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!