Sized and trimmed about 375 pieces of 223 over the last few days. up next is some 300aac brass, then I'll be on to the 458 socom brass
Sized and trimmed about 375 pieces of 223 over the last few days. up next is some 300aac brass, then I'll be on to the 458 socom brass
Tumbling the brass that I sorted last night. Prolly sort more wheel weighs while the tumblers are running. Look for some additions to my trades in the next few days!
Going to trim to length a pile of 8mm Mauser brass and final polish them today.
Finally finished sorting the last bucket of a 5600# batch of wheel weights! WHEW! May just grab a beer and leave the brass sorting for another day!
Polished up a batch of brass and nickel plated .223 cases.
I sized, trimmed, and primed some more .30-06 brass.
Loaded up a test batch of 458 socom, finished building the upper for it... hopefully I'll be able to actually shoot it sometime soon.
Sorted some more brass and added some stuff to my trades.
I primed a few more .30-06 brass with my Lee Autoprime XR hand primer whilst watching TV. However, the lever on the Autoprime kept sticking in the "primer ram up/compressed grip" position (if that makes any sense). I took it apart, cleaned it , and hit it with some dry lube. Testing it, without seating any primers, it seemed to work better. I didn't test it by seating any primers because I had no more brass ready to prime.
You probably don't have to load too many of those at a time. I imagine the recoil will keep you from firing a lot of rounds through it.
Last edited by WarEagleEd; 12-12-2017 at 08:03 PM.
The recoil wasn't too bad in the lower end of the charge range (32-33gr IMR4227), but up at the top end (33.5 and 34gr) it was stout enough to actually fold the front sight back down with each round fired... I think I'll be going with 32.5gr. And I didn't realize it until the other day, but IMR4227 kinda stinks compared to some of the other powders I use.
Just got in 500 240gr 308 bullets, going to try to get a good load for the blackout with 1680. Never used it before, but it's supposed to be great for blackout.
Still sorting brass. Starting on 9 mm today. Plan to sort by head stamp, wash, resize, tumble and store away. This may take a few days!
100 pieces of socom in the tumbler, then a size and retumble and they'll be ready to load. But today's priority is assembling an AR pistol for a friend
Oh dear. Setting up a meet. Guy has an EAA Witness that shoots both 10mm and .40 cal S&W he wants to sell. Just what I need, ANOTHER 10mm. Good thing I have LOTS of 10mm and .40 cal cases to load!
I sized some more .30-06 brass. You might think I've sized enough .30-06 recently to last a lifetime, but the batches have been small (I did 30 this afternoon).
I noticed that this die seems to be scratching the cases a lot. I have used two different case lubes and still get the scratches. They are only cosmetic, it would seem, but am wondering if this is common when sizing rifle brass, as the overwhelming majority of loading I have done has been for pistols.
thirtyoughtsixcasescratches.jpg
I trimmed and primed some .30-06 brass. I also had a chance to try out the MEC 600 that I bought off of ebay a couple of years ago. I deprimed and sized a few Rio red 16-gauge hulls and then primed them with Nobel Sport 209 primers. The primer holes are slightly larger on the Rio hulls and American made 209 primers will be a loose fit. I decided to try the Nobel Sport primers because they are made in Italy and I figured (based off of some quick Google research) that they would fit. Much to my delight, they do.
I am wondering if you have some grit pasted in your dies in old lube. Have you tried cleaning out your dies? I keep a can of brake cleaner aerosol handy and flush all my dies out every once in a while. Try that and see if the scratching disappears. Make sure you spray a light coating of some type of oil after the brake cleaner dries though to keep the dies from rusting.
Last edited by gandog56; 12-18-2017 at 06:58 AM.
What gangdog said. You can also used a bore mop with some polishing compound on it and spin it with a drill. You can even do the drill thing with some 1200 grit emory cloth, maybe with a little light oil on it. Go slow and careful although it will take a lot of polishing to change the dimensions of a hardened die.
Still processing pistol brass. Do 9mm's breed when stored together? I started by depriming them, washing them, resizing them, tumbling them and lastly sorting and storing them. I'm finished with the resizing but I've got about a days worth on deck waiting on their turn in the tumbler. Prolly start on 40's in the next few days, so expect to hear more of the same oh same oh!
Hopefully I'll finish tumbling my 9mm brass, get it dried and stored away. Probably start resizing something else, either 40's or 45's.
Ordered a couple more 14 round mags for my new EAA Witness 10mm. Loaded up the three 10mm mags and the two .40 cal mags that came with it. Got 5 more 50 round plastic boxes for rifles to help me get rid of all my paper boxes. Installed a new brass catcher thingie on my 10mm carbine so I quit losing some of my 10mm cases as it tend to send them into low Earth orbit. It attaches to the rail so I had to move my red dot scope back a bit to get it positioned right over the ejection port. Which probably means I will need to sight the scope back in.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |