njl

AFAIK, you've re-invented Dillon's case lube. Did you have to mail order your isopropyl too? The strongest I've found locally is labeled 91%.

Actually, Glock just started selling something that people have been doing on their own. They're calling it the G30S. It's a G30 frame and a G36 upper. Basically, a 10+1 G36 or G30 with thinner slide and G21 mag compatibility...depending on how you look at it.

My first pair is a Magster. Recently, Rudy kept emailing me about various Christmas/New Year's sales, and I bought a pair of Rydons super cheap. The Magster gives better eye coverage (taller lens, better wrap around protection), but seems to be more prone to fogging, probably because of this. Having used them both for a bit now, I think I actually prefer the Rydons. The Rydons I got on clearance were kind of crazy colors, but in the last days of their sale, I bought black nose and ear pieces for it, and just "rebuilt" them the other night...so they're much lower key now.

If you do leave it in the hopper, make sure to come up with a good way to mark it, so if you're away for a while, you don't have to try to remember what powder it was. I never leave powder in the hopper when I stop a reloading session.

You will need to lube, resize, and trim your carbine brass. Lots of good info at http://www.thecmp.org/Sales/carbine.htm

Now those are some old school looking LEDs. What is that tool head? Older design, or one of the aftermarket "fits the press tighter so you have less variation" ones? It looks like it was milled from a block of aluminum vs molded as I assume the Dillon ones are.

Have you tried this load in any other guns? I went through a few thousand Xtreme 147gr plated bullets in my G17 and was quite happy with my loads but then found that these same loads tumble from my G34. If they run fine in one gun but not so well in another, it's hard to blame the load. (null)

You could experiment with some chemistry to precipitate the lead out of solution...but then you'll end up with insoluble lead salts in either acid or base, posing other disposal issues. Or just leave the water in something that would allow it to evaporate, leaving the salts behind. If you had a big enough bucket or barrel, you could maybe just always dump the resulting dirty water into it, and allow the lead salts to accumulate there. I really have no idea how much there would be.

Move to wet tumbling... But then you have lead contaminated water to dispose of and most of the wet tumbler setups I've seen are kind of low capacity. I think my Lyman can handle around 1000 9mm at a time. Lyman actually says it'll do 1000 .38spc at a time.

In preparation for some upcoming GSSF matches, I was taking a closer look at my ammo today and realized that the PD 185gr JHPs seated to 1.210" fail the drop in / drop out of the chamber test. Shocked, I took apart all my .45s to test these bullets in the barrels and then sat down at the press to see what length would drop in / drop out. My Springfield 1911 is the pickiest. It needs the PD 185gr JHP seated to 1.160" for the bullet to not hit the rifling. That's virtually all the bearing surface of the bullet inside the case. The Glocks only need them seated to 1.200" to not hit the rifling. So...I have several hundred rounds loaded to 1.210" and a Glock match this weekend in which I plan to shoot the 21 and 30, preferably with this ammo. I'm tempted to run these rounds back through stations 3 and 4 to shorten them to 1.200" and consider them "Glock-only ammo". I'd been loading them to that OAL initially, but found that a couple of my G21 mags wouldn't feed the G30 reliably unless I went longer (1.210") on the OAL. It hadn't occurred to me to chamber-check the slightly longer OAL. When I have more time, I guess I should load some to 1.160", chrono them, and see if the Glocks (and 1911) will feed them.

Ok...so I took apart all my .45s to test these bullets in the barrels. My Springfield 1911 is the pickiest. It needs the PD 185gr JHP seated to 1.160" for the bullet to not hit the rifling. That's virtually all the bearing surface of the bullet inside the case. The Glocks only need them seated to 1.200" to not hit the rifling. So...I have several hundred rounds loaded to 1.210" and a Glock match this weekend in which I plan to shoot the 21 and 30, preferably with this ammo. I'm tempted to run these rounds back through stations 3 and 4 to shorten them to 1.200" and consider them "Glock-only ammo". I'd been loading them to that OAL initially, but found that a couple of my G21 mags wouldn't feed the G30 reliably unless I went longer (1.210") on the OAL. It hadn't occurred to me to chamber-check the slightly longer OAL. When I have more time, I guess I should load some to 1.160", chrono them, and see if the Glocks (and 1911) will feed them. This really belongs in the .45 reloading section now...I think I'll repost this part of it there.

I was pretty sure that was the case, but dropped a bullet through the gauge to make sure it was so. I made a quick trip to the range. At home, I'd loaded up a mag full of just the worst of them (that I've seen)...all ones that stuck out of the gauge about 1/8". All of them and several more mags from that batch fed through my G21 and G30 just fine.

All the dies are supposed to have the lock ring tightened with the ram up and a case in the die. I always do it that way. The sizer still comes loose.

The sizing die seems to be the most frequent one to come loose, and is the hardest to deal with fixing after the rounds are loaded. Is there any reason not to just do that (blue loctite) on the sizing dies for each caliber, figuring I'll never need to adjust that one?

This seems to be a recurring problem on my RL550B. I'll be loading away, and eventually find that the Dillon sizing die with Dillon lock ring has come loose and backed out. I just realized this as I was gauging some ammo I loaded for upcoming matches (the first of which is this weekend). So, I've got a couple hundred rounds of .45acp, some of which gauge, some of which stop about 0.125" from fully falling into the Dillon gauge. They can be forced in and forced out...and the same goes for my Glock barrels. The ones that don't gauge won't fall all the way in/out of the chambers, but can apparently be fully chambered by the recoil spring and easily extracted by pulling the slide open. I'm a little worried about using these in a match, and will probably try getting to the range before the match to try out a few mags of them to make sure they run. I tried calling Dillon support (several times), but the line's been busy. One of my thoughts was, could I reset the sizing die and run these through it again with the decapper removed? I suspect the answer is no. After failing to get through on the phone, I started doing that with one, and there was enough resistance as soon as the case hit the die, that I figured the carbide ring must be undersize relative to a finished cartridge and not suitable to try running a finished cartridge through. I decided not to try forcing it and stopped. I guess this is the sort of thing a Lee FCD can fix...but I don't have one for .45acp. The really weird thing is, according to my Speer #14 manual and my calipers, I can't find any section of the offending cartridges that's out of spec. i.e. there's no obvious bulges, and no part of the brass appears to measure wider than spec. I know that Dillon's gauges (at least in .45acp) are ultra conservative. I'm on my second one. I sent the first back because most of my ammo wouldn't gauge, and when I tried factory ammo in it, that wouldn't gauge either. I don't think the second one is much looser than the first. I suppose another possibility is the brass is fine and the bullets are hitting the rifling. I guess I'll go load one extra long and see exactly how long these (PD 185gr JHP) can be and still chamber.

Anyone else loading these bullets, I'm curious which dillon seating stem you use. I've been using the round nose profile end and after getting into a newer box of the PD bullets, I noticed my OAL got much less consistent.

I don't notice much dust kicked off by the tumbler running...but when pouring the media into or out of the tumbler, a nice cloud of dust is created. I tumble in the garage...I guess I should do it closer to the door, open the door, and maybe even setup a fan blowing out the door.

Actually, right now, you can get Rudy Rydon's super cheap with their 51% off clearance sale. I already had a Magster, but figured for about $60 delivered, a Rydon as a second set was worth a try. I'm not crazy about the laser orange lenses my clearance Rydon's came with, so I ordered a set of photochromic clear. With discount, they were only a little more $ than the Rydon's. So...$150 (they're a little ridiculous on shipping) for Rydon's with 2 sets of lenses, and my Magster Rx insert can be moved back and forth depending on which I'm wearing.

My book is still out in the car, but both of these test loads broke 800fps in the G21. 4.5gr Clays = 822fps avg 5gr WST = 815fps avg

My 21 and 30 (both Gen3) seem to have no problem functioning with ridiculously light loads. The above speeds were with 4.78gr WST. I loaded some more with 5gr WST, and had some Clays sitting around, so I loaded some with 4.5gr Clays. Hopefully, I can test them this weekend.

The Zero's definitely ran slower than the PD at same OAL and charge. I'll have to try again with a few tenths of a grain more WST. I'd like to keep these up around 800fps minimum, and only got about 720 from a G21, 700 from a G30.

A friend just bought a full size M&P 9mm. We shot it today, and the trigger was pretty terrible. The initial take up was about what I expected, but the final break was so hard, at first I thought it had a mag disconnect safety (was trying to dry fire it without a mag). It didn't...it just had an 8.5lb trigger (measured with my Lyman digital gauge). I noticed the guy next to us at the range also had a full size M&P, so I asked if I could dry fire it. It turned out to be a new M&P .40, recently purchased, nothing done to it. It had what I've experienced in other friends M&P's. A nice, smooth, 5-6lb at most pull. Is this just luck of the draw, or does S&W produce some of their guns with much heavier triggers than most?

How's the smoke with Universal and BC?

I just placed a .223 case on the press under the lights. It's hard to say if the lights help at all with .223. The neck is so small, standing in front of the press, regardless of lighting, due to the geometry, I can't really see much beyond the neck. It does get enough light into it that I can see the inside of the neck really well.

I didn't quite stick to the plan. I loaded some and found that with no adjustment from doing PD's at 1.210", the Zero's came out just over 1.200". I did 50 like that, and then adjusted to get 1.210" and did another 50. I should be shooting them tomorrow.