Last night, I reloaded 100 rounds of .44 Magnum using 240gr XTP bullets and H110 powder. My hunting load.

The night before I reloaded 150 rounds of .44 Magnum using 240gr plated HP and Unique powder. My plinking load.

Fifty rounds of match 6.5CM. Finally cool in the garage!

RMD

Fire formed 200 brass. Resized, deprimed.
Found shoulder measurements. Found lans & groove measurement.
6mmbra, bench rest.

I loaded my 25,000th round of .45acp the other day. I started loading this round back in the mid or late 70's.

45 is the only caliber I keep track of. When I started on the acp, I kept records. I can't find my records for the first 73 boxes I loaded, but on 10-7-81, I loaded my 74th box. The load today, was my standard 200gr cast swc over 5.0 of 231. Prior to this week, I had not loaded for about 13 months. I have not been shooting a lot and was shooting 9mm when I did.

I am sure the first one I ever loaded, was a cast swc and possibly 700-X or Red Dot. I also used Unique for a time and possibly Bullseye. I went to a garage sale of a couple who was getting divorced and got a keg of 700-X for 4 dollars. I loaded a lot till that keg was empty.

The first round would have been fired in a surplus 1911 I found at a gunshow. Soon thereafter, I got a 70 Series Gold Cup and I would guess 95% or more of what I have loaded was fired in that gun. I shot my renewal ccw qualification with it yesterday. I also have a Colt Commander and Ruger 1911 and have shot those both a great deal. I shot some in a Blackhawk convertible, but preferred firing the .45 Colt round.

I have loaded a few fmj's, but 99% have been cast swc's with a few rn's thrown in. The vast majority have been using 231 and WW primers. I have shot many brands of primers, but my LGS only stocks WW and I have several thousand on hand. The great primer shortage back in the 80's kind of snuck up on me, but I was never without. Jeff Cooper wrote in Guns & Ammo, that if the economy crashed, primers could be used for currency. Since then, there have always been plenty on hand. I mark the boxes as to what year I bought them. I also have the WW codes for year of production and use the oldest primers first.

For a time, I cast my own bullets, but gave that up when we moved. I have bought bullets from my LGS for years or at a gunshow if I found a bargain. I have now switched to SnS coated swc's. Last year, I finally got rid of a lot of lead I had been keeping. I gave it to a friend under the condition, he would give me half of it back in cast bullets. I am shooting up those before I get back to the SnS bullets.

I have always loaded used brass and prefer the GI. IMI also makes good brass and our military uses a lot of it. I tumble it after shooting and it always shines up nicely. I shoot outside and loose about 10% each time. I pick up brass if I see it and bring it home. If I spot a bargain at a show, I will buy it and clean it up. The last brass I bought was once fired IMI Match.

There was a gap when I wasn't loading as we moved to a new house and it took me some time to get a room and bench installed. I was probably out for a couple of years. After the move, a Dillon 550 was added to the bench next to my old RCBS Jr and things really sped up. I learned a great deal with the old press and am thankful for the experience. The Dillon is using the RCBS dies I use to use on the press.

I know some of you competitive shooters probably shoot 25k in a year, but I am just doing this for recreation. I have always found reloading to be relaxing. I had 2 high stress jobs and reloading was great therapy.

I doubt I will load another 25k, but I am looking forward to some day shooting the box marked #500. Right now, I am shooting rounds I loaded about a year ago. I try to keep 1k loaded rounds on hand.

HA HA, I found some 223 cases that were already trimmed to form 300BLK, also in a mislabled ammo can....what was I thinking when we moved??


spent most of the day turning 100 pieces into 300BLK, and loaded them with IMR4227 and some SMK 200 grain bullets...

still gotta find somewhere to shoot...

Trying out CFE Black for 300Blk, so a few test loads...

Fire formed 200 6mm brA with tight group and cream of wheat.
Note to self : tight group is way too dirty to use fire forming ..

Finally got to the range and managed to empty 50 cases of 243...tomorrow I will begin reloading them

I finally bought the 6.8 shell plate and powder die for the 550 Dillon.
Set up last evening and ran a hundred 110 grain Sierra spitzers.
Pretty proud of myself as I had been using the old rock chucker ,
Man that was painful to do the old fashion way

I received an RCBS primer pocket swager today; To take the crimp out of military brass.

Got it figured out and set before the minion had to go to karate, so I will begin tomorrow with the swaging tomorrow.

Today in reloading land….

I’ve had issues with my 9mm Bar-Sto drop-in barrel for P226 since I bought it (the barrel). Sometimes (rarely) it wouldn’t go quite all the way to battery and “stick”, requiring a harder tug on the slide than my arthritic hands could do. Mind you, it had a live round in the chamber. I was contemplating having the barrel looked at by a smith as it was 1/1000 tighter than my .40 SW & .457 SIG barrels. While I was cleaning the pistol today I started reviewing my reloading and DING! I hadn’t made a plop test in, well, I can’t remember when. The plop test showed the problem instantly: the rounds stood 1/16” proud. Loaded a dummy and when I examined the case-bullet seam I saw that it wasn’t crimped. DING! DING! HEAD SLAP! Adjustments were easy and now my loads plop in and fall out. I use the same seating/crimp die for .357 SIG and must not have readjusted the height.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: cne32507,

quote:

Originally posted by cne32507:
Today in reloading land….

I’ve had issues with my 9mm Bar-Sto drop-in barrel for P226 since I bought it (the barrel). Sometimes (rarely) it wouldn’t go quite all the way to battery and “stick”, requiring a harder tug on the slide than my arthritic hands could do. Mind you, it had a live round in the chamber. I was contemplating having the barrel looked at by a smith as it was 1/1000 tighter than my .40 SW & .457 SIG barrels. While I was cleaning the pistol today I started reviewing my reloading and DING! I hadn’t made a plop test in, well, I can’t remember when. The plop test showed the problem instantly: the rounds stood 1/16” proud. Loaded a dummy and when I examined the case-bullet seam I saw that it wasn’t crimped. DING! DING! HEAD SLAP! Adjustments were easy and now my loads plop in and fall out. I use the same seating/crimp die for .357 SIG and must not have readjusted the height.

I have also found that the chamber of my Barsto p229 barrel is tighter than many of my other pistol barrels. The chamber throat is also shorter, requiring either a bullet with a narrower ogive, or deeper seat than other barrels. If I don't custom load for it, it'll drive the bullet into the lands and exhibit exactly the condition you're describing. Between that barrel and my CZ75, they keep me constantly tinkering with my 9mm loads. It's a good, accurate barrel, just very picky about ammo.

As to my reloading activities today, I filled the remainder of my .38 special brass with bullets and powder, primed 300 .223 cases and loaded 50 of those. I also tumbled the 1000 or so 9mm cases I scored at a department qualification session yesterday.

I loaded up some 124 grain RMR JHP's in 357 Sig. Seem like really well made bullets and the price is right. Trying HS-6 powder in this caliber for the first time. If I get OK results on steel, I'll move over to paper and test the accuracy.

I tried some powder coating today. All harbor freight had was white and Black. I must’ve thrown away the red I had when we left NC.

Anyway they look GTG, I tried it on some cast truncated 40 cal bullets I have. Ima try them in my STI and hope that works cause I’m out of 40 ammo and need to reload some

4,000 rounds of 38 SuperComp Bianchi Cup practice ammo out of the 650 today. Once my order comes from Starline I'll get the last of the practice and match ammo loaded up.

I loaded some 6.5 Grendel and resized 250 .308 cases. The new Ultra mount from Inline Fabrication plus the roller handle really made it a breeze.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I tried some powder coating today. All harbor freight had was white and Black. I must’ve thrown away the red I had when we left NC.

Mike, if you would accept, I would love to send you a sample of good red powdercoat. I get it from "smoke" at the cast boolits forum.

Great prices, fast shipping and all his colors will tumble coat Derrell

^^sure. My email is in my profile. I couldn’t get the black to work, but then started using my old Lyman tumbler and the white sticks to the bullets after a few minutes in it....

Red is the only color that worked well for me,I have mixed colors and came up with school bus colors