Starter setup, i bit the bullet

[lkothe]

Got my shell holder today and a lb of SR 7625 from Jerry's on 51st this morning.
Time to start figuring out exactly all the procedures. I've got about half a box of clean brass that'll be my experimental guinea pigs.

Set up the sizing die as the manual stated. No problem in sizing and removing the primers, went well. I do have two options on priming the brass, the Lee Auto Prime and the manual one on the press. I seated a few old primers with the press, worked fine, slow of course. Haven't messed with the Auto Prime yet.

Working on setting the case flare now, some experimenting and found where it would accept the bullet but not very deep. Wish I'd bought a hammer type puller so I can work on seating the bullet and taper crimp for practice. Another item on the list to buy. TOn second thought, I think I will make some DUMMY rounds, just to get the COL and taper right, or as right as I think it should be. No problem to remove the bullet at a later date. (going to do this on unprimed brass, keep me from having a squib in my mind)

Case flare.......... Ran the die in until it hit the ram at full stroke, backed it up a 1/4 turn. Dialed the flare in a bit at a time till the brass would hold the bullet upright without falling out. Suggestions on other methods?

I did work on the seat/taper crimp just a little bit but nothing serious.

Feel free to shout out help and advice..........I'm open to criticism, just PM me please so I don't look like to much of an idiot.



DNO

 

[lkothe]

Worked up 6 "dummy" loads to check what I was doing. First two were seated a bit deep, got that ironed out with COL at 1.125 on the other four. Adjusted the taper crimp down. Loads will drop in my M&P barrel with no problem....after I did this I checked all the rest of the brass I had left and all of it would drop in the barrel ,,,, hmmmm going to assume the case flare was pretty mild.
Worked on the Perfect powder dropper till I was able to equal the 4.5 gr starting load.

Primed 10 cases on the ram, filled with 4.5 gr of SR 7625, pressed the bullets. All went well as best that I can tell. Checked first and last loads of powder, on the money. Checked all COL, all but one were 1.125 - 1.127, one was 1.131.

DNO

 

[dennishoddy]

Sounds like your on the road to success!

I've found that the .40 round nose flat point lead bullets I load cannot be extracted with a bullet puller. I have the collet style RCBS. ]]

 

[lkothe]

Loaded 10 rounds last night.......shot 9 of them today with no problems.
All fed fine, seemed to shoot fine, no ejection problems. Other than me holding my breath and gritting my teeth expecting my M&P to blow up in my hand from piss poor work on my part!

I realize I loaded at the bottom end of suggested powder levels but what do folks typically look for in the brass to indicate problems?
Obvious splits or ? or ?

DNO

 

[0341]

Run a search on "over pressure signs" most of your books will cover this look for things like bulged brass, pushed out primers, extremely dented/pierced primers etc...

 

[lkothe]

Work trip to central KS today.....Wichita Cabela's had 800X, Gander Mnt had nothing. Gun shop "Bullet Stop" @Meridian and Pawnee had 800X and 700X but nothing else in pistol powder. Lots of rifle and shotgun powder tho.

What is the downlow on 700x and 800x......I haven't heard of it.

DNO

 

[dennishoddy]

Either one is ok for 9mm.

The common complaint is that it doesn't meter well in powder measures, but what some consider well, is acceptable for others.

IF you have a powder measure, fill it up, measure several loads, and then dump 75% of it out and measure again. You will see a difference. What you need to see is if the difference will affect pressures, or keep the tube full which is the easiest.

 

[flatwins]

Welcome to the reloading world. I'm small time but reload for the rounds that are expensive to buy in stores.

As far as priming goes, I prefer to do the job with hand primer (RCBS).

 

[Old Fart]

I like both 700X & 800X but they do tend to burn a little dirty. I got great result from them accuracy wise. I'm kind of stuck on Unique these days.

 

[lkothe]

Loaded a hand full of rounds with 800X last night.....can see where the large grains seem to be a problem at times metering.
Going to shoot them shortly and see how my pistola likes the 800X compared to the SR7625.