Reloading kit

wingtip

Glensman get in touch with Mayfly, he's been doing various .223 reloads and seem to have a good menu for the Tikka T3 lite 1-8" twist
good luck mate

Deise Musashi

Obviously, I will measure the cases, but should I expect to have to resize the brass?

I would imagine so, often you can get away with just neck sizing a few times before full length sizing needs doing. For "clone" rounds I used to full length resize all the cases to keep them as uniform as possible.

What big bores did you reload? Whose brass did you find to be problematic?

.22-250, .270 Win, 30-06 and 30-30, 9mm and .45acp. I don't remember offhand which makers brass stretched most, I do seem to remember RWS brass being very durable though. I'll see if I can find my old notes and manuals from those days, I fear they've seen one house move too many and been "tidied away" for good at this stage

Glensman

wingtip wrote: »

Glensman get in touch with Mayfly, he's been doing various .223 reloads and seem to have a good menu for the Tikka T3 lite 1-8" twist
good luck mate

Yeah I was talking to him 6 months back when I was looking at a second hand kit. I think when I get all set up I'll invite him up for lunch and an afternoon on the bunnies and see if I can learn much from him...

I don't think his back would stand up to the goat stalking

wingtip

i'll gee him up when I get on to him tomorrow, l loved the craic up there last summer, goats sound more like a proper day out:)

Glensman

If the 2 of you want to come up and have a crack at a goat I'll happily act as guide and supply the rifle...

I can promise rabbits though- goats are harder to find!

Tackleberrywho

Glensman wrote: »

If the 2 of you want to come up and have a crack at a goat I'll happily act as guide and supply the rifle...

I can promise rabbits though- goats are harder to find!

Would you be interested in a 640GB ADATA ext harddrive for that mompod thingy?
I won it in work, worth around £55stg.
(sorry for going off thread, but I hate reading PM's as I can miss what's going on threads by reading and replying to loads of mails )

Glensman

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

Would you be interested in a 640GB ADATA ext harddrive for that mompod thingy?
I won it in work, worth around £55stg.
(sorry for going off thread, but I hate reading PM's as I can miss what's going on threads by reading and replying to loads of mails )

Na mate. I have a 2TB and I'm in the market for another 2TB at some stage. I can get HDs brave and cheap...

I'm in no panic to sell the mono-pod, I haven't even tried it out but it's not what I was expecting so I'll probably sell to help fund the work I need Enda to do on my stock... It's yours if you want it, but I'd be wanting at least £60 for it.

Tackleberrywho

Glensman wrote: »

Na mate. I have a 2TB and I'm in the market for another 2TB at some stage. I can get HDs brave and cheap...

I'm in no panic to sell the mono-pod, I haven't even tried it out but it's not what I was expecting so I'll probably sell to help fund the work I need Enda to do on my stock... It's yours if you want it, but I'd be wanting at least £60 for it.

I have all my funds tied up at the mo, so trying to be creative! Every hoor I offered it for sale all want 2TB, WTF have yee young lads got soooooooo many hours of movies, and what kind of Movies

Worth a shot; pardon the pun.

On an Economy drive these days!

Glensman

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

I have all my funds tied up at the mo, so trying to be creative! Every hoor I offered it for sale all want 2TB, WTF have yee young lads got soooooooo many hours of movies, and what kind of Movies

Worth a shot; pardon the pun.

On an Economy drive these days!

I have somewhere in the region of a 1000 films- so 640 is no use to me at all!
Good luck with the economy drive... The mono-pod isn't advertised so I wouldn't panic about me selling it.

Back to topic: My reloading kit is coming tomorrow morning! YaY. Gonna ring a joiner tonight to see if he'll come make me a work bench to bolt everything down to!

FISMA

Glensman wrote: »

I have somewhere in the region of a 1000 films- so 640 is no use to me at all!
Good luck with the economy drive... The mono-pod isn't advertised so I wouldn't panic about me selling it.

Back to topic: My reloading kit is coming tomorrow morning! YaY. Gonna ring a joiner tonight to see if he'll come make me a work bench to bolt everything down to!

Glensman,
Send in the rebate - what have you to lose but a bit of postage?

Glensman

FISMA wrote: »

Glensman,
Send in the rebate - what have you to lose but a bit of postage?

Yeah I'm going to give it a go and see what they say.

All the kit made it through customs this morning- havent had a chance to look at it. I cancelled the joiner that's coming to make the bench- I seen a length of smooth kitchen worktop for sale so I'm going to use that for the top of my reloading bench and just bolt the press to it

Glensman

Hi Lads,

Thought I’d give a quick update, I’ll also take some pictures of my work area when I get a chance.

I now have the press set up and have done some playing around with it. We Full-Length re-sized some .223 brass we had and did a ‘test’ .270 round.
What I did was take a once fired PRVI case and Full-length re-sized it, de-priming it in the process. I then seated the new primer using the hand-primer tool. You need a lot more pressure for this than you would think...

We hadn’t figured out the powder side of things yet, so we left the case empty, changed the die and seated a Hornady 130gr SST head. This all went very smoothly. I then compared my loaded round to a factory Hornady round I have and could see that my head is seated to deeply- I will have to correct this for again... (I am not buying a headspace gauge as I cannot afford it and you only really use it once)

So that was a couple of weeks ago and as it was raining last night I decided to try to figure out the powder side of things...
First you have to disassemble the thrower to remove any lubricant. Then you have to cycle around a lb of powder to get the thrower nicely coated in powder. The thing I found straight away is that with most charges I was losing powder; when it shoots out into the dish it is going too fast and spills- I have a feeling they do this on purpose to make you buy one of the Many Many attachments you can buy to correct this!

Next I tried to weigh my charge- this is where I am having a real problem!.. There seems to be an issue with the scales, it takes around 140grs of weight before the scale comes up to read zero. There are no parts to assemble and I’ve read the manual and I can’t for the life of me see what the problem is. It seems to be Very user friendly and once it starts reading it seems accurate but I don’t understand what the problem is.
I had a friend of mine take a look this morning in case I was being an eejit- but he can’t see the problem either...

So that’s where I stand now. I think if I get over the issue with my scales I should have my first loads ready for testing this weekend!

Cass

Nice to hear you're up and running. Couple of questions.

Glensman wrote: »

What I did was take a once fired PRVI case and Full-length re-sized it, de-priming it in the process.

Is it your own brass, as in fired through your gun. I only ask because i was wondering would you not simply neck size rather than full length resize.

I then compared my loaded round to a factory Hornady round I have and could see that my head is seated to deeply- I will have to correct this for again... (I am not buying a headspace gauge as I cannot afford it and you only really use it once)

A Horady OAL gauge runs around €40 and does the job perfectly to get seating depths. Worth getting.

Next I tried to weigh my charge- this is where I am having a real problem!.. There seems to be an issue with the scales, it takes around 140grs of weight before the scale comes up to read zero. There are no parts to assemble and I’ve read the manual and I can’t for the life of me see what the problem is. It seems to be Very user friendly and once it starts reading it seems accurate but I don’t understand what the problem is.

Which scales is it? Did you calibrate before using. Also allow it to sit for at least 30 - 45 minutes before using any digital scales.

Glensman

Ezridax wrote: »

Nice to hear you're up and running. Couple of questions.



Is it your own brass, as in fired through your gun. I only ask because i was wondering would you not simply neck size rather than full length resize.

Yes it is my own brass (in the 270 the .223 is second hand) I ordered a Lee Collet neck sizer last night as I don't want to FL re-size all my brass, it just happens the set came with FL dies

A Horady OAL gauge runs around €40 and does the job perfectly to get seating depths. Worth getting.

I must check that out... The guage I was shown in Young Guns is £120 so I didn't bother.

Which scales is it? Did you calibrate before using. Also allow it to sit for at least 30 - 45 minutes before using any digital scales.

They are the RCBS 5-0-5 scales. They seem to be a great job but as I say they are under-weighing the powder. I put a 130gr head on the scale and it didn't even register!

mayfly36

Dan, get yourself a set off digital scales mate, far more accurate, and far ore quicker, but remember to calibrate them before use, you should get a calibration weight with the digi scales. See if you can take a small video clip or some step by step pics and post them up. Its got to be something silly mate.

Glensman

mayfly36 wrote: »

Dan, get yourself a set off digital scales mate, far more accurate, and far ore quicker, but remember to calibrate them before use, you should get a calibration weight with the digi scales. See if you can take a small video clip or some step by step pics and post them up. Its got to be something silly mate.

I want to persevere with the balance scales as they look like they should be a great job, I just can't understand what the craic is.
Ollie's going to call up tonight in case it's me being silly. If not I might call in to young guns to show them to him...

If I find my camera I'll take a few photos tonight...

Cass

Neck sizing would nearly do you for your needs. FLR would be needed after a half dozen shots or so (depending on brass). Plus necking is easier on the arm than FLR.

This is a Hornady OAL gauge.



It needs two other componants. A dummy round as in the picture. Its a drilled and tapped piece of brass in the caliber size suitable to what you're reloading. It screws onto the OAL gauge. The otther item would be a comparator, also in the size you need (.270 or .223)



This measures the bullet from the ogive rather than tip. Its a more accurate method and gives a pretty good/exact seating depth.

Glensman wrote: »

They are the RCBS 5-0-5 scales. They seem to be a great job but as I say they are under-weighing the powder. I put a 130gr head on the scale and it didn't even register!

Balance beam scales. Simple and reliable. More so than most electronic scales. It sounds like two things. Either;

1. Its not set up right. No offense but with the powder pan on the scales and the weights set at 0 it should read zero on the scales. You then adjust the weights to the desired charge weight and add the powder until the scales gives a zero reading again. If the weights are in the wrong position it won't move until "too much" has been put in. I hop that makes sense. Its hard to describe by writing.
2. It could be "sticking". Either the beam is not seated right into the scales body or there is friction in some part that is preventing the beam from functioning until enough weight is put on the scales to "force" it to move.
3. Don't know if this could cause a problem, but make sure the scale is level. Its nor desinged to be affixed to a table/counter but has leveling feet instead. If its off level then it could take more to move it than normal. Its unlikely but worth looking at.

These are only guesses. If you could get a picture or two or even a video of it up it would give a better idea as whats wrong.

mayfly36

Ezridax wrote: »

Neck sizing would nearly do you for your needs. FLR would be needed after a half dozen shots or so (depending on brass). Plus necking is easier on the arm than FLR.

This is a Hornady OAL gauge.


It needs two other componants. A dummy round as in the picture. Its a drilled and tapped piece of brass in the caliber size suitable to what you're reloading. It screws onto the OAL gauge. The otther item would be a comparator, also in the size you need (.270 or .223)



This measures the bullet from the ogive rather than tip. Its a more accurate method and gives a pretty good/exact seating depth.



Balance beam scales. Simple and reliable. More so than most electronic scales. It sounds like two things. Either;

1. Its not set up right. No offense but with the powder pan on the scales and the weights set at 0 it should read zero on the scales. You then adjust the weights to the desired charge weight and add the powder until the scales gives a zero reading again. If the weights are in the wrong position it won't move until "too much" has been put in. I hop that makes sense. Its hard to describe by writing.
2. It could be "sticking". Either the beam is not seated right into the scales body or there is friction in some part that is preventing the beam from functioning until enough weight is put on the scales to "force" it to move.
3. Don't know if this could cause a problem, but make sure the scale is level. Its nor desinged to be affixed to a table/counter but has leveling feet instead. If its off level then it could take more to move it than normal. Its unlikely but worth looking at.

These are only guesses. If you could get a picture or two or even a video of it up it would give a better idea as whats wrong.

"If the weights are in the wrong position it won't move until "too much" has been put in"

This sounds like the problem to me, had similar problem when i started reloading with similar scales.

Glensman

Ezridax wrote: »

Neck sizing would nearly do you for your needs. FLR would be needed after a half dozen shots or so (depending on brass). Plus necking is easier on the arm than FLR.

This is a Hornady OAL gauge.


It needs two other componants. A dummy round as in the picture. Its a drilled and tapped piece of brass in the caliber size suitable to what you're reloading. It screws onto the OAL gauge. The otther item would be a comparator, also in the size you need (.270 or .223)

Young Guns was showing me one of those the exact same, but he was quoting me around £120 by the time I bought everything I needed



This measures the bullet from the ogive rather than tip. Its a more accurate method and gives a pretty good/exact seating depth.



Balance beam scales. Simple and reliable. More so than most electronic scales. It sounds like two things. Either;

1. Its not set up right. No offense but with the powder pan on the scales and the weights set at 0 it should read zero on the scales. You then adjust the weights to the desired charge weight and add the powder until the scales gives a zero reading again. If the weights are in the wrong position it won't move until "too much" has been put in. I hop that makes sense. Its hard to describe by writing.
2. It could be "sticking". Either the beam is not seated right into the scales body or there is friction in some part that is preventing the beam from functioning until enough weight is put on the scales to "force" it to move.
3. Don't know if this could cause a problem, but make sure the scale is level. Its nor desinged to be affixed to a table/counter but has leveling feet instead. If its off level then it could take more to move it than normal. Its unlikely but worth looking at.

These are only guesses. If you could get a picture or two or even a video of it up it would give a better idea as whats wrong.

I have checked all of that, but I will check again tonight. Paul 6.5 suggested that it may have something to do with the magnet in it. I'm not sure- they seem absolutely idiot proof! I'll have to look again tonight with fresh eyes....

See in-line

Cass

No offence to the guys in young guns, i don't them, but £120 is 3 times the price. Try Cecil in Tannyoky. Has them for £35 and if he hasn't got the comparators he can get them within a week or so. They are £8 - £10 each.

As to the scales they are fairly idiot proof. I guarantee, as you know yourself, that it is something simple. Lets us know how you get on.

Glensman

Ezridax wrote: »

No offence to the guys in young guns, i don't them, but £120 is 3 times the price. Try Cecil in Tannyoky. Has them for £35 and if he hasn't got the comparators he can get them within a week or so. They are £8 - £10 each.

As to the scales they are fairly idiot proof. I guarantee, as you know yourself, that it is something simple. Lets us know how you get on.

Well if they're that price I'll have to get my hands on some! If I got it all for 50ish I'd be more than happy...

I'll have another look at the scales tonight and see what the problem is. They look to be a good scale but the beam musn't be sitting right in the 2 wee v-blocks. I had a load of beer on Sat so maybe the head was a bit mushy last night- although I looked this morning before work as well.

Anyway, cheers for the advice. I'll keep posting updates of how I'm getting on. Hopefully of holes in targets by the weekend!

Deise Musashi

With your beam balance scales make sure the razor blade it balances on is seated properly in the vee.

Make sure all is level.

set to zero and put the pan in place, press pan down with finger until marks line up, let go and there should be no movement. They are magnetically dampened so maybe that is holding until the weight is very close to correct then "lurching" and allowing an overweight?

I used to use a dipper to get near weight, press pan to level and slowly release, then use a dribbler to get perfect weight.

For rounds for just plinking around I used to throw a rough charge with a powder thrower and head out shooting

If you have a bullet puller, you make a dummy round long enough to fit in your gun but at the outer range of tolerance. Blacken the head with dry wipe marker and cycle the dummy round.
Check for land marks on the ogive of the head, screw your die in half a turn and repeat until you are just seating on the ogive, note that overall length and setting.
Supposed to help accuracy as the bullet is lightly seated on the lands, not jumping a gap?

Not applicable to Weatherby apparently as they have weird slow start type rifling?

mayfly36

here ya go dan, something to think about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-UrMTyJ1_E&playnext=1&list=PL7BF66245AECACE44

Glensman

So I'm thinking of buying all of this then, see the attached image.
Let me know if I've missed anything, I placed an order on MidWay last night and don't want to get stung for postage 3 times in the one week :mad:

Cass

Thats about right. Was thinking its a tad expensive, but forgot you are ordering two dummy shells, two diameter rings, and then the gauge and comparator body.

On a side note. When using the gauge try it three times with the one head. Push it in with the locking dial at 9 o'clock, then do it again with the dial at 12, and lastly with the dial at 3 o'clock. Take the average for all three readings and this will give you the best measurement. Then you can decide if you want to jam or jump the bullet.

If i'm not explaining that well just say and i'll try and explain it better. It works in my head, but may not come across right when writing it.

Glensman

Just bought it all there now.
Going to bounce up to the house now and take a second look at these scales!

Thanks for the advice guys

Glensman

Well it’s time for an update lads- thankfully the news is good!

To begin with, I figured out what was wrong with the scales- it was kind of a combination of things. To cut the story short, the wee pan they give you for the powder to drop into is meant to be weighed too (you don’t transfer the powder from one to another). I had tried this already but something else must have been wrong at that stage as well. Anyway, it’s weighing now and seems to be a great set of scales- very sensitive and accurate.

First I used my new-found power to adjust the uniflow powder measure, this measures by mass rather than weight. I would throw a charge and weigh it making small adjustments until it was throwing the weight I was looking for. In this case the weight I was looking for was 53.3 grains of H4380 which according to the Hornady reloading manual should throw my Hornady SST 130gr at around 2,900 FPS (well under the maximum charge).

Once happy with that it was time to prep some brass. I adjusted my FL die so that it would only de-cap and neck size the round. I found 9 PRVI cases on the dash of the jeep so decided that this would be my brass (I couldn’t be bothered driving to dad’s to get my already cleaned brass).

I then ran them over the case lube pad and resized my brass. This is where I made my first error. I used too much lube on the case walls, somehow (while in the die) the lube got on to the case neck and shoulder, this caused the 4th, 5th and 6th cases to have damaged shoulders. These were immediately discarded so I was down to 6 cases. I didn’t lube the last cases at all as there was enough in the die to do them...

The I used my primer-pocket uniformer to tidy up the primer seats. This made the next stage where I seated the primer A LOT easier (which was to cause another problem, more later).

I then threw my charges, weighing each one and adjusting them in tiny amounts to the scales read zero and then dropped them in the cases, so far so good.
My headspace gauges haven’t arrived yet so I used factory Hornady ammunition as a comparison and seated the first head. I could see it was seated far too deep- so I was down to 5. I backed off my die and seated another head. It was fractionally deeper than the factory ammo, so I seated another the exact same.
I have 3 cases left at this stage so I backed the die off again and seated the last 3 heads. These were fractionally shallower than the factory ammo, which was what I was looking for.

Waterford then demolish Galway as I had actually predicted, then spuds, then off to a field for testing...

Set the target up at 105yards and fired 3 factory rounds with about 4 mins between each shot. I get a decent 1” group and I don’t think my first shot was anything to brag about. On the 3rd shot I forgot my ear defenders (I have a muzzlebrake) I thought I was going to boke- it was horrible.

So now I’m on to my 5 rounds. I started with the 2 that were seated deep, they landed 1.75” apart, at this point i’m pretty happy. I move on to the promising 3 and the first one lands 1.5” from the last round. Still I’m happy. I chamber the next one and the gun goes click- not bang.
I waited a couple of minutes then meekly lifted the bolt and then slid it back. On inspection and in comparison to the fired rounds I could see that my primer was seated too deeply. After checking the last round I had an idea that it might happen with it too and decided not to take the chance.

So all in all I am happy. I need to find my camera and post photos of my reloading area and my groups!

mayfly36

Keep it up dan, forgot to mention too much lube will leave a dent in the shoulder of the case, but hey its good fun learning, oh and NEVER put a case in with no lube, regardless whether you believe the inside of the die is lubbed, or you will end up probably having to order a new die collar etc, that's another 7 to 10 day wait form midway, and you will probably have a bent die arm trying to extract the die form the case, as i learned a long time ago.

Glensman

mayfly36 wrote: »

Keep it up dan, forgot to mention too much lube will leave a dent in the shoulder of the case, but hey its good fun learning, oh and NEVER put a case in with no lube, regardless whether you believe the inside of the die is lubbed, or you will end up probably having to order a new die collar etc, that's another 7 to 10 day wait form midway, and you will probably have a bent die arm trying to extract the die form the case, as i learned a long time ago.

Well I had a TINY amount of oil on my finger-tips that I rubbed into the cases so that kept it sweet. I read all the warnings in the instructions about no lube!

I think on Wednesday we are going to make a batch of .223 for Ollie's gun. I have no time at all this week and I'm in Roscommon for the weekend...

mayfly36

well let me know if yo need any help with the 223 load. Give me a shout when your free sometime and i will take a run up, not as if ive no time on my hands. L8r