Just starting to reload this weekend...

[thor447]

Well, I bought a Lyman book several months ago, read over it several times, watched a lot of tutorial videos, and finally made the plunge this week while I was in Tulsa and bought some reloading equipment at 2A.

I set up the press last night, cleaned some 6.5CM brass, and am about to start the process of my first reloads.

What in the holy hell kind of rabbit hole have I just entered??

Would appreciate some suggestions, here's what I got so far.

Rifle - Browning X-Bolt Max Long Range - 26" barrel - 1x7 twist
Powder - H4350
CCI Large Rifle Primers
Hornady once fired brass (bought new and fired myself)
Have some Hornady 147gr ELD Match and Sierra Match King 150gr bullets
Using just a Lee Classic Turret Press (remove center rotating rod so I can use it as a single stage press).

I wanted something on the heavier side with my 1x7 barrel. I've been reading up on the OCW load development and feel like I'm ready to start, but honestly, I just want to get a few made and shot so I have some sort of comfort level with the entire process. All I'm doing right now is just going slow, double and triple checking everything before going to the next step, and trying not to screw anything up.

 

[Aries]

You have the right attitude. Go slow, don't try to multi-task, double check EVERYTHING. It sounds like you'll be fine.

I would use your turret press as a single station until you get more comfortable with the whole process, then after a while you can use it as a turret press and speed up quite a bit. But I wouldn't start out like that.

 

[thor447]

You have the right attitude. Go slow, don't try to multi-task, double check EVERYTHING. It sounds like you'll be fine.

I would use your turret press as a single station until you get more comfortable with the whole process, then after a while you can use it as a turret press and speed up quite a bit. But I wouldn't start out like that.

Thanks. That was my thought as well.

 

[swampratt]

Good on you for taking the plunge.
It is not that difficult in theory. But all the tiny steps needed to make really super accurate ammo will eat up some time and brain power.
NO WAY can I do rifle cases on a progressive.
I must measure everything after that case is sized and I need to chamfer it and many other steps after sizing.

Then prime and add powder. Then seat bullet.
Only steps I can do progressively without removing the case is add powder and then add bullet and seat.
And I would need to add some sort of funnel or powder through die .

All charges for rifle get weighed on a beam scale.
I do have a turret press I use only for the simple fact I do not need to keep removing and changing out dies.
I also advance it manually.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

Finding the lands in a rifle is good for determining bullet seating depth. Here is one way to do that. (I don't cut the slits, I use a formed case and a black magic marker and start with bullet seated really long and continue seating deeper slowly until the marker is not rubbed off from the lands)

 

[DRC458]

Finding the lands in a rifle is good for determining bullet seating depth. Here is one way to do that. (I don't cut the slits, I use a formed case and a black magic marker and start with bullet seated really long and continue seating deeper slowly until the marker is not rubbed off from the lands)

+1. I'm with Oklahomabassin. Don't cut the case. I do it just like he does. Why ruin a case? I have tried other methods, but still find this to be the easiest and most consistent.

'Course, you've still got to experiment with seating depth to find out what your rifle likes ... touching the lands? ... .010" short of the lands? ... .020? ...
part of the fun!




.

 

[Glock 40]

Lots of good info above. I started reloading back in the summer. Its very enjoyable if you are detail oriented. It can take a lot of time and will burn up a lot of money if you jump in. Once you have a good understanding of what your doing you can spend money to speed things up and to get more accuracy. You hit a point like with most things, where you have to spend lots of cash and time for very tiny returns.

A couple pitfalls I ran into at first. 1st if your gun is new you need to break it in. So I wouldn't even worry about trying to develop a load until you have a 100 rounds down the pipe. Just work on building your basic load to book and shooting it at steel or something. Most guys I have talked to that know what they are doing say it can still gain velocity up to 200 rounds. I made the mistake of loading my first rounds for a new gun. At first my groups were pretty awful and it was a bit demoralizing. After I ran the first 100 or so and started figuring out what I was doing. Then I started getting some good groups. Last weekend I used my load and dope to hit stuff at 200,300,400,550 and 600 yards without a problem. This load is also half MOA at 100 yards. That is very rewarding when you do that. I can't wait to stretch it out even further.

For sure run that press as a single stage to start. You want to take your time and check everything twice until you start to understand what you are doing and what you are looking for. Get a good set of digital calipers if you don't have some. Make lots of notes of what you are doing especially when you start load development. Get yourself a couple loading blocks and do everything one stage at a time. Moving processed ammo from one to the other. When you drop powder. Use a flashlight and inspect every single case in the loading block to make sure nothing looks out of the ordinary. Use lots of lube on your cases. Stuck cases suck and it shouldn't take the force of a gorilla to resize a case. Again for the first 100 rounds I would buy the cheapest Hornady SP bullets and just enjoy the learning process.

If you got questions just ask. Lots of good help on here.

Adding in @Cowcatcher who has some good 6.5 load data.

Get yourself a Dillon blue small dust broom at Dollartree. Best $1 you can spend for relaoding. It's not if but when you clean up powder.

 

[Cowcatcher]

What rabbit hole are you down? Lol. The BigOne buddy! Just stay calm and keep it simple til it starts clickin. There are many things that may or may not be necessary. You just gotta grasp what’s in front of you and then explore. Reloading reliable ammo for hunting at relatively close rifle distanceain’t hard. When you wanna try to squeeze groups down tiny that’s when all the little variables start adding up. In addition to things that you can’t control. My advice is to try to keep everything simple and understand what that step is doing before progressing.

What dies did you buy?
What powder measuring method/tool are you using?
How will you be measuring cartridge length?

 

[TeleStratMan]

Just Remember that "Reloading Saves You Money".

 

[TeleStratMan]

The Reloading Pit is bottomless.
Dies-Calipers-Shell holders-Priming Tooling-Case Trimmer- Scales- Powder Trickler- OAL Gauge- Primers-Powders-Case Gauges-
Powder Measure- AND ON AND ON-------------------------------------to infinity.

There are some great YouTube Videos and lots of web information pages available to use for resources. I do have several of the books such as Lyman-Hornady-Lee-Nosler.
Hodgdon website is good source of info. https://www.hodgdon.com/

Be sure to do your homework and get some tutoring from an experienced reloader.