A wise man once said, “If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding.” This has nothing to do with reloading I just felt the need to share.
Today we look at actual reloading of rifle rounds. I wanted to do 5, but lent my swaging tool to a friend and one of the primer pockets was being tough, so we just loaded 4.
| Get the gear in this reloading video |
Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper (seriously, buy this)
http://bit.ly/FAIntellidropperTLD (Frankford Arsenal – Discount Code: Thin10)
http://bit.ly/BRNFAIntellidropperTLD (Brownells)
Imperial sizing wax (stuff will last you a lifetime probably)
Frankford Arsenal digital calipers
http://bit.ly/FAECaliperTLD (Frankford Arsenal – Discount Code: Thin10)
http://bit.ly/BRNFACalpTLD (Brownells)
If you didn’t have to load around a camera, this would go faster. I can usually load about 50 rounds in an hour using this method, but this ensures good quality reloads in my opinion.
Step one was to start with clean brass. Once the brass was clean, we need to remove the old primer. Now, you may hear some people say that you should clean your brass AFTER you remove the old primer in order to clean the primer pocket and I’m just not that anal when loading plinking rounds on a single stage press. Sure you can do it, but you’d be adding an extra step.
Once we have the old primer out, we need to put a new primer in. The Lee Safety Prime makes this really easy on their single stage presses. You just move the lever over, push down and it deposits a new primer in the actuating arm on the press for the primer.
As you’ll see in the video, primers may not always seat properly. On .223 brass, that is usually because of a crimp in the primer pocket. Normally I use a Dillon 600 Super Swage to swage the primer pocket back to its original form; however, I lent it to a friend and so I tried reaming the primer pocket with a chamfer tool. That failed miserably so we only loaded 4 rounds instead of 5. Oh well.
Once the new primers were in, it was time to add powder. Did I mention how much I love Walsh for getting me a new electronic powder dropper. The Frankford Intellidropper is a game changer for me and a tool I will cherish while I get Walsh some reloads so he can shoot more for you guys and gals.
After the powder is in, we need to seat the new projectile. Most common seem to be FMJs for plinking rounds or some lead nose projectiles. Seating is a delicate process even for plinking rounds. The reloading data typically provides pressure with a given powder measurement. This is based on the overall length they also provide, so you want to stay close to that. If you seat the bullet too deep, you have a chance to cause an overpressure problem that can damage your gun or you.
If you don’t seat the bullet enough, it may not fit in your magazine. For these plinking rounds, I try and follow the load data provided overall length. However, I’m a little loose with it. If it fits in the magazine and it’s not TOO deeply set, I roll with it when I’m loading in the middle of the range. If we were loading more powder, I’d be sure to stay extremely close to the provided overall length.
Finally, to crimp or not to crimp…that is the question among reloaders. There are dozens of articles out there saying why you should or why you shouldn’t. I’m not going to try and steer you one direction; I’m going to say “it depends.” For plinking rounds, it honestly probably doesn’t matter. However, I believe a SLIGHT crimp gives a more consistent release of the projectile from the brass and could lead to increased accuracy.
For bottleneck rifle rounds that are used for plinking…I do it, but you don’t have to. If I were loading for a lever gun, I would use a solid crimp due to the tube magazine design where the bullets can sit on top of one another. If you don’t have a solid crimp in that situation, there’s a chance the bullet on top may seat the projectile below it a little deeper cause a potential over pressure problem. Just crimp those and you’ll be fine.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
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