loads are still there, but that electronic loss hurts because it was vast. I have to decide now if I am going to go with computer or paper logs from now on.
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The correct answer is: Both. 😁👍
 
Show Me said:
I was being a smarty pants because elsewhere someone under lubing for sizing pistol brass said it won't work for bottle neck cartridges. Glad I got done this morning before he said that. I know your never a smarty pants
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I’m one of those reloaders who does everything wrong according to the ex-spurts. But I somehow have managed to muddle through, hunting, target shooting, picked up a few prizes here and there. All local club stuff, nothing on the galactic scale, all the while using low grade equipment and all the wrong components. It’s amazing I’m still alive. 👍
 
Logs are no good. I've tried every combination so there's nothing to remember.
A file cabinet with load books with notes inside and outside is covered with Speer and Sierra stickie notes incase I want to remember what everything means
 
1976B.L.Johns. said:
Of what?
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I have range scrap of either .22lr, Ely pellet lead, and jhp lead. I forgot about a roll of pure lead in my garage and might consider a 50/50 mix of the two to soften each base alloy plus cast pure lead:tin to compare. I'm thinking of whether I should shoot into a drum of water or a cardboard box with bags of wet garden soil.
 
I have a doctors appointment this morning, actually very late morning, so I am around the house for awhile. I have 15 Starline large primer 308 brass, prepped and ready to go, and I am going to load up five of my favorite hunting load. I’m then going to load five of the same load in small primer brass and continue the run up a bit higher with the small primer size. I was running into just a little bit of bolt stiffness when I did my work up. I’m gonna try to see if I can run it up another half grain to a grain. By every metric I have, I should be still well within safe territory. And yes, I am going to use common sense :) I am not trying to hot rod anything. I’m just curious. My buddy picked up a lab radar cheap(wonder why,right?) so I am going to borrow it and see what I can come up with. More than likely, it’s going to be pretty close.
 
JmacD said:
I have a doctors appointment this morning, actually very late morning, so I am around the house for awhile. I have 15 Starline large primer 308 brass, prepped and ready to go, and I am going to load up five of my favorite hunting load. I’m then going to load five of the same load in small primer brass and continue the run up a bit higher with the small primer size. I was running into just a little bit of bolt stiffness when I did my work up. I’m gonna try to see if I can run it up another half grain to a grain. By every metric I have, I should be still well within safe territory. And yes, I am going to use common sense :) I am not trying to hot rod anything. I’m just curious. My buddy picked up a lab radar cheap(wonder why,right?) so I am going to borrow it and see what I can come up with. More than likely, it’s going to be pretty close.
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Excellent test. Good luck . I used more than 5 to test Peterson srp and furthest use was 200 . At that time I was using 40 gr of 3031 and Speer 165 bt. Old fashioned easy to ignite. Saves on LRP which was the main goal. Now if I could find 7.62x39 with small primers !!! Service rifle loads is what I make for all actions now days
 
Decapped & undersized & case and pocket gauged about 100 each of 9mm & 45acp I shot at range this AM.

Most of 9s were Winchesters from my longevity test and 50 of the 45s were Winchesters from my longevity test for that caliber. Eight of the 45s were cut down Win Mags.

Range session itself was unremarkable with everything going bang as it should. I'm using Sport Pistol for 9mm and like it a lot and primarily Bullseye for 45acp (what's not to like).

What was/is remarkable are the pocket primer gauge results for the 45acp and what I found in the bottom of my container I use at range for spent cases. Third picture shows a Winchester case with the pocket empty/gauge not fitting depth wise, a spent primer, and an anvil. These were from todays range session and I did not decap that case. The primer fell out of a tight but shallow pocket after firing.

I will post a longevity update later after I clean and measure 45acp cases.

IMG_4621.jpeg

IMG_4622.jpeg
IMG_4623.jpeg
 
Show Me said:
Excellent test. Good luck . I used more than 5 to test Peterson srp and furthest use was 200 . At that time I was using 40 gr of 3031 and Speer 165 bt. Old fashioned easy to ignite. Saves on LRP which was the main goal. Now if I could find 7.62x39 with small primers !!! Service rifle loads is what I make for all actions now days
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I ended up doing 8 of each. Because that finished the bullet box. 42.5 gr of N150: and a coal of 2.875.
 
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