njl

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.

I just loaded some ammo (.45acp) for the first time since doing the LED strips. I can disconnect power individually, so I tried just the back ceiling and just the front and both. With just the back ceiling, I can see into station 3 very well, but not so well into station 2. With just the front, I can see into station 2 very well, but not so well into station 3. With both, I've got good light everywhere. This is on a RL550B. This is definitely the best lighting I've ever had on the press...beats the goose neck light strapped to the primer magazine or grill light stuck to the strong mount by quite a bit.

I ordered this LED kit and it does illumintae in the shell plate area BUT I do not get the light into the case like I get with my gooseneck halogen. It is a nice product, and it does illuminate very nicely. However, for me, the light is not where I want it to be - into the case. So I stay with my nice, bright, into the case gooseneck. Which LED kit did you try? With just the one strip on the inside of the forward upright, IMO, there was lots of light, but not in the right places which gave harsh shadow inside the case. You might actually be better off cutting it down to just 3 LEDs and putting it in the ceiling just behind where the tool head sits. The roll I got, the "waterproofing" appears to be just a bead of clear silicone or something similar and is easily peeled off. It might be necessary to do that to keep the shell plate from contacting it. I stripped it off my ceiling strip. It's not in the way on the upright strip, but I think it may be keeping the strip from sticking at the very top where I have it bent...so I may strip that one too.

With the LED strips mounted on the back upright of the press facing forward, you don't find that the light is too bright?...kind of like a flashlight in the face?

I just got some Zero 185gr JHP to try as an alternative to PD. The Zero's have a much smaller HP cavity and are around 0.05" shorter in length than the PDs. I found that my G30 didn't 100% reliably feed the PDs until the OAL was at least 1.210". I figure with the Zero's, I'll start out with an OAL of 1.210" just to be safe with the G30. I'm wondering if I'm going to need more powder to compensate for the shorter bullet (larger case volume) or if the shorter bearing surface of the Zero bullets will compensate for that and let them run faster? If anyone's loaded both and compared the results, I'd love to hear about it.

I have one of those, meant to be a grill light. The base is a clip and magnetic, so I used it for a while, magnet base stuck to the left side of the strong mount. The trouble is, it uses AAA batteries, and I wasn't happy with how long they lasted. This was after the batteries in my HF goose neck light that was strapped to the primer mag was killed by leaked batteries. I reload indoors, right next to a power outlet...why hassle with batteries?

I'm running an RL550B so no powder check for me. I like to try doing things myself, am a packrat (so for this, I had suitable wire, transformers, etc. on hand), suck at soldering, but don't mind trying it...especially if it'll save some $. If I could have bought the 2 strip kit for $20, it would have been a no-brainer (should have bought it). $40 is a little steep IMO, but I definitely couldn't make a living undercutting InlineFab. I'm actually surprised I managed to solder 4 leads to the LED strips without ruining any of the material. Those points looked small and close together (to me anyway). Actually, I wonder if he'd come down much on price if you bought the lights but supplied your own power supply? Who doesn't have a spare 9-12VDC wall wort left over from some electronic you've trashed? I spent way too long on this (mostly because I suck at soldering), but had fun doing it. I'm also eager to do other things with the rest of the most of 5M of LED strip that I have. An AC/DC transformer powered lighting system for inside the safe is the first thing I want to investigate the possibilities of doing. But for that, I'll have to empty the safe and find the wire pass through. I already found a 12VDC 2A transformer that should be good for the job...that's nearly enough power to light the entire 5M roll. I really wish I could have found a cheap source for typical DC power cable M/F with leads (or short M/F extension cables to cut up). Only one the surplus place had was like 5M for $10 or so...and I wasn't spending that much on this. $1-$2 is more like what I had in mind.

My press lighting upgrade appears to be complete. Cost of parts $14.86 ($11.66 for the 5M LED roll, $3.20 for a pair of M/F 2 wire disconnects and a rotary switch from a local electronics surplus shop). The heat shrink and scrap wire, I already had on hand. I experimented with a couple of DC transformers I had lying around and decided to go with a 9V 1A one. It's plenty bright enough, and the 9 LEDs I used only uses around 6% of its capacity. I did spend another $18 on a new soldering iron and helping hands...but I'll use them for other things. I figured my big soldering gun was just too big for this sort of thing. The adhesive backing on this stuff is not great...I may end up having to remove and reattach the strips to the press. I'll have to wait and see.

My roll arrived today. I ordered 5M Cool White SMD 3528 Waterproof 300p LED Strip Light I cut off a 3 LED strip to play with. I hooked them up to a switch selectable voltage power supply. At 12VDC, they're insanely bright. They appear to be dimmable by lowering the voltage. At 9V, they're still reasonably bright. I'll have to see how comfortable they are aimed down on the press. As some of the reviewers on Amazon have said, the protective strip for the adhesive backing is not on very well. They also absolutely reek of solvent...like plastic model cement. I unrolled them and put them outside to off-gas.

Washing and drying your tumbling media in the clothes washer must be a single guy thing. I can't imagine the trouble that would get me into.

Mine were all non-magnum primers.

My latest orders of .45 185gr JHP from PD have what I assume is residual lube on them. They're not obviously dirty, other than that there's quite a bit of corn cob media in the bag with them, but loading a few hundred will totally blacken the fingers that handle them. I guess the thing to do is tumble them some more, and then give them a good rolling around in the rotary media separator. Does it make a difference if I use corn cob or walnut? Anyone else have this problem with PD lately? I actually found that I can get Zero's cheaper, so I just ordered some of those to try out. The zero's I've used in the past were quite clean, and only had a hint of corn cob in the box.

A while back I loaded up some test batches of Zero 230gr JHP using CCI LP, Wolf LP, Magtech LP, and CCI SP. Wolf and Magtech gave the same avg velocity with the Wolf having a larger ES (72 vs 34). CCI LP lost 25fps relative to the above. CCI SP lost another 18fps relative to CCI LP. These were all loaded in the same session, same OAL, same powder charge.

Speaking of setup issues, does anyone else have issues with the Dillon lock rings coming loose and dies backing out? I was just loading some .45acp on my 550, and at the beginning of the session, I tested all the dies by very gently trying to turn them. I found the sizer was completely loose. It's not the first time.

Is it possible your wife missed a squib, and fired another shot which cleared and wrecked the barrel?

I had one of those goose neck lights from HF strapped to my primer magazine for a while. I was happy with it, but the batteries died and leaked and ruined it. Another reason to avoid batteries.

Replied in the other thread too...I wasn't trying to dump on your product or company...just mentioning what happened with my first order. This was back in late 2010, and the only reason I haven't ordered more is I've been going through them real slow (haven't quite used up the first box of 500). I'm also still trying to figure out what load to go with. I've mostly just loaded small test batches with Universal, WST, and Longshot. It's a little disappointing to see that the 130gr (mine are actually 132gr) is no longer available.

The order was placed September, 2010. I've been kind of slow using the moly bullets. I only bought them for shooting steel at my usual range (they only allow lead bullets on steel targets) and I've mostly just been shooting cardboard. To shoot it, I have to bring/setup my own steel...and I just haven't bothered very many times. What can go wrong with the coating process that would result in the coating easily rubbing off (turning my left finger black while loading them, turned the inside of the shipping box black...the replacement batch didn't do either of these)? The response I got at the time was from someone named Tony simply saying that it sounded like I got a bad batch, and asking where he could send a replacement order of bullets.

Which brands/weights moly bullets have you tried in which Glocks? I've only tried BBI's 9mm 130gr and Precision's .45 200gr. I haven't noticed any real fouling issues, but I've only shot a small number of each (G17, G34, G21, G30). There was a problem with the coating rubbing off very easily from my first batch of BBI 9mm, but when I contacted them about it, they sent another batch that didn't have that issue. I'm not sure what to do with the originals other than use them as safe ballast.

What the heck. For $11, I'll try rolling my own. I know I have some 12VDC supplies laying around, so I don't even need to buy that...and for a small strip, of say 3-6 LEDs, any 12VDC supply should be more than enough.

I think WST smokes less with moly. 3.3gr Universal sounds kind of low. Are you trying to make a sub-minor 900fps load? Anyway, I'm curious to hear how it turns out.