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Rookie Press Operator Prepares to Blow Things Up

On a more cheerful note, I have successfully mastered the Arcane Mysteries of the RCBS hand priming tool!

I got 50 cases neatly primed and I only had two flubs.

One was when I dropped a small rifle primer; and it is lost for tonite, probably under the wife's car.

But on one case I got the primer cocked somehow and it went in crooked halfway and stuck there.

Because it was sticking halfway up, I could not get the shell from the shell holder, and had to disassemble the priming tool.

Perhaps there was a burr. Most of these cases had to be chamfered (from having military primers.) Maybe I did a poor job on that one.

Anyhow, this thing was still stuck in the shell holder, because the primer was only halfway in. I didn't want to decap a live primer in my new press, so I put on my full face shield, stuck the case in my big vise, put a center punch on the primer, looked the other way and whacked it with a hammer.

I smacked the snot out of that primer 3 times with a center punch, deforming it horribly, yet it did not go down into place and it did not go off.

Finally I put the shell in the vise sideways and just tapped the shell holder off with a ball-peen hammer.

And that didn't set it off either. Later I will go cook it off with a torch. It makes me nervous laying on my bench all mangled.

I get the impression that the margin for error, when you strike off a small rifle primer, is very small indeed.

Anyhow, the hand priming tool all works really well when you know how to use it. I primed my first 50 quickly and they are ready to charge.
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Well I've done some more research online and I think I have some good load advice. For the .223 I believe I'm going to start out with 23 grains of Varget and load to the maximum COAL. I'm using CCI BR-4 primers & bullets are Hornady Match. 75gn FMJ BTHP.

The 16 ga will get 14gn of Clays, 1oz #4 birdshot, and appropriate primers.
I'm choosing the shotshell primers by the size which presses into the shells properly. I have Winchester, Federal, and Remington primers for shot shells.
 
Thanks PawPaw. I want to heat it with a torch until it goes bang.
 
oli700 said:
wow, come a long way with it in a short time.....
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Thanks Oli. I've never reloaded, but I'm no stranger to presswork. I worked as an engineer for companies that did all manner of metal punching, forming, welding, fab, and machining.

But that was work.

I'm having fun. This is as much fun as anything I've done professionally.
 
Sounds like your getting it to me just don't get in a hurry and don't have too many things going at once
 
Caddman, you've earned a whole new level of respect from me.

I'm mostly talking about work. I don't blame you at all. You're not the one that should be made to feel guilty of doing anything wrong. I have worked for a few cable companies, that when they sold out to other companies, I celebrated. You should too. My advice, is just smile at everyone for the next month and a half.

Oli has good advice. Everything you're loading for has different personalities. Take it slow and don't get frustrated.

And your assumption about swaging the primer pocket on the 223 is probably correct. I've had to do that a few times too. And it was always because of that reason too.

Here's a little suggestion if you want it and how I do it.

I use a Lyman VLD/Chamfer/Reamer tool for both the primer pocket and the inside of the neck to help taper it some to help seat bullets so they self align from a lack of better explanation.

http://www.brownells.com/reloading/...fering/vld-chamfer-reamer-tool-prod44718.aspx

Anyway, the VLD tip unscrews from the handle. I chuck it in a cordless drill, and stick it down in the primer pocket and put gentle pressure on it while the drill is turning a few seconds and I don't have that problem anymore. Then I flip it over and do the inside of the neck too after they've been sized. You can go through a lot of cases in no time flat. Just don't go overboard making the hole too large. All you have to do is put light pressure on it until you're confident the crimp is gone and you'll never have to do it again.
 
My first hand-made rifle rounds!
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In the spirit of caution, I only loaded 10 shells tonight. I would have done 50 but the batteries on my scale went dead and I had to either go to the store, or use the balance beam scale which is too slow .

I weighed every charge on the digital scale.

The first five are loaded with 22 grains of Varget and the 75 grain Match bullets. I set the COAL to 2.336", trim length was 1.760. I gave it an extra 0.010" of case, because I could, plus I'm not crimping.

They seem to chamber okay and though I could have raised the coal another 0.010" until it just kissed the lands solidly, 2.336" is the longest I could get to feed from the magazine so far.

The second 5 are exactly the same, but have 22.5 grains of the Varget.

I'm pretty sure I can go up to 25 or 25.5 even but I decided to start at 22 grains out of an abundance of caution.

Intend to make up another 40 rounds before I go shooting. I will bump up the charges 0.2 ~0.3 grains every 5 rounds.

This will give me 5 rounds each of something like this.
22.0
22.5
22.8
23.0
23.3
23.7
24.0
24.4
24.7
25.0

I'm going to keep the overall length constant for this set, and just vary the powder charge. Also I won't go over 25 grains on this first set. That would be the book maximum if I was loading to the standard COAL.
 
John A. said:
Caddman, you've earned a whole new level of respect from me . . .
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Thanks, John. I think the guys at work are coming to grips with the situation.

I got to see the retinologist today and he scaned my eyeballs & ran me through a battery of BS. The fluid in my eye is dehydrating and gelling up. It's pulling loose from the retina. It's bleeding at the edges and being a big pain in the ass.

The news is pretty much what I expected. My condition is going to deteriorate slowly. I'm not going to actually go blind (in the near future) unless I do something stupid, but I'm going to lose the ability to focus my eye quickly.

Well actually I've already lost that. It's been sluggish for quite some time & it will get worse.

The good news is my eye feels better than it's felt for 2 weeks, and my vision has cleared up a lot. I feel that things have stabilized for now.

But I am definitely retiring. My wife will be retiring in June, and I expect to be done by then as well.

Benchrest shooting should still be possible as long as I don't go buying any 50 BMGs. :rolleyes: Also the 12 gauge shotgun it is now broken in and will be relegated to Home Defense duties only. I do intend to keep shooting the 16 gauge.

I don't think I'm going to buy any big bore rifles. 223 will have to be good enough for the likes of me.
 
This is the chamfer tool and pocket cleaner I use, from the Rock Chucker Supreme Master kit. I used the pocket cleaner & the chamfer tool on every case.
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Doing good cad. Tip I picked up to help with seating the bullets concentric to the case, is to seat the bullet in steps, and then rotate the round 1/3, or 1/4 rotation as your seating. as in, pull the handle a little bit, let up, turn, pull a little more, let up, turn, pull some more, let up turn... I basically seat a 77 grain bullet in 5 steps.
 
And to be proactive, you may want to invest in a "stuck case remover" And spare decapping pin. Nothing will stop a reloading session faster than a stick case, or broken decapping pin.

You mentioned titanium dies? Can you resize without lube, like with carbide dies?
 
I'm not sure what kind of dies you have, or if these will work with them, but the Lee die set I have for the blackout, I bought a pack of these and fell in love with them the first batch that I sized.

These are the 223/556 pins. Obviously I used the blackout pins for blackout. I just wanted to save you some time looking them up.

If/when you need to replace your pins, check these out.

http://www.squirreldaddy.com/Hardened-Steel-223-5-56-Decapping-pin-p/sd24-114.htm
 
Guys, thanks for all the valuable advice. I can literally tell you that if it wasn't for this resource I would never have undertaken the whole business of reloading.

The die set is only titanium coated.
I wouldn't expect too much. They may promise it will work without Lube but they don't tell you how long it will last before it's worn objectionably.

Also the .223 die set that I bought is not the match grade die set, but the cheaper "American" series. It comes in a blister pack and you don't get a nice box with it or much in the way of instructions. What you do get is a shell holder, yet I quickly discovered I needed a spare one for the hand priming tool.

I did not want to screw up the hundred-dollar + match grade set on my first attempt, so I settled for the cheaper and more complete $35 set at first.

But I will have a whole spare die set pretty soon.
 
Cadd, you might just be onto another career . Just about anything East of you would be friendlier as far as firearms go. I'm impressed, although not surprised how you have taken to the reloading .
 
I have a few sets of the Hornady American series dies. They're pretty nice. I like how the decapping pin is a bolt. Pretty hard to get a stuck case with them.

Though I still lube the cases.

Imperial case lube is really good for inside the case neck when you're sizing. What I do, is turn the case so the neck is pointing down and then I just push it into the wax about an 8th of an inch or so, just so there is some lube there to help prevent a stuck die.

I also lube the outside of the cases with rcbs case lube 2. Put a couple of drops in a ziplock back and roll the cases around in there for a minute so they get covered and they're slick as a ribbon when you're sizing and stuff.

Though I do run them back through the vibrator for about 20 or 30 minutes once I get them ready to prime/powder just to clean them up so I don't risk contaminating the powder drop.

And thanks to Oli700 for the rcbs/ziplock recommendation. He was the one who put me on it. And I'm glad he did too. I think the bottle I have will last forever.
 
I had a set of Hornady new dimension dies for 6.5 Grendel. I didn't care for them. The seating die indexed off the case mouth. I crushed the neck on several rounds. Whereas the Lee does index off the shell holder. Impossible to crush a case, as the ram is bottomed out
 
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