aprayinbear

Just looking for your thoughts...... First let me say that I love to shoot. I shoot for relaxation, focus, and a sense of history, as when I shoot blackpowder. I am not a hunter, but I respect those who do. I reload for the cost savings and because I love to tinker. I also make things.... historical knives, boats, furniture, whatever I can with the tools I have on hand. In my day to day life I work in the healing arts and generally aspire to the principles and practice of ahimsa (particularly the ideal of compassion.) In fact much of my earlier life was spent working in violent settings, where those ideals were regularly tested. I come from a Christian background, but practice meditation and seek Divinity in all creation. To me, there is no contradiction between my love of shooting and my spiritual beliefs. That is why I was originally attracted to this site. But in the "real world" this is not the case. The fight over gun ownership has become rabid and is an arena I choose to avoid. I am not a member of the NRA, nor any anti gun organizations, for this reason, although I believe in reasonable regulation of firearms and in our right to safely enjoy our shooting sports. I believe in education and accountability when it comes to firearms. Anyone else out there who is challenged by these same questions?

I'm think that 14-15¢ ea. is a lot if you're casting your own bullets. I can buy 9mm brass (2¢, primers (3½¢), powder (2¢) and 124gr. bullets (8¢) and load for that price. If primers ever get re-stocked again and go back to their regular price of less than 2¢, it will be cheaper still. Tim, I'm buying ready made cast bullets and had to pay way too much for small pistol primers. I'm also including shipping costs, because I can't get anything but powder locally. If the price of primers drops and I can get them locally, I think I can save an additional .02-.03 cents per round.

I recently picked up a classic lee loader in 9mm, hoping to make some reasonably price ammo to shoot in a P89. I found that besides the cost of the kit and a few accessories, I am able to turn out 9's (cast 125 grain bullets) at about $.14 - .16 a piece. That's a lot cheaper then most of the ammo I can find where I live, and as slow as the Lee Loader is, I find it faster then I imagined and pretty relaxing. I'm not one to "burn a lot of ammo", so this works for me. So here's my concern. I have followed the Lee instruction tables as perfectly as possible. I'm especially careful not to "scoop" the powder, but to "dip" it so as not to increase the load. I also bought a case trimmer and a caliper to measure the oal. The Lee table says that with the bullets I am loading backed with 4.7 gns of Bullseye powder (the starting load) the minimum OAL should be 1.150. I tried to set the bullet seater so that I would end up with the 1.150, but quickly found out that there was some variance between finished cartridges. I know that compressing powder quickly increases firing pressure, so to be safe I reset the seater so that the finished dimensions are 1.152 - 1.1535. Is that a reasonable setting, and how much will the variance affect accuracy. Also, before resetting the seater, I had one oal measurement of 1.1485. Am I still within the safety zone for that cartridge or should I toss that round. Also, just for fun I checked the oal of cartridges in a box of American Eagle 9's. Variance was a much as .01 between rounds, so I felt a little better with my efforts. I'm learning as I go, so I really appreciate all suggestions and comments!