Sleigher

I was desperate one time, out of small pistol primers, and needed more to keep shooting this local weekly competition. I found a box of small rifle benchrest primers and thought I was getting utterly ripped off paying like $60 for it. They worked fine in my 9mm, though. I believe the amount of bang in them was the same as small pistol primers and the only difference was the hardness of the cup, but my Beretta had no problem igniting them, so I was golden. Several years ago during a previous shortage I put in for a club buy that I was convinced would never come through, and miracle of miracles it did, and I managed to take ownership of an entire case (over 12k) of small pistol primers for what would by any recent standard be a song. I think I ended up paying like $240 or so for it. If I were uncrupulously capitalist and didn't need to keep shooting right now it would appear I could make a small fortune off what's left of those primers. Geez.

The idea of a micrometer adjustment really appeals to a certain part of me, but then I remember that at least in pistols I'm mostly loading cast bullets, that lube or lead debris builds up in the seater die until I notice enough to pull out the insert (Dillon die inserts for the win!) and clean it out, and that my bullet seating us thus already probably not predictable down to the thousandth of an inch or whatever. The result is that to date I don't own any micrometer adjustable bullet seaters.

Ok, so I've got my first experience both with coated bullets, but also with coating them myself. I'd picked up a tub of the Hi-Tek bullet coating powder. I picked up a cheap $40 toaster oven at my local grocery store. I casted up a few hundred 200gr LSWC .452" bullets for my 1911. Mixed up 20g of the powder in 100ml of Acetone, and squirted around 4ml of the solution into an empty plastic coffee can with a couple hundred of my cast bullets and swirled it, rolled it around, shook it, etc. for maybe one minute. Where I live it's hot and dry so they were already starting to be dry as I set them out base down on a wire mesh tray that came with the toaster oven. I had my doubts because they didn't appear to be all that well coated, but figured I'd just follow the instructions and see what happened. I turned a fan on blowing over this tray for a few more minutes till I could tell they were well dried out, then turned the fan off and put the mesh tray into the toaster oven at 400 F for 11 minutes. They say like 8-12 minutes, but since I gave the toaster oven no warm-up time I just settled on 11 minutes from cold. Figured over the first minute it would be heating up, then it would have 10 minutes of baking time. The coating darkened and became much more visible after it was baked. I laid the tray out on top of the toaster oven with the fan blowing on it again and in just a few minutes the bullets were at about room temperature. They looked pretty decent though there were patches on various bullets where it seemed the coating hadn't gotten. I repeated the process for a second coat, and after the second coat and they had been baked again they looked really, really good. I was very surprised. They feel nice and dry to the touch, you don't feel like you're handling raw lead alloy anymore, etc. I really like it. I pushed these through my lubrisizer and just didn't pull the handle down far enough to squirt lube into the grooves. They sized up easily, the sizer left the surface nice and smooth and shiny with the coating not breaking up or tearing, no crackeling, no flaking off, etc. I loaded up and shot around 100 rounds today with these bullets, and they shot well, there wasn't the smoke I normally get from my conventionally lubed bullets. There were some small streaks in the barrel, but less than I'd normally see with my cast bullets, and it cleaned up pretty quickly. It does add some more time and labor to the process. If this weren't a hobby I'd say that casting my own bullets, coating them myself, loading them up, etc. wouldn't be worth the time. If I ever get tired of casting/coating/sizing/loading my own ammo I'd certainly consider these coated bullets a good option to purchase commercially, as compared to just buying hard cast bullets. The improved cleanliness in handling the bullets themselves is awesome. The gun was considerably less fouled after shooting almost 100 rounds of these, compared to all the waxy bullet-lube & carbon residue the gun normally has on it afterwards. I think I'm a fan.

I used various dies from Hornady, RCBS, Redding, etc. before I got my Dillon (RL550B), but at least in pistol cartridges I've switched entirely to the Dillon dies simply because they've got some features that make reloading more efficient and less of a PITA. The best example is the bullet seating die where the seating plug is held in by a retaining clip so that it can be easily removed, lead bullet waxy lube deposits cleaned out, and replaced without losing any adjustments. It's just very handy. If I were a benchrest shooter I'd certainly look for whatever dies maximized the little things those guys worry about. For my purposes, the dies I like are whatever dies are the easiest to use.

I just received a tub of the Hi-Tek bullet coating powder. I'm very interested in trying it out, and will try to heat up my furnace and cast up some more bullets this weekend. I got the gold color because why not? I think my plan will be to coat a bunch of bullets and size them with no lube, then size and lube a bunch of bullets from the same batch, and then test them side by side in my gun. I'm most interested in seeing how the coated bullets reduce smoke and waxy residues/fouling in my gun. I've fired tons of my self-cast waxy lubricated bullets over the years, and it's lube residues that seem to be the largest component of any fouling in the guns afterwards. If the coated bullets function well with no lube in the lube groove, that should reduce the fouling a lot. Also, for rapid firing during action competitions smoke from my cast lead loads can be substantial, and the coated bullets should eliminate all or most of that too. I think it was this thread, actually, that got me Googling about coated bullets and learning that it's something a home caster can actually do themselves. I'm eager to try it out.

I've never had any troubles with the cheap ones for reloading, but I've been working on some hobbyist home gunsmithing projects (hand-built 1911s), and I've found it very aggravating not to be able to rely on this piece of crap to be anymore accurate than maybe 5 or 10 thousandths. I always thought of a thousandth as being way more accuracy than I'd ever possibly need, and for reloading I'll say yeah, it is. For hand-fitting parts in a gun meant to be tight yet smooth, though, a thousandth isn't going to cut it. I'm actually interested in getting some better calipers, and perhaps even a good micrometer, depth gauge, etc.

I know this is a month since the last post, but I wanted to add that if you really want to avoid a squib then you have to visually see the powder charge before putting a bullet on it. I use the same press, the RL550 B. I mounted a light that goes down through the tool-stand hole in the center of the toolhead, and I mounted a dentist's mirror to the frame of the press right behind the bullet-seating station. The light shines down from above into the case, and the dentist mirror is angled so I can sit in my usual loading position and visually see the powder charge in the case before I set a bullet down into the case. The light I picked up from UniqueTek, and the dentist mirror I picked up at the grocery store in the toothbrush aisle. It's just a cheap plastic handle with a small, round mirror attached to it at an angle. It adds zero time to my reloading process, and I feel better about having seen the powder, and that it appears to be in approximately the right quantity, before the bullet goes on. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've had two or three squibs that I can recall during my life, one of which was during a competition. That was definitely embarassing. That was the one that motivated me to rig up the light/mirror combo I use now, to ensure that this never happens again.