freakshow10mm
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Posts posted by freakshow10mm
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Case length doesn't affect primer crimp. The support for crimp swaging is inside the case and has nothing to do with the case mouth.
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If the chamber throat is elongated and your cartridge OAL is longer, then it's moot and won't affect accuracy. You will get reliable feeding, same accuracy, but at lower pressure.
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How do you check to make sure primers are right side up or not high. Right now I load a batch of 9mm range brass on my 1050 and then take them out the Arko bin and place them in those plastic ammo trays that come in factory boxes. Very time consuming. Is there a faster why. I find about one primer per 1000 that has issues. Usually a mil surp brass that the primer pocket didn't get enough crimp removed.
Every round I load gets placed into a gauge to measure for SAAMI spec. When I place the round in the gauge, I look at the primer.
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I would order some holsters ahead of time for it as well...
Any recommendations for holster makers? I use a leather Galco for my current CCW but a pistol of this level, I believe, warrants a nice custom carry holster.
Del Fatti but I don't think he's taking orders anymore. He's about a year behind. I carry my 1911 in an Aker Flatsider.
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Thanks for the input freekshow. Unfortunately I don't know anyone else with a plate. Most of the people I know give me a funny reaction when I tell them I reload.
I hear what you're saying about trying the plate out first, but I'm thinking bout getting rid of the click first. My worry is that if the click is the problem and it still hangs up when trying a dillon plate, it may deform the lips/plate. I keep reading about dillon shellplates being made of softer metal. I'm not sure how true this is but I do remember when I had a 650, buldges were forming on the bottom surface of the plate. This is what turned me to the gs custom plates in the first place.
The Dillon plates last a long time. I've got about 8 million press cycles on my 1050 using 5 different caliber shellplates and they are all in fine condition.
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I dont see much grease on your case feed plunger. Mine is fairly heavily greased including the roller. I get no popping or clicking on either of my machines like that.
You COULD try a new spring on the case feed plunger too, but one of my machines has at least 50k cases through it and it still operates smooth as butter with no feed issues so I dont really think spring life on that spring is a huge issue. I would be interested to hear from people with over 100k when they changed that spring due to feeding issues.
It lasts about 200K or so for me. I keep a few spares in stock.
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Yes. LC is pretty good and doesn't need TLC. Winchester, Remington, and Hornady .223 brass is the same. Basically brass from Lake City and the Big 5 factories is fine to use as is. The others are suspect and some are always too thick, like Wolf brass and S&B brass.
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No. LC 5.56 brass doesn't need to be turned.
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What were the points he made about 4.5"?
This cycle length is more favorable with a longer cartridge like the 10mm. The commanders use a shortened cycle.
Which I find funny, because the 10mm was designed around the same OAL as the .45 ACP. The ACPs SAAMI max is 1.275 and the 10mm is 1.260, just a tad shorter than the ACP. Both the 10mm and ACP run fine in a commander length 1911 with 4.25 barrel and abbreviated cycle.
Hardest part now is waiting for your gun to be built. Hopefully it's sooner than later!
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Not supposed to do that. Mine goes back and forth effortlessly, doesn't click at all. If you know someone locally that has a Dillon shellplate you can borrow, install the Dillon plate without changing anything else and see what happens. If the problem goes away, then you know it's the 3rd party shellplate and just get a Dillon.
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My .45 load is 6.0gr WSF with anything 230gr (lead, plated, jacketed). I have never had a reason to change it.
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I use H322 for long range work. It's a fast powder and doesn't do as well as others with light bullets. I haven't used CFE223 but BLC2 works well. With 55gr FMJ, stick around H335, W748, BLC2, TAC.
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My brass comes sorted from my supplier. The .223 is separate boxes from the 5.56. The .223 gets processed and reloaded with a 70gr TSX or a 77gr OTM. The 5.56 gets converted to 300 BLK. It's not necessary to sort, as far as loading goes, but I have them sorted for consistency.
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Varies with the seasons but ranges 15-25 K per week. I load a lot of 9mm subsonic for wholesale to small gun shops and small suppressor msnufacturers. Also load 300 blk and heavy 223/5.56.Freakshow10mm ...
On ave, how many total rounds a week are you making?
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It's the cost of doing business. Got to pay to play.Don't forget ITAR... $2500.00 a year whether you're exporting or not!
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I use a Dillon shellplate on my 1050 for .40 and never had a problem. I tend to stick with OEM parts for reliability.
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Gun shops, gun shows, local ranges, and online. When i started my business back in 2006, I did online sales and sold to the local gun shop. I used local gun shows to promote my ammo. I also reload for all the local LE agencies.
This year I changed to wholesale only. I don't do anything retail (I don't even do gun transfers anymore). I sell my ammo only to licensed FFLs and direct to law enforcement agencies.
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I've never had cycling issues with my commander. Set the gun up properly and you won't have issues.
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Ive seen auction pricing on large lots of once fired LC 5.56 that would get you into the 4-5c a piece range, but then you arent counting ANY machine wear and tear OR your machine costs OR your time spent converting OR time spent sorting the once fired brass to get all the junk out of it. I dont see how you can fully convert 1000 pieces in 30 minutes and do every process I feel it takes. Hell the tumbler takes an hour before and at least an hour at the end. It takes me ~6 hours to go from start to finish on 3000 pieces of brass(initial stainless tumble, convert, second stainless tumble).
The brass I buy is hand sorted, machine inspected, and cleaned LC 5.56. I process and convert on one toolhead and load on another. Been doing it for several years.
Machinery and maintenance is a cost of doing business. The machine was purchased in 2009 for $1250 new and more than paid for itself already. Maintenance is minimal and not expensive at all, less than $500 a year. I don't have to clean prior to converting because I buy sorted, inspected, cleaned brass to convert. Conversion is done in one pass and takes a half hour to run 1,000 pieces through the press and gauge them.
I don't draw a salary, so there is no wage to pay. Time is considered in the markup and why I charge a profit. Price is based on component cost only, marked up to the highest price of the current market. Maintenance and administrative costs come out of the gross profit. Rather than thinking like an employee and worrying about hourly rate of labor, I think about the profit generation per hour. I am running this business to make as much of a profit as I can.
Time is money. I spend less time and make more money. If it took 6 hours to process and prep 3,000 pieces of brass, it wouldn't be worth my time.
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I buy 5.56 brass for $46/k shipped and convert to 300 blk myself. I also convert brass and sell it.$46/1k of .300 blk brass... Now that's funny. I convert brass for a living, and no frickin way am I selling it to anyone that cheap. It's 13.7 lbs for 1000 pieces of once fired. Average price at scrap auctions are $2.00-$2.40/lb. That puts the RAW brass around $27.40 to $32.88 per 1k, with ZERO scrap. Not even Mexican labor will let you sell it that cheap. Must be some Chinese immigrant labor.
Anyhow, the NRA has some good partners for insurance. $2500/yr was what I was quoted for up to 100k rounds, as someone previously said.
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You can't get 125gr Sierra MatchKing HP-FB bullets for $155 for 1,000. I'd buy a few thousand if I could get them at that price.
2 hours total time per 1,000 300 BLK on a 1050 including forming and prepping brass, loading, QC, and packaging seems awfully ambitious.
Also, if you can sell 147 coated cast 9mm for $300-$325 per 1,000, you are lucky. You can buy Speer/Remington/Winchester 147 FMJ for less than that and lots of 9mm minor factory ammo for a good bit less than that.
Yes I can and I do. That bullet price is available only to OEM manufacturers that have an 06 or 07 FFL and signs a exclusive use contract. I can buy them at that price but I can only use them for my branded ammunition. I cannot sell them as a component, even to another 06 or 07 FFL.
When you process and form brass in one pass, load, check and package every day 7 days a week, you get efficient at it. Even if you wanted to add an hour to that, 10K rounds a week is still only 30 hours a week. You can knock that out in 3 10-hour days and have a 4 day weekend every week.
Sure you can buy cheaper ammo. It will be dirty, inaccurate, and inconsistent. If you want to compete with that, go ahead. Remember this is niche market. You aren't competing with the Big 5 on price. If you want to make good money reloading, you won't want to make cheap ammo. You'll be leaving money on the table. That's why there is no race to the bottom with 300 BLK ammo. It's slowly coming down in price but it's a big ship to turn. If I really wanted to, I could put out a FMJ load to retail at $375/K, but I'd rather price it at the highest the market will bear and make a few hundred dollars profit on a case rather than $75 profit on a case. The $75 profit a case days are coming, but while it's still in demand more than can be supplied, the price will continue to be high for a while. It will be a few years before it's anything close to M193 prices.
You can buy 357 Mag jacketed ammo for less than what Buffalo Bore sells their 185gr cast loads, but they still sell a lot of ammo and they're making $700+ profit per case selling retail direct. Price isn't everything. The customers that shop only based on price are not customers I want. They are high maintenance and aren't profitable.
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There are a handful of companies.
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I simply dont know how the guys loading just a little bit on something like a 1050 are doing it.
It's easy to make money with ammo and a 1050. Right now one of the fad cartridges is the 300 BLK. Here's some numbers:
Brass $46/K
Primers $21/K
Powder $55/K
Bullets $155/K
That's all shipped prices, including any haz mat fees and the bullets are 125gr Sierra MatchKing HP-FB. $277/K cost.
Ammoseek search shows that same load in formed/converted brass is $740/K at the cheapest price. $463 gross profit. Half hour to convert brass, hour to load, half hour inspection and packaging. Two hours per K. Load and sell 10K per week, it's $4,630 gross profit per week or $240,760 annual. Divide by 12 and average $20,063 profit a month.
That's for one caliber, one load, Dillon 1050, and 20 hours of loading per week. 520K rounds of ammo a year. If you're home based you will have very little overhead. ITAR is $2750 a year, FFL is $10 a year for the 06 (I'm an 07 so it's $50/yr), insurance is $2,500 a year. $5,260 a year for paperwork stuff. Let's face it, if five grand in expenses will make or break your business venture, you aren't going to make it. Eleven percent FET so figure about $26,000 in taxes for excise tax and you're still making around $200,000 a year working 20 hours a week.
Or you can get 9mm brass for $20/K, primers for $21/K, powder for $8/K, and 147gr coated cast bullets for $60/K. Load up some 9mm subsonic ammo and market it as a 9mm minor load too. Cost is $109/K and you can easily retail it for $300-325/K. A lot less labor than 300 BLK and with a minimal investment in a bullet feeder, you can load 2K per hour on a 1050 and generate about $382-432 profit in that hour. Load 20 hours a week and make almost $9,000 profit.
That's how the little guys are doing it with a 1050. I've been loading commercially since 2006 and have loaded a lot of different cartridges. Even got rid of some only to return to them a few years later. I can react quicker to the changes in the market than the big guys. Advantage of being the little guy.
sierra 125 gr 30 30 projectiles
in Rifle/Shotgun
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https://www.huntingtons.com/store/product.php?productid=19996