How many hundred of times has that post started? As an older person I'm sad to not know things but have enough sense to realize you have to start somewhere.
Have a single stage press, hornady custom 3 die for 45acp, beam scale (measure 2-3 times one case at a time), digital calipers, one of those one book one caliber, lots of Internet reading, chose HP-38 because it looked to be a good middle of the road 1st time powder, box of x-treme 200gr RN, fed primers...
Just can't seem to narrow down the proper charge for that powder with a 200gr copper coated RN. Still very dirty on spent casing, still stove-pipe too often and still makes my Glock 30 sad. I'm up to 5.2gr being too weak still, 5.3 is better, 5.4 maybe better. 10 loads at a time of each as I worked from about 4.6-5.5 based on book values for hp-38 in .2-.3 increments to narrow down. Now I'm in 10ths and still struggling.
Not sure I'm getting a correct taper crimp but COL is 1.26 based on my purchased 200g reloads, this last set I checked that at top of crimp at was about .472. Am seating and crimping separate steps. Think I'm close but just not there on being able to reliably reload my first caliper!
Have a single stage press, hornady custom 3 die for 45acp, beam scale (measure 2-3 times one case at a time), digital calipers, one of those one book one caliber, lots of Internet reading, chose HP-38 because it looked to be a good middle of the road 1st time powder, box of x-treme 200gr RN, fed primers...
Just can't seem to narrow down the proper charge for that powder with a 200gr copper coated RN. Still very dirty on spent casing, still stove-pipe too often and still makes my Glock 30 sad. I'm up to 5.2gr being too weak still, 5.3 is better, 5.4 maybe better. 10 loads at a time of each as I worked from about 4.6-5.5 based on book values for hp-38 in .2-.3 increments to narrow down. Now I'm in 10ths and still struggling.
Not sure I'm getting a correct taper crimp but COL is 1.26 based on my purchased 200g reloads, this last set I checked that at top of crimp at was about .472. Am seating and crimping separate steps. Think I'm close but just not there on being able to reliably reload my first caliper!