Sat on a transcon making a list of things I need to do next week when I'm back....

Looked out over UT and CO and dreamed of all the places down there I could launch some lead...

Just found out my Warner sizing die is on its way to me

I annealed and swaged ~600 pieces of .223 on it's way to being 300BLK, and cut/deprimed/tumbled ~500 more.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
Just found out my Warner sizing die is on its way to me

Very nice. Did you get the one with 1-1/4 threads that has the insert?

quote:

Originally posted by jelrod1:

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
Just found out my Warner sizing die is on its way to me

Very nice. Did you get the one with 1-1/4 threads that has the insert?

Yes , thats the one . It was a bit of a wait but now I have to pick up a single stage press to run it in . I think I'm going to go with the Redding Big Boss II . Up till now I only neck sized with Wilson dies and an arbor press .

quote:

Originally posted by bmo:
Yesterday I derimmed some .22lr brass in preparation for some swaging into .224 bullets. Though I'm still waiting on the final die in my set so that's about all I can do for now.

Loaded these home grown 57.6gr pills & made it to the range. Not bad for 15-20mph 7:00 winds. From my AR, I'm happy with the results. Bmo, your dies from BTSniper?

No bullet making, but got peg board painted and hung. Separated a 5 gal pail of range brass.

Not exciting,but things that needed to be done.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:

quote:

Originally posted by bmo:
Yesterday I derimmed some .22lr brass in preparation for some swaging into .224 bullets. Though I'm still waiting on the final die in my set so that's about all I can do for now.

Loaded these home grown 57.6gr pills & made it to the range. Not bad for 15-20mph 7:00 winds. From my AR, I'm happy with the results. Bmo, your dies from BTSniper?

Fred - how bad is the process? What is the cost for the gear to do so, and where do you get the lead (and the cost)?

What do you estimate your per-bullet cost to be on those projectiles?

Also, can you make boat-tails, or only those flat base ones?

Finished resizing some 5.56 then trimmed a couple hundred 30-30 brass for my contender pistol.

Finished tumbling the rest of the LC I cut down for 300BLK (~500 pieces), decapped another ~500 pieces of LC and tumbled it, formed ~300 pieces of LC into 300BLK and threw it in the vibratory tumbler to clean the lube and polish off the annealing marks.

Tomorrow, it'll be a brief trip to the range to keep the skills up on the 227, and the rest of the day processing brass.

At this rate, I figure I should have all my 300BLK completely processed and the "good" .223 brass fully processed and ready for loading in about.... A month maybe? 45 days? Something like that.

It's a lot.

And I just got a notification that the guy I was buying from wants to liquidate the remaining stock of his SAW brass at a pretty steep discount. Might have to take on a few k more.

Also received 1k 125gr SMKs for blackout ammo, and got tracking numbers on my second Forster 300BLK sizing die. My intention is to size, then run through the expander mandrel, then size again. All in the same toolhead, stations 1, 2 and 3.

deprimed, sized, and cleaned 52 300BLK, 45 223, 6 308 and 6 22tcm. (Haven't loaded either 308 or TCM yet so do small batches first).

Also loaded a dozen 9mm to try.

I struggled with a change over from .45 to .38 Super on my 20 y/o D-650. It had been used so much loading .45 and had not been greased in years that several parts had grooves in them. I changed out the platform assembly, added two new cam's, changed out the primers from large to small and adjusted the dies.

I think I'm ready to run, I ran some test and got the OL right and the powder appears correct.

But hey, that is what it takes sometimes to reload.

Finished tumbling the rest of the good LC from my last acquisition (~600 pieces).

Swaged & annealed the ~500 pieces of 300BLK I tumbled yesterday.

Put 100 rounds through the 227 and then decapped that.

Watched disk 1 of "Art of the Precision Rifle". Borrowed the set from a buddy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: exx1976,

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:
Fred - how bad is the process? What is the cost for the gear to do so, and where do you get the lead (and the cost)?

What do you estimate your per-bullet cost to be on those projectiles?

Also, can you make boat-tails, or only those flat base ones?

Well the raw mat'l is free. You can pick up 22lr cases at any range, I prefer indoor, they are cleaner. You need only 7# of lead for 1000 bullets, you can pick up that much range scrap around most outdoor ranges in a few minutes. Time is the big factor. I have the process down pretty well & once you get the dies dialed in, I am at about 10hrs for 1000 bullets. So my time value to cost isn't very good, but that isn't why I bought the dies. For awhile, one could not even find bullets to buy at any reasonable price. So having the ability to make bullets when ever I want, priceless.
Cost will vary depending on where & what you buy. The set I have from BT Sniper (castboolit forum) is very complete with a mold for casting cores & an auto eject system for your press. The auto eject is very simple, but cuts your time in half. There are boat tail punch setups, but will add more cost & time to the setup. IMO, bt bullets for the 223, just not important until you get past 200yds. These are 200yd practice bullets, just as accurate as bulk 55gr FMJ. Cost? from $350 for really basic dies to $1200 for a complete setup. When I bought my dies, BTS was selling the kit for $800, money well spent IMO, for me.

tumbled 2000+ 5.56 brass.
Getting ready to resize, but I've been putting it off by reorganizing my primer storage.

quote:

Originally posted by agony:
tumbled 2000+ 5.56 brass.
Getting ready to resize, but I've been putting it off by reorganizing my primer storage.

Yeah, I'm finally finished tumbling all the regular (M193/855) stuff that I got. About 800 pieces still need swaging, but I'm putting it off by playing on the interwebz.

There's still the 2k pieces of M200 that need cut, decapped, tumbled, swaged, and annealed before they can be added to the pile to be sized to 300BLK.

Then there's the ~1k pieces of M193/855 that I already cut, decapped, swaged, and annealed. Those will be resized tomorrow night when my second 300BLK sizing die gets here.

Rather than running the dented pieces through the press twice to get the necks right, I decided to go a different route.

On my 550 - Station 1 - Forster 300BLK sizing die. Station 2 - K&M 30 caliber expander mandrel. Station 3 - Forster 300BLK sizing die.

The last batch I did worked well by sizing then expanding then sizing again to get the dings out of the case mouths. I just don't feel like handling each piece twice, so I'll just put two dies in the toolhead. Cost me $37 shipped for the sizing die. I think it's worth it.

Let's see.. Since last I posted..

Finished forming/sizing all my 300BLK brass.
Trim/chamfer/debur about half of it
Sized about 1k good LC .223 brass

I should load some 308 tonight to get some trigger time tomorrow since it's supposed to be in the upper 20's, but my fingers are so sore from trim/chamfer/debur that I'm not sure I'd really enjoy the trigger time.

Still have to finish trim/chamfer/debur the other half of the 300BLK brass (maybe another 4-500 pieces?), size about 1/3 of a 5-gallon bucket of LC .223, and then trim/chamfer/debur a full 5-gallon bucket of the same.

THEN, I still have to load all the 300BLK, and at least 2500 of the .223.

If I manage to finish all that before March, I still have 2k M200 here still in the box they arrived in, waiting to be converted to 300BLK. Ugh.

Talked to the SOT today about cans. Put together a group buy for a bunch of them so I can save some money, too. Turns out saving money is just going to make me buy more of them. There goes $4k.

Big day planned Sunday. Christy's mom and sister will be here and I will hermit my ass down in the reloading room.

quote:

Originally posted by billnchristy:
Big day planned Sunday. Christy's mom and sister will be here and I will hermit my ass down in the reloading room.

Why want they let you stay and talk with them?
Tell us about that.

I scored 4 lbs of RL15, which I thought went the way of the Dinosaur. I felt like I had stubbed my toe on a gold brick. Credit card began to melt on the edges as it left my pocket so quick.