It's not big enough to be a 'Man Cave' . . .

[JCinPA]

Sorta my 'Big Boy Den'. It's really just a small spot in the garage, but when I get the basement ManCave done, I'll have a fly setup down there.

Eventually. Like when the kids are out of college. :mad:

Anyhoo, I upgraded my ammunition reloading area this weekend by installing a Lee Classic Turret Press. As far as 'projects' go, this was pretty small. Originally, for the single stage press on the right, I built that platform on the workbench to add weight and rigidity, and made it big enough to add the turret press later. Just a couple of particle boards glued together with "Liquid Nails" with a masonite top piece. I drilled through that and the bench top, and secured the platform with four 5/16" bolts. I had to remove the cabinet doors because they would not open with the ram linkages from the presses hanging down.

That platform overhangs the end of the bench a bit, and the presses are bolted into it (one bolt through the bench top, two just through the overhang) with 1/4" bolts. The masonite area is nice for setting up the powder scale and other stuff I use during a reloading session.

I don't shoot as much as I'd like--too damn busy, so I couldn't justify a full up progressive press, but the Lee Turret turns out a completed round with four cycles of the handle. All the dies and the powder measure rotate on top, so you work one case from size/deprime, through belling the case mouth and charging, bullet seating, then sizing/crimping. I can probably do 200 rounds of .45 in an hour on this thing, which is plenty fast.

I still use the single stage for real precision rounds for target/hunting/varmint ammo. For .45 or .223, I'll use the turret press. Here's my little 'project' with the turret press on the left.

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/8033/reloadingbench11rn0.jpg

Here are some .45 rounds I made up tonight after shooting my first experiments. Still tweaking, but I didn't blow up the gun or lose any fingers or anything. :thumb:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/170/45rounds11ym3.jpg

I have some .223 dies on the way, and I'm anxious to try those. Thanks for looking!

[Quads]

How many times can you reload a cartridge before you have to throw it out?

[j p frog]

nice work Big J

[JCinPA]

How many times can you reload a cartridge before you have to throw it out?

That is a very good question, and since I've been around a while, I know you did not expect a short answer. :rolleyes:

The answer is it depends on the cartridge you are loading for, the technique you use, and the purpose for which you are reloading. Different cartridges burn at different pressures. For example an auto pistol round like the .45 ACP, loaded with the standard 'military ball' 230 gr FMJ-RN (full metal jacket-round nose) over Bullseye or Unique powders, kicks out of a 5" barrel at about 900 fps, and pressure spikes only to about 16,200 PSI. The .45 headspaces on the case rim, so it pretty much just blows out to the chamber walls and does not lengthen (stretch) appreciably. Reloaders often don't bother counting reloads and just inspect the cases after cleaning for splits. They can be reloaded dozens of times.

Take a larger rifle round, however, like the venerable .30-06, loaded in a good sniping round of 175 gr HPBT (hollow point boat tail) loaded over Hodgdon Varget powder for 2,700 fps, you're talking pressures approaching 50,000 PSI! And the cartridge not only blows out against the chamber walls, it stretches (lengthens) out to the front. Eventually you start to trim these and the metal thins at the neck. Also, compressing the brass back to original dimensions overworks the metal. Folks can expect to get about a half-dozen loadings out of the brass if they full-length resize every time. A competition shooter would likely only reuse brass once or twice in competition, then consign that brass to practice only.

This would be way more info than you want, but different types of resizing (neck resizing, or minimum full-length resizing after measuring a rifle's specific chamber dimensions) can increase the effective life of a case, but I doubt you're that interested. So I'll stop. I'm over long already. :mrgreen:

Short answer, pistol brass can be reused a LOT. Rifle brass can be reused perhaps twice to a dozen times, but probably around 6 times or so, depending on use.

[big0mike]

Here are some .45 rounds I made up tonight after shooting my first experiments. Still tweaking, but I didn't blow up the gun or lose any fingers or anything. :thumb:
Depending on the powder I think you will have a tough time putting enough in a case to cause a lot of damage. One of the first times using my buddy's Dillon 500-series I apparently put a double charge of Accurate #5 in. The round fired, the bottom of the magazine blew off causing the rest of the rounds, follower, and spring to exit, and if I remember right it cracked my custom wood grips. This was on a full-size Springfield. That was a big bang... :eek:

Lesson: even when you know what you are doing and have done is hundreds of thousands of times you still need to pay attention to what the fuck you are doing.

[JCinPA]

Yep. Like they say about flying. . .it's not inherently dangerous. But it is very unforgiving. ;)

That's the argument for a single stage press. But for pistol, it's just mindnumbingly slow.

[sunsetpizza]

I don't know shit about guns and ammo. Tell me, do you save much $$ reloading your own? how much? or is it just a hobby to do it? Or a combo of both (save $$ and enjoy it?)

[JCinPA]

Both saves money and a hobby in itself.

I didn't start until last year. Then 2 things happened. First ammo prices have gone through the roof in the last couple of years, then shipping costs basically doubled. I used to be able to get a case of .45 pistol ammo (1,000 rounds), delivered, for about $200. Now it's like $400. I can load 1,000 rounds of .45 pistol ammo (ignoring the cost of the cases from the original ammo I bought. . .reasonable since it can be reloaded so many times) for about $190. That's significant.

The other thing that happened was my son wanted to get into precision rifle shooting. I had always just played with older (WWI & WWII) military rifles with iron sights, and never thought about the ammo. Once I got a super-accurate rifle with a scope, I started to think about the ammo. You can load scarily accurate ammo, even tailoring it to the harmonics of a specific rifle if you are as analytical as I am :mrgreen:. Perfect hobby for me! So it begins to become enjoyable in its own right.

I have not spent a fortune on top tier gear. . .Lee is considered budget line equipment. . .but I've loaded stuff I've been able to shoot to under half MOA (minute of angle). Once shot a 0.40" group at 100 yards off the bench. That's pretty good.

Now I enjoy making the ammo almost as much as making the noise. But the cost factor is even better in premium match rounds. For example, good .308 match ammo from a top manufacturer can run $1.50 per round. I can load more accurate stuff for about $0.50 per round.

JC

[big0mike]

I don't know shit about guns and ammo. Tell me, do you save much $$ reloading your own? how much? or is it just a hobby to do it? Or a combo of both (save $$ and enjoy it?)
The general idea is that you save A LOT of money handloading. I haven't run any numbers in a long time but a box of 50 .45 ACP rounds is probably in their $20 neighborhood, plus or minus some. I think you can handload a box for 1/3 of that.

So, you save a lot of money but in reality you still spend the same amount of money. You simply get a lot more ammunition for your dollar.

[sunsetpizza]

Both saves money and a hobby in itself.

I didn't start until last year. Then 2 things happened. First ammo prices have gone through the roof in the last couple of years, then shipping costs basically doubled. I used to be able to get a case of .45 pistol ammo (1,000 rounds), delivered, for about $200. Now it's like $400. I can load 1,000 rounds of .45 pistol ammo (ignoring the cost of the cases from the original ammo I bought. . .reasonable since it can be reloaded so many times) for about $190. That's significant.

The other thing that happened was my son wanted to get into precision rifle shooting. I had always just played with older (WWI & WWII) military rifles with iron sights, and never thought about the ammo. Once I got a super-accurate rifle with a scope, I started to think about the ammo. You can load scarily accurate ammo, even tailoring it to the harmonics of a specific rifle if you are as analytical as I am :mrgreen:. Perfect hobby for me! So it begins to become enjoyable in its own right.

I have not spent a fortune on top tier gear. . .Lee is considered budget line equipment. . .but I've loaded stuff I've been able to shoot to under half MOA (minute of angle). Once shot a 0.40" group at 100 yards off the bench. That's pretty good.

Now I enjoy making the ammo almost as much as making the noise. But the cost factor is even better in premium match rounds. For example, good .308 match ammo from a top manufacturer can run $1.50 per round. I can load more accurate stuff for about $0.50 per round.

JC

interesting -- I figured a bullet was a bullet. didn't know you could make them more accurate than others. thanks, I've learnt something today. :)

[big0mike]

interesting -- I figured a bullet was a bullet. didn't know you could make them more accurate than others. thanks, I've learnt something today. :)
The downside to making them more accurate is speed. Some guys hand load all their hunting ammo in order to ensure that every round shoots exactly the same as the last one. In those cases these guys are using a single stage press and measuring each powder charge, and in some cases each bullet, with a scale. That takes considerably longer than using a 4 or 5 stage press.

The auto-presses are very accurate. In any normal situation their margin of error on any given load might mean .25" to the target or competition shooter. To some .25" is not acceptable.

[JCinPA]

Yep. Super accurate ammo is slow to make.

But it's not a different bullet that makes the difference, Sunset, it's the fact that as soon as you shoot a rifle, shock waves begin to move through it. With super high speed photography, you can even see it. Competition benchrest shooters put vibration dampers on their barrels to 'tune' them.

So you take a basically accurate load, say the Federal Gold Medal Match in .308 Winchester. It's made the same way at the factory every time.

Now you load 5 rounds 5/1000's longer, 10/1000s longer, 15/1000's longer. . .same for shorter. How far the bullet is off the rifling in a particular gun can make a big difference. So you run 6 sets of 5 rounds through the gun and see what it "likes" best.

Then you add a grain, two grains, three grains, and take away the same. Shoot those. Eventually, you'll dial into a load that your rifle likes better than any other. That's the fun part of the hobby (at least for some).

The argument that if you reload, you shoot more doesn't hold for me, pretty much. I'm constrained by time and other commitments. And since I got the budget equipment, I think it's paid for itself, or will by the end of the year. Here's an example of one of my first reloads. I was copying the Federal Gold Medal Match load.

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6830/group161tu5.jpg

[big0mike]

The argument that if you reload, you shoot more doesn't hold for me, pretty much. I'm constrained by time and other commitments.
You are probably the exception then. When I bought my first King Cobra I already had a Rock Chucker hand-me-down so I've never really bought commercial ammo in my life. The only exception being the Cor-Bons I carry in my .45 and the .223s I bought in order to get the extra brass so I could reload it. Most people I know bought commercial ammo and when they went to reloading shot significantly more during their outings. They didn't shoot more often but they put a lot more rounds down range when they did.

[JCinPA]

That may, in fact happen to me. But even though I'm on my second press and have done some pretty successful loading, I'm still a beginner, and so I spend a lot of time on my loads and my shooting volume has not gone up. I'm trying to work out a .45 ACP load for a Berry's plated 185 gr flat point (in the photo) that I simply cannot find any published data on, so I've been fiddling trying to iron it out. What I learned from that is to stick with more popular bullets, like a 200 gr semi-wadcutter, because there's a ton of data out there for that.

But, .223 dies are in the mail, 1,000 Hornady 200 gr. XTP's are in the mail. . .I think as I become more proficient with the turret press, my shooting volume may, in fact, go up. If nothing else, with the decrease in per-shot cost, I'll take more friends to the range.

Only tried seting the bullet in the charging station once today! DOH! :mrgreen: Pay attention! Pay attention!

[Quads]

I had no idea that it would be that much less (monay) to reload your own.
So when I'm at the range, should I start collecting buckets of the casings and sell them / give them to people to reload? I could easily fill a couple of 5-gal. buckets within 30 minutes.

[JCinPA]

Absolutely! I never collected my brass until last year. Then I collected for a while before getting the presses. As long as the brass isn't too grungy I still pick up stuff off the ground now that's not mine when I go.

When I shot mostly .45 and milsurp 30-06 for my military rifles, cost wasn't much of a factor. With the doubling of ammo prices and the doubling of shipping costs over the last two years, coupled with my getting some weird guns -- Swiss K31 in 7.55 Swiss, and a Persian Mauser, I decided to take the plunge. I now have dies for 30-06, .308 Winchester, the Swiss, .45 ACP, and .223 and 8mm Mauser on the way.

It's a lot of fun. What do you shoot, Quads? If you shoot any 30-06, the CMP has some Greek milsurp ammo for a great price. I don't reload those in great quantity, mostly I'm going for accuracy. But I plan on loading a shitload of .45 and .223!

JC

P.S. that Gold Medal match stuff is $1.50 a round. I loaded mine for under 50 cents. The one that shot that target photo.
P.S. If you do collect buckets and don't reload, here is a site with once-fired brass prices. So you'll know how much beer to charge if you 'sell' it to friends. ;)

[j p frog]

I had no idea that it would be that much less (monay) to reload your own.
So when I'm at the range, should I start collecting buckets of the casings and sell them / give them to people to reload? I could easily fill a couple of 5-gal. buckets within 30 minutes.

I didn't realize you were a shooter Quads. What do you have for an arsenal?

[Seven©]

So when I'm at the range, should I start collecting buckets of the casings and sell them / give them to people to reload?

Brass=gold. Almost.

[JCinPA]

Just reloaded 50 for the Savage FP10 "Sniper" -- 20" barrel, Bell & Carlson Medalist stock, Harris bipod, and Mueller 4-14X50 AO scope. I'm trying to match the load I did with the IMR-4064 (apparently what Federal loads their Gold Medal Match with) using Hodgdon Varget. I have a pound I need to get rid of. I have 8 pounds of 4064, so I'm kind of committed to that one.

Will chrony this one and post results and target. I didn't know there were other reloaders here, Seven. Cool!

P.S. I've almost sucked J P Frog into the hobby. I think he'll cave within a couple weeks.