Starting Reloading - I need the Skinny; Gotchas..The good the bad the ugly

[Jeff Martin]

thank you all....really appreciate it. I am reading like a mad man.

Hey Shrek - you were not playing on buy once, cry once when you suggested those calipers. $300 for a Caliper Daaaaaaamn jeeeena

 

[Shrek]

I paid around $70 for my used Brown & Sharpe calipers and $55 for my used Mitutoyo micrometer on Ebay. I didn't have to look too long either. I got both within a week of starting to look. My old RCBS calipers would shift over a thousandth with a little different pressure. I could press a little harder or easier and watch the needle move. It's hard to move the needle at all on my B&S calipers. Same with the Mitutoyo calipers I misplaced. I still dream of finding them somewhere in the house quality measuring tools make for quality ammo.

 

[tstowater]

As you put this thread on the long range part of the forum, I presume that accuracy is more important than volume. I don't have the desire and time to do the long range thing, but I do quite a bit of loading to fuel the prairie dog shooting trips each year. Nothing better than live target practice. Only thing better would be Broz's elk hunting. I keep refining the process with new toys but distractions is the number one problem to avoid. Interruptions need to dealt with and then get back to loading.... No question. Invariably, a distraction will lead to an problem.

The Sierra book is very good, probably others out there. Internet advice is mostly worth what you pay for it. You still need to get a system that you are comfortable with using and not so complicated that you get frustrated.

I would start with the 223 as the loading options and supplies are endless. 223 brass is a nightmare unless buying new. We have measured a lot of 223 cases and ended up with three piles: load, trim and get rid of. Plenty of opportunity to learn case prep with range pick up 223 brass. Not recommended for accuracy, but great way to learn prep.

Loading takes time and there is no way around that short of throwing more money after bigger faster loading equipment and that won't guarantee more accurate loading, only more rounds per hour.

Find a mentor who has good technique and is willing to teach you the in's and outs. If you have a good shooting range in the area, might be worth your time to go and find out who the better shooters and loaders are and talk to them. Some gun shops might be a resource to find a mentor, especially if they sell better loading equipment and supplies.

Just my 2 cents as always. No shortcuts.

 

[Muttly]

If you can follow a recipe, you can reload. Reloading is a great place to be a little OCD, conducive to keep all your fingers. A mentor is important. Get current manuals for the bullets you will be using, brand wise. Don't jump immediately to max loads, every barrel, every action, is an entity unto itself. . Bullet construction, hardness, brass capacity, and primers throw a bunch more variables in the mix.
I,d start with one brand of brass per cartridge, and use only that brand for the first year. Let's you establish a baseline, makes it a lot easier to see something out of the ordinary than if you're using a hodge podge of different brands. Lapua doesn't seem cheap at first, but you should get a lot of reloading out of each piece.
Pay attention to primer seating depth, be consistent in that area, it will let you avoid a few potential problems.
And if you have a Ruh-Roh moment, that's a good time to stop what you're doing until you have solved the problem...

 

[AZ Vince]

^^^^^^ Great advice.

 

[husky390]

Since there's been a lot of good advice posted above, here's a couple of do's and don'ts I've learned over the years.

Don't dump a lot of liquid case cleaner in your media. Especially all at once. A little bit goes a long ways

Do buy the RCBS stuck case removal tool or build one of your own before you start sizing cases.

If you're going to reload cartridges that use a small or large primer and you're going to use the RCBS handheld primer, check to make sure you are using the correct sized seater if switching back and forth between small and large primers.

Don't argue or have important conversations with your wife while reloading. You're going to blow yourself up one way or another.

Do have a place to store bullets, tools, and most importantly lbs of powder that you've only used to load 5 or 10 rounds and haven't touched since.

Good lighting helps.

Bring a small 2"x4" with you when you go shooting. You might need it to gently tap the bolt open in case you did not size your cases properly. Not a common problem but it's happened to me with my .300 winmag.

Lyman's reloading manual has a wealth of knowledge in it.

If you buy the RCBS hand priming tool but like Lee Dies, you will still need to buy RCBS shellholders. The Lee's will not fit in the RCBS priming tool.

I measure each bullet and group them by size. This limits the amount of individual adjustments needed on the sizing die. Not nearly as accurate as the tools out there but it works okay.

I like Hornady dies due to their ease of adjustment, then RCBS. Lee are my least favorite. I do use the Lee crimp dies along with their brass trimmers with a power drill. It's a pretty quick setup. I do want to get an RCBS power case prep center as my hands will cramp up using the hand tools to prep the case mouth, clean pockets, etc.

Most importantly, have fun. I find reloading to be very relaxing and therapeutic.

 

[Jeff Martin]

Really appreciate the continued advise. This is fantastic and I can tell I am going to enjoy this. I love the details, Merle Haggard and Waylon playing the background and precision work. I have a few gaps in my knowledge (to get started) but working on questions for that. thanks gain.

 

[Shrek]

Husky390 , you shouldn't need to adjust your seating die for different groups of sorted bullets. The base to ogive should not change unless the nose of the bullet is bottoming out in the stem. If that is the problem you need a VLD seating stem which is available from the die makers. Neither the bearing surface length or the nose lenght should make any difference in the base to ogive measurement if the seater is properly seated at the ogive.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Look at a book by Glenn zedyker and David tubb,,, reloading for competition. I believe this book has most if not all info you will ever need including your reloading press. Zedyker is quite full of himself but overall the book is great, I learned a ton from it.

 

[husky390]

Shrek, sent you a pm. Thanks

 

[COlineman78]

The Dillon Super Swage is by far the best tool for de-crimping military primer pockets. Luckily my club has one that I can borrow because they're a little on the expensive side. If you plan on reusing mil-surp brass you will need one. A little trick to it is we have it mounted to a 2x4 and then you can attach a rubber band to the little thing that sticks through the neck so that it will pop up by itself which speeds up the whole process. Or if you felt ambitious, here's an alternative to the rubber band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAE0YvHMusI

You will mess up, so get bullet puller.

 

[Shrek]

For the guys who always recommend the RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme have you ever used or owned anything else ? I've owned a Rock Chucker , an aluminum Lee , and now the Forster Co-Ax press. I used a Lee Classic Cast press a good bit and a Redding Boss press some. I have not had the pleasure of using Redding T-7 yet. Of everything I've owned and tried the Forster is far and away the best I have used for both convince of use and straitness of the the ammo produced. Of the "O" type presses I've used I'd recommend the Lee Classic cast as it's the best value imo. Also , many of the guys who make custom bullets use Lee Classic Cast presses because they are the best aligned from the factory and require the least work to get strait enough to make custom competition bullets. I've used every major maker of dies now and the only ones I've found to be unacceptable were the Hornady New Dimension dies and the Lee dies to be every bit as good as anyone elses conventional dies and depending on the particular die often better. They're the best deal going until you get to the Forster dies. Between the Redding comp dies and the Whiddon dies I prefer the Whiddon dies but the Redding are super nice too. Can't go wrong either way. I started hunting and reloading on my own and when I did start getting help from some very experienced loaders I was luck enough to not get involved with fanboys. They had all different makes of equipment on hand and all chosen for performance not brand loyalty. If I get to use a Redding T-7 and find it works better then my Forster Co-Ax would be replaced tomorrow and that goes with every other tool I own. Oh , my RCBS hand primer came apart again last night ! Every piece of RCBS equipment I have owned will have been replaced by better equipment by the end of next week. None of it has been near the best available nor been the best value equipment available.

 

[Muledeerfanatic]

All my RCBS stuff has worked well for 20 years.
My advice is take your time and find someone knowledgeable to help you get started.
No need to start off with every tool out there when you have no idea what is going on

 

[HOT ROD]

So what did U find wrong with the Rock Chucker Supreme Shrek?????

 

[Shrek]

Nothing wrong with the Rockchucker but it wasn't any better than the Lee Classic Cast but cost more. When I went to the Forster Co-Ax I dropped two thousandth off my average runout. I now know I could have gotten some of that out by putting rubber O rings under the die locking nut and not tightening it much but with the Forster I adjust and lock the ring down solid. Snap a die in and the nature of the design lets the die float and self align. I also never have to adjust the dies once set. Take them out and store them and when I need them again I just snap it in and go. I check everything all the time but they don't change unless I change them. If I was loading for different rifles with the same dies I'd need to adjust but since all my dies are matched to a single rifle I just snap the die in and start loading. No changing shellholders or setting dies to load another type cartridge. When guys start going on about how great a Rockchucker is I'm prety sure they've never used anything else because a Rockchucker is just an average O press that cost more than some and at one point recently was made with Chinese castings. My Rockchucker was a vintage model from the 80's with the built in priming arm but the arm was missing when I got it. It was nicely made and all and I got it for $50 but at the time a Rockchucker new was $130+ and the new Lee classic was $95. I loaded a bunch at a friend's on a classic and it was every bit as good as my Rockchucker. My little aluminum Lee I had for a while just didn't have the ass for sizing bigger cases and was before I had a way to measure runout so I don't know how it was doing in that regard. I don't hate RCBS or anything but in my experiences it has all been mediocre equipment with a higher price than its competitors. I'm a big fan of Lee because they're inexpensive and everything I've bought from them has worked as advertised. I'm not claiming that all their stuff is better performing than standard grade RCBS but it's just as good as it and some of it does work better. The collet neck dies are unique and nothing I've seen makes straighter ammo and I've spent hundreds of dollars on powder measurers and a Lee Perfect Powder Measure is back on my bench after another failed expensive measure. Nothing I've tried does better with big stick powders than the cheap plastic Lee.
I'm experimenting with going back to the Lee collet dies for all my neck sizing but combining it with Redding body only dies to bump shoulders back a thousandth. The straightest ammo ihave ever made is with the Lee collet dies. .0005 runout and I replaced the dial indicator on my Sinclair runout measure stand with a Mitutoyo that reads in .0005 increments.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Tmi for this poor guy. Lol

 

[COlineman78]

I've spent hundreds of dollars on powder measurers and a Lee Perfect Powder Measure is back on my bench after another failed expensive measure. Nothing I've tried does better with big stick powders than the cheap plastic Lee.

http://www.brecknellscales.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36

I got a great deal on this guy a while back ($160) at Cabela's. It took me a while to get it dialed into my liking, but I have done some custom settings that hit the mark every time. If you are okay being +- 0.1gr every time then you can just use the factory settings, but I'd rather wait an extra 2-3 secs per round and be dead on, so I customized the dispense profile.

I am a strong believer that no company makes everything perfect and have very few brand loyalties. Lee has good customer service and sent me out a new deprimer pin when I bent mine. But the deprimer is the only thing I own of theirs. Like I said before, I get a great deal (50% off MSRP) on Redding, so I picked up the Big Boss 2 and some comp dies to get started off. From what I've read Forster makes the best trimmer and plan to get that soon (if I can ever find it in stock). Thumler's Tumbler Model B will produce the cleanest brass you've ever seen, but a little overpriced now since people started using it for reloading (used to just be a rock tumbler).

 

[Shrek]

Wilson trimmer is better imo and the Frankfort Arsenal tumbler kit works better than the thumblers model B imo. There's a bunch of screws on the model b which are a pia while the Frankfort Arsenal has a screw on jar type lid on each end. Take one lid off and dump it into the strainer and then open the other end and rinse it through and get all the pins rinsed out into the strainer. It has worked great for me.
The wilson is better because it doesn't vary the lenght by the variance in the rim thickness like any trimmer that holds a case by the rim. If you trim a fired case in a wilson you will get perfect over all case lenght and neck lenght.

 

[COlineman78]

I don't think the FA was out when I bought the Thumler; the screws are a bit of a pain. The auto timer would also be nice.

 

[lcxctf2000]

I like the Sierra Reloadig Manuel for the basic starting knowledge and "How To". All manuels will have minimum/max charge weight with other cartridge info. Remember this. Measure twice and work up your charge weights slow. Do a google search on how to read brass for pressure signs. I'm sure there is a Youtube video on it also.

A tip on manuals - check and see when the last update was done and even better if they updated anything for the cartridges you are loading. You can save yourself some $ by not buying the latest and going with older if the data you want hasn't been updated anyway.