Bought a case of gold medal match small rifle primers for $31/k (got lucky)
Bought a pound of rl15 for $20
Bought a pound of h4350 for $24

Passed on some WST. They had 126 1-pound cans in stock for $20/#, but I really wanted a 4# jug. And they had no WSF. Oh well.

quote:

Originally posted by WildSig:
$89 a thousand? I'm afraid my local supply of $28.99 a thousand is going to disappear and I'll have to pay $31.99 someplace else.

My LGS sells Magtech small pistol primers for 3 € cents (about $51/1k), which are about the cheapest I'm willing to buy. Sellier & Bellot or Russian Murom primers could be had for 2.5 to 2.8 € cents, but I'm not very impressed by those.

Gun stores which are not exactly oriented towards reloaders may scalp on primers and other components, but sometimes you have no choice if you need to get something right now.

Also the law limits storage of primers in residential buildings to 1,000, you need an outside storage building for more. Also, without an exceptional permit, a seller can only hand over 1,000 per transaction. So if you want to make a deal for example 10,000 primers, the seller has to store most of them for you for some time, so such deals are not economical for either party.

quote:

How's the powder supply over in Finland. That's what something I can't score locally and usually end up paying a premium on.

Even though Vihtavuori powders are still made here, their availability fluctuates, no store has a complete catalog in stock, so if buying pistol and rifle powders, you might need to scour several stores. A small selection of US powders is usually available, even though some common ones like Clays and H335 might have to be ordered in. French Vectan and Swedish Norma are sometimes available as well, but again rarely every kind is in stock.

Prices range from Vectan's about €70/kg to Hodgdon/IMR €70/lbs. That's about $40 to $89 a pound. VV falls in between, costing about $60 to $65 a pound.

Sure is nice to see some governments offer such reasonable protection for their people. Sorry you have to endure their good intentions.

What did I do today in Reloading land? Nothin'. but over the weekend I spent some money at the gun show. I bought 200 .30 cal/180 grain. And then I bought some .380 empty brass, $20/200. But there was a nice rifle and my son wanted to go back on Sunday. So we returned and I bought another 200/180 grain for $40.

There are times I conclude I don't reload or shoot. I just continue stockpiling more components. And I'm getting a little older and even more forgetful. I can't remember what I've got in the stash, but I have these feelings. Kind of like when I was a teen, only worse. Some days I feel I need more .30 cal bullets, other days I think 41 mag or .458. I went for a while buying .222 bullets. Then a friend gave me some .224 that had been squeezed down to .222. And I guy had what I thought was a good deal on some 69 grain .224s, so I bought them.

Over the last few months, I've felt a need for powder. So when I saw some 3031 and 2400 for sale, I bought it. Then a small gunshop had some 230 and 296, so I bought a few pounds of each. And at the flea market last summer, some good old boys had sleeves of LRM so I paid up the asking price of $100 for 5000 of them. And as with all this junk, I get home and try to put it away. Everything in its place, or I try. And as I'm putting the stuff up, I see I've done this stunt before! When I croak somebody's going to score big time.

During yard sale season, I generally stop at any sale that seems to have male items. I don't bother with womens and childrens clothes. What I seek are estate sales. And the rule is to always ask if they have any sporting goods, like hunting or fishing stuff. From time to time you hit the jackpot. When I croak, someone's going to be in tall cotton.

Unpacked my Co-ax that just arrived, as well as the Forster ultra micrometer seater and the Redding type S bushing full length die.

Also unpacked my Forster bullet puller die and collets for all calibers I reload.

Happy days!

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:


NOW you tell me 123 scenars. Why 123s instead of 139s?

Since I was unable to get the 140 Hybrids to shoot at an acceptable accuarcy, I believe I would be wasting my time, barrel life trying another 140 class bullet, maybe I'm wrong? From talking to a local shooter who is on his 5th 6.5x47 barrel, every barrel he has had shot the the 38ish/Varget/123 Scenars very well. I had some 123 Scenars, I was curious, they bughole. We both read claims about how easy the 6.5x47 is to tune, the 123 Scenars/130VLD's showed me that. My simple conclusion from my experience and others around me, a 6.5x47 might shoot a 140 class bullet well, very high probability a 120-130 class bullet will shoot exceptionally well.

I have to second this, as much as it pains me. You can come up with decent heavy loads, but he light loads are extremely easy to tune. If I were not sitting on a partial short metric shit ton of 139 grain bullets, I be happier, but mine shoots 123 grain scenars and 123 AMAX bullets lights out.

Sorted and cleaned the brass I picked up this past weekend. Total came to about 1500 rds of various pistol and about 300rds of 9 different rifle cartridges. The sad part is that as I was finishing up my pick up the range owner, who I have known and purchased weapons and ammo from for over 20 years told me for every round of rifle brass I wanted to keep it would cost me $0.20 cents EACH.....Needless to say when I finished picking up what I found I allowed him to inspect my bounty (all brass is poured into a cardboard box) and then I take it home to sort and wet tumble.

I tool most every caliber and separated into it's own sandwich or quart Zip Lock with the number of pieces and the caliber written on each bag. I will be returning all rifle brass I picked up and cleaned as well as all pistol brass except the 881 pieces of 9mm.
His price for 9mm is 4 cents a round and I will pay it - this time - because he is a good guy who sold me a lot of reloading powder and held some when no one else in this area had any..... Having an outdoor range that has a berms out to 300yds yields a lot of rifle brass around the picnic tables he has set up for folks to use....Times are changing - I just purchased 1k rds of .223 once fired Federal brass for $40.00 not $200.00....Mark

quote:

Originally posted by sigarmsp226:
Sorted and cleaned the brass I picked up this past weekend. Total came to about 1500 rds of various pistol and about 300rds of 9 different rifle cartridges. The sad part is that as I was finishing up my pick up the range owner, who I have known and purchased weapons and ammo from for over 20 years told me for every round of rifle brass I wanted to keep it would cost me $0.20 cents EACH.....Needless to say when I finished picking up what I found I allowed him to inspect my bounty (all brass is poured into a cardboard box) and then I take it home to sort and wet tumble.

I tool most every caliber and separated into it's own sandwich or quart Zip Lock with the number of pieces and the caliber written on each bag. I will be returning all rifle brass I picked up and cleaned as well as all pistol brass except the 881 pieces of 9mm.
His price for 9mm is 4 cents a round and I will pay it - this time - because he is a good guy who sold me a lot of reloading powder and held some when no one else in this area had any..... Having an outdoor range that has a berms out to 300yds yields a lot of rifle brass around the picnic tables he has set up for folks to use....Times are changing - I just purchased 1k rds of .223 once fired Federal brass for $40.00 not $200.00....Mark

I would have taken EVERY single piece of brass, and thrown it out into the lawn and never went back.

What a load of shit.

Finally picked up a replacement scope for my 6.5 Grendel AR. So I ordered a Forster micrometer seater and full length die. Also ordered a couple billet toolheads for my RL550 from Brian Enos.
In the process of reconfiguring the method in which I dispense and weigh charges. Should be up and running in a couple weeks or so. If all goes as planned there may be a karma for a lightly used GemPro 250 soon

You've got something more accurate/better than the gempro? Please, do tell! Don't keep us in suspense!

I just finished mounting my coax. The shell holder is going to take some getting used to, that's for sure.

I like the priming system on it. Very nice.

Can't wait to start using the damn thing. 6 months and counting. Lol

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:
You've got something more accurate/better than the gempro? Please, do tell! Don't keep us in suspense!

Not necessarily more accurate just a little more piece of mind for my old fashioned melon. All the zeroing and electronics leave me a bit on edge. Ive decided to still throw slightly short with the Chargemaster. But instead of using the GemPro I'm going a bit retro. I've picked up an older Ohaus 10-10 tuned by Scott Parker. I will set up a webcam to monitor the scale alignment on my laptop screen. This should eliminate any viewing angle variance. It should be accurate to a single grain of powder and keep my mind at ease.

I use one from Scott Parker also jlemmy. Great setup using the Chargemaster to throw short and an omega to trickle to weight on the beam. One kernel of Varget is easy to see.

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:

I would have taken EVERY single piece of brass, and thrown it out into the lawn and never went back.

What a load of shit.

EXX - My thoughts exactly but because of the long term relationship I am going over on Thursday of this week to settle up with him. Not sure if he was unhappy because I was picking up rifle brass along with pistol brass or if he was trying to make another point that I missed....

I will provide an update Thursday night after I go back with my HIS box of clean, sorted, counted, and bagged brass....If his attitude is the same I will have the 9mm pieces in the car and will give those back to him and never go back. My hope is that he was just joking but I did not receive it that way.....Mark

UPDATE - Well - Its all good - In fact while standing in his gun store today at lunch a fellow came in asking if he had any clean once fired 308 brass....The store owner told the guy no as I pulled out a bag of 49 rounds that I picked up on his range,cleaned, counted, and bagged. He sold those to the guy for $12.00 - The guy was happy, the store owner was happy, and I was especially when the store owner told me to take what brass I wanted from the sorted brass I had carried in and I was welcome to come over anytime and do the same again....I think he was happy that the rifle brass I had were 5-6 large caliber rifle rounds that he had potential buyers for and the brass was clean, bagged, and ready to sell.....Mark

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigarmsp226,

quote:

Originally posted by jelrod1:
I use one from Scott Parker also jlemmy. Great setup using the Chargemaster to throw short and an omega to trickle to weight on the beam. One kernel of Varget is easy to see.

Also using a Ohaus scale/Omega trickler. Compared it to a friends FX120I, +/- .05 grain/ten charges, good enough for my game.

Found some powder today, 1# each of Unique, Power Pistol and 700x. They also had a 4# jug of Alliant 20/28, a shotgun powder that my googlefu showed burns between 231 and Unique. No pistol load data that I can find but other forums I Googled had data from their experiments using this powder. I felt flush with my purchases and not wanting to horde more powder I would not use for a while, I left it on the shelf.

Unpacked 500 pieces of Lapua 6.5x47 brass, 2 AW 10-round mags, a TAB Gear rear bag, and 2 100-count boxes of Berger 140gr hybrids.

Tomorrow the rest of my bullets should be arriving.

A buddy has some AMAX bullets he'll let me have for testing to see exactly what the rifle likes.

Now all I have to do is wait until April/May for the rifle to be completed.

Got the shipping notification this morning for my barrel. It should arrive at Beanland's shop on Monday, so that's good.

I still need to load some 194 Lehigh Defense before Saturday. And get to the range and sight in my SBR for use with them.

Also need to get my bolt gun zeroed with my hunting load, and chrono that so that I've got relatively accurate dope out to 3-400 yards for Saturday. Hoping to do all that tomorrow afternoon, but work is killing me. I guess we'll see. *sigh*

Vacuumed the INCHES of dust off the bench. Last time I had the opportunity to do any loading , it was in the spring. Looked over the old notes, figured out where I left off. Made a list of what I need to start on some .308 hunting loads, and start messing with 8mm. Started sorting out loaded ammo. i had .50cal cans that at one time were very organized to caliber and load. Over the past 2-3 years, things have got mixed together etc. I hate being disorganized.

Loaded 20 rounds ofsubsonic Lehigh Defense 194gr Max Expansion for my 300BLK for hunting season here.

Need to hopefully hit the range on lunch tomorrow to get it sighted.

11.7gr of 1680 should get it done. Lehigh's load data says that is 1050fps from a 10" barrel. It's cold here, and I have an 8" barrel, so I figure that should keep me subsonic without a problem.

Already have 30 rounds of Berger 185gr Classic Hunter's loaded for my bolt gun for longer shots. We are planning to set up on some fire lanes with visibility to 350-400 yards and wait for them. Suppressed, of course.

The blackout is in case one wanders in closer. I'm using a 12-42x on my 308, and my buddy has an 8-32x Sightron on his. Close shots with those won't be good, especially on running deer.

What kind of luck have you had with the Classic Hunters?

Loooong story short for now, Im going to be doing some .308 hunting load development. Need a place to start bullet-wise.

Well, I haven't put holes in anything but paper with them, but they grouped sub-moa at 300 yards when I did load development summer 2013, so that's good enough for me.

Just need to hit the range tomorrow and zero at 100 and chrono to get dope.