yukondave

I swage it with a Dillon Super Swage, it is quiet, and quick. I can do it while watching the idiot box. I recommend breaking out the prep as much as possible.

It seems prep of brass is most of the real mechanical work when it comes to reloading. If you plan on reloading .223 a great deal, then you should know a secret. The Giraud case trimmer is a small device with a motor that will trim, debur and chamfer the case in one step. It makes about as much noise as a pencil sharpener so you still watch TV. Takes no real brain to operate. It does a real nice job and takes about 2 seconds a case. If you shoot as many as I do, it will make short work of 1000 cases. They seem to be shipping quickly now as well. Mine took 3 weeks. 5 years from now you will thank yourself for getting such a tool. It costs about $450 so it takes some of the savings out of reloading but hey so does your time. If you do this 10,000 times in a year, that is about 4.5 cent each. If you are a plumber that charges union rate of $80 per hour, I can assure you that your time will pay for this rapidly. I purchase military brass and use the dillion super swage. It is a pain as previously mentioned but use that time to check all the brass for problems. The good news is you only have to do it once to the brass. I also like the fact that my priming goes real smooth. www.giraudtool.com

After testing a few minor loads with my SIG 229 this is the load that works for me. 180gr Montana Gold CMJ Speer Nickel Plated Brass 3.5-3.7gr Hodgdon Titegroups Wolf Priimer OAL 1.135 (but sometimes up to 1.137) 740-750 fps Dillion 650 XL What are other people doing for minor light loads? Montana Gold is a good price and available, anything else out there for good price and available? Other powder recommendations for the Montana Gold? In regards to mechanics, it seems you can control velocity with more powder, lower OAL. It seems that the lighter bullet also increases velocity. Using the same OAL I loaded a batch of 165gr Montana Gold CMJ with the same 3.5-3.7 titegroups and it fired fine but the velocity was higher. Thanks all, this is too much fun!

At this time after firing these 500 Speer Nickel Plated Brass 4 times that I am experiencing a 1.2% case failure rate. In other words, 98.8% of the time after reusing brass 4 times, Nickel Plated Brass works. So does non-plated brass or other brands of brass have a lower failure rate than 1.2%? I am not alarmed by the rate but wondering if non-plated brass allows me to reload 10 times without failure or is 1.2% expected from all brass, plated and non-plated?

I have been reloading 40S&W with a Dillion 650. I am using a SIG 229 40S&W. I am reloading SPEER Nickel Plated Cases. Load Data Wolf Small Pistol Primer 3.5gr Titegroup 180gr Montana Gold FMJ 1.135 OAL Nice shooting round but after reloading 500 rounds of Brass 4 times, I got 6 rounds that are showing case failure. Any ideas why the cases are starting to fail? That is about 1.2% failure rate, is that normal for plated brass? Is this a sign of another problem?

I have been reloading 40S&W with a Dillion 650. I am using a SIG 229 40S&W. I am reloading SPEER Nickel Plated Cases. Load Data Wolf Small Pistol Primer 3.5gr Titegroup 180gr Montana Gold FMJ 1.135 OAL Nice shooting round but after running 500 rounds of Brass 4 times, I got 6 rounds that are showing case failure. Any ideas why the cases are starting to fail?

I have a Dillion 650 and after resizing the 40 S&W brass it did not fit into the Lee Case Gauge. I ordered the Redding GRX and it works wonders but you really have to lube and man handle them. I called Dillion and spoke with them about the problem. They said to order the Dillion case gauge and they sent me a replacement deprime/sizing die. The new 40 S&W die from Dillion did the trick. It seems they have adjusted the new dies to go a little further down the side of the case. Also the Dillion case gauge seems to be just a hair bigger than the Lee Case Gauge. The round cycles fine with standard 16lbs spring and no problems getting back to battery. The 14lb spring also works fine with a lite load (135pf). I shoot Wolf Small Pistol Primer, Montana Gold 180gr CMJ with 3.5gr titegroup, about 750-760 fps, 1.135-7 OAL to make minor power factor of about 135 PF from a SIG 229. I just started shooting the FMJ and they smoke more. I will post the numbers when I bring the chronograph back to the range. I did not notice the smoke with the CMJ but I can really see it with the FMJ.