Tips & Tricks to help the Handloader

[stimpylu32]

This thread will be for Tips and Tricks that you have found to make loading Easier or more Effective so please keep the posts to that subject .

All ideas welcome , post your T & T's

[stimpylu32]

FL die too short to FL size the whole case .

One thing that i have found is when using some dies in some presses the FL die will not go down far enough to fully size the case , so i put the lock nut under the press top and this gives the die another 1/4" to 3/8" of down adjustment .

stimpy

[stimpylu32]

Loading 38 spl and 357 mag with the same dies .

This one is from Coyotejoe

I got tired of readjusting dies when switching between .38 Special and .357 mag and considered buying another die set, but being both a cheapskate and a procrastinator I never got around to it. Then I flashed on a solution, probably an old idea but new to me. I took my digital caliper to the local True Value Hardware store and checked the thickness of a 7/8" flat washer. Eureka it miked .135" thickness, exactly the difference between .38 and .357 case length. I adjust the dies perfectly for .38s and when loading .357 I place the flat washer under the expander and seater dies and I have a perfect setup for .357. Eighty-five cents did seem pretty steep for one steel washer but a lot cheaper than a set of dies.

[stimpylu32]

Cheap powder trickler

Take a bottleneck case with the spent primer still in the case , fill it about 3/4 full of the powder that you are using , then as you need to top of the load in the scale pan just tilt the case and roll it in your fingers to despence the needed amount of powder .

When your done just put the remaining powder back in the can that it came form till you load with it again .

[longwinters]

Want to save time and sore wrists?  Buy the RCBS Trim-mate.  Best low dollar investment I ever made.

Long

[burntmuch]

Dummy rounds. Before I learned to take notes & remember where said notes are. Id have a dummy round for each caliber. So I would
know COL , crimp or no crimp. Tip from a fairly new reloader

[quickdtoo]

Following Long's lead, an upgrade to the RCBS Trim Mate case prep center is to adapt a cutter to use Lee Length gauge trimmers on it, simply annealed the cutter so it can be drilled and tapped, just be sure to use a heat sink to keep from heating the cutting end, I used a 6" vise to hold the cutter with just the part past the knurling of the cutter exposed, heat just the very end to cherry red and allow it to cool naturally, then it can be drilled with standard #29 drill bit to accept an 8-32 tap. Annealling will discolor the tool some but it will still work fine.  VTDW was the first one I saw do this, but he set the cutter in water to keep the cutting end cool.

Tim


VTDW's Trim Mate in Action

[Dave in WV]

When FL resizing if you don't want to set the shoulder back but want to resize the rest of the case, smoke the neck and adjust the die about one & half turns off of the shell holder. Resize the case and adjust the die down a little at a time until you have "wiped" the soot off of the neck to just above the shoulder. This is particularly useful for belted mags and the .303 Brit. Some rifles chambered for a belted mag can have separation issues due to a longish chamber. The .303 Brit Enfields have long chambers for reliability in battle. Resizing your brass without setting your shoulder back will lengthen the brass life if you have a chamber cut on the long side. Yes, you can neck size only but some folks like FL resizing.

[nodlenor]

Quick, for those of us who don't have the tools to make the trimmer for the Trim Mate, what would it take for someone to make one? I contacted RCBS to try and get one but they didn't sound very interested. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would buy one.

[quickdtoo]

A propane torch to anneal the cutter, a $60 drill press to drill the hole in the cutter, a hand drill could be used, but it may wobble a bit more than it normally does.  I drilled a .498" (½" drill bit) in a piece of 1x6 oak, not quite all the way thru, drove the cutter into it cutter end first, clamped that to the drill table, then eye balled the center and got lucky. Tapped it with a regular tap handle. A ½" or ¾"  long 8-32 set screw could be used for the adapter between the Trim Mate and cutter or you can screw it right on to the front left port where the deburrer is. I cut a 1" 8-32 flat head machine screw off with the dremel cutoff tool, then ran a nut off the threads over the cut end to straighten the threads, put a little blue loctite on the threads and screwed it into the tapped hole.  RCBS would want you to buy their case trimmer, so I can see why they don't want to offer an less expensive alternative. 

Tim

[Hairtrigger]

Want to save time and sore wrists?  Buy the RCBS Trim-mate.  Best low dollar investment I ever made.

Long

Still have sore wrist and not enough time??
3 words
RCBS X-dies

ok just a bit more than 2 words

[dw06]

Tight primer pockets
I take a #2 pencil and run it around the primer pocker a couple times, The primer will seat alot easier.

[Hairtrigger]

Imperial sizing wax....
I wish I had found the stuff before trying a lube pad and all of the different brands of spray lubes

[stimpylu32]

RCBS Charge Master/Lyman DPS 1200 and Extruded powders

This one is from Quickdtoo

A little hint on the dispenser with extruded powders, set it to charge  .1gr less, then trickle the last bit in, that way the dispenser doesn't dump too much, sometimes it pours exactly what I want, or just a tad less and I hit the trickle button for the rest, sometimes just a tap on the dispenser tube is enough, works for me.

[charles p]

Get several manuals and compare them to one another.  Stay away from the very hottest listed load.  Just today I attempted to load a near max load from an older manual and realized the case wouldn't hold all the powder (H-380).  I checked the same company's reloading software and discovered a current max load of 3.2 fewer grains than the load published in their older publication.  Wow!

[quickdtoo]

Anyone loading lighter bullets in the 45-70 can have issues with short, fat, blunt bullets not seating perfectly straight in the case, leaving an obvious uneven bulge around the case at the base of the bullet and more importantly, lots of runout. If you have a Lee Loader for the 45-70,( I started reloading on one) you can use the body to align the bullet.

After charging, set the charged case on the base, place the loader body on the case just enough to align it with the body, not as deep as you would if resizng with it, if you push it in too far and are loading cast bullets, it will eliminate the bell you put on it. Drop the bullet into the Lee Loader and use the seating tool to start the bullet with just a firm hit with your palm or a plastic mallet if you wish, then lift the loader body off the base and give the bullet and case one more gentle tap to knock the case and partially seated bullet out of the loader, then seat to normal depth in the press. The bullet will be seated perfectly straight and the bulge will be even all the way around. 

Tim

[Hairtrigger]

On my long range varmint ammo I seat the bullet 1/3 to 1/2 way then back the case out of the seating die and rotate the case 180 degrees then finish seating the bullet.  For obvious reasons this is not done on a progressive press! I am not sure this actually makes a difference but it takes very little extra time and does not hurt!

[stimpylu32]

A little trick for ajusting your powder thrower .

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,142996.0.html

Thanks to Corbanzo

[R.W.Dale]

 For those of us using a kinetic bullet puller.

 You can take those fiddly little collets and chuck them in the trash. In their place use a STD shellholder for your reloading press. Works great and is much faster

[PaulS]

here is a trick for those of us that use a trimmer for more than a few cartridges.
I have made spacers that fit between the adjustment and frame. Without any spacers the trimmer is set up for the shortest cases and each spacer is marked for a case.
All I do is remove the cutter, slip the shaft out of the frame. slide the spacer onto the shaft and reinsert it. I put the cutter back on and it is set to trim.
No more time consuming setup for each case.

[lakota]

Put a little piece of steel wool in one of those nut setters for electric drills and chuck it in your drill. Use it to polish the case mouth after chamfering and deburring.

[Tom W.]

After you screw your seating die into your press, take a crescent wrench ( or appropriate sized open end ) and snug the die down just a bit. It won't come loose and have you wondering why your COL is different on the last rounds....

[stimpylu32]

Heres one to help from spilling the primers from the Lee Auto Prime .

  I may be the last person in the world to learn this but this past week end I was at a match and I watched a fellow prime some of his cases.  When he was finished, he took a small rubber band and wrapped it around the handle and lever of the Lee Auto Prime so the lever was pressed against the handle.  This way the plunger was up in the primer cavity so no primers could leak out and the whole unit was easier to stow. 
Well Duh, I've been using a Lee unit since they came out and never thougt of that.  For those three other people that are as slow as I am, now we know.

Thanks to Beemanbeme

[IOWA DON]

The attached photos help show how I determine what overall cartridge length should be. First I put a rod down the rifle barrel with the chamber empty, and mark the length from breech face to muzzle with a piece of tape. Then I drop a bullet (not a loaded cartridge) into the chamber and gently tap it so that it barely is stuck in the rifling. Then I again put the rod down the barrel and mark the length to the front tip of the bullet.

The distance between the edges of the tap will be about the cartridge overall length where the bullet would touch the lands. In reality it is slightly longer because the bullet was not just touching the lands, but barely stuck in them. However, for practical purposes, if one seats bullets to allow a jump of 0.04 or more to the lands, this method works fine. I generally repeat this three times using different bullets to be sure my measurement is accurate, but usually get essentially the same measurement each time.

Of course, if I want a bullet jump of 0.05-inch from the lands, I subtract that distance from the measurement and use it for loaded cartridge overall length. One needs a rod with a flat end or a cleaning rod with an attachment with a flat end. This costs less than buying a special tool and for me has worked much better than other methods I've read about. Also, it don't take much time.

[IOWA DON]

I don't know why the second photo did not show up in the above post, but just click on the photo address and it will. For reference, the cartridge in the photo is a .22 Cooper Centerfire Magnum (.22 CCM). That was Cooper's centerfire version of a .22 rimfire magnum, with the versiltility of being reloadable.

[mdi]

My reloading "bench" isn't unique, I'm sure it has been done before, but I'm happy with my results! With the counter top piece and the heavy C-H press, it doesn't move around too much when I reload for the twins (.44 Mag).

[PlacitasSlim]

When using my RCBS chargemaster, I know exactly how much my little pan weighs, so when I lift it off the scale, the scale shows the weight of the pan as a minus value. If it ever goes off, then I know to recalibrate the scale.

[stimpylu32]

Here's a list of useful case capacities for some of the diffrent brands of .223's --- Thanks to LaOtto222

 I do not believe that the brass I got was "match" brass. I have not done a lot of work with them yet, but they look like run of the mill LC '06 brass. They are very uniform in length (1.755 +/- .001") after a light chamfer on the case mouths. A large percentage needed the neck mouths straighten out and I found 1 in the first 500 batch that had a split neck (they were bulk packed). Here is a comparison of the LC '06 brass to some others. The LC '06 brass is thinner and holds more powder than Military brass of the past so powder charges for civilian cases will (or should) work in these cases.

.223 Rem Case Weight vs. Capacity

Case Manufacturer   Case Weight   H20 Capacity
Lake City 06                  92.0                   30.6
WCC99                         95.5                   30.5
Sellier & Belloit               92.3                   30.5
Remington                     92.3                   30.4
PMC                             93.5                   30.4
Hirtenberger                  93.7                   30.4
Lake City 04                  93.0                   30.4
Federal                         96.3                   30.2
Hornady                        93.9                   30.1
IMG (Guatemalan)           95.4                   30.1
Lapua (new lot)              93.4                   30.1
Winchester                    93.9                   30.1
Olympic                         97.4                   30.0
Radway Arsenal              96.1                   30.0
PMP                            104.5                   29.9
FNM 93-1                      97.3                   29.8
Lapua (old lot)              104.0                   28.0

stimpy

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,153280.msg1098670315.html#new

[bilmac]

When I am loading just a few rounds and need to get case lube off, I use the Lee hand priming tool to hold them while I rub them against a rag held between my knees and other hand. Shoeshine style.

[bilmac]

When loading on a single station press do the double shuffle to save lots of time.
1 Lower the ram there is a finished case sitting there.
2 pick up a case to be processed, move it to the press and with the same hand remove the finished case and replace it with the new case.
3 While raising the ram with the other hand, drop the finished case in a dish, and pick up a new case.
4 Repeat repeat repeat.
 
This is fairly easy for sizeing, but you can even do it for bullet seating. Your cases will be sitting in a loading block, so pick up a bullet and place it on a case ready to be seated and pick up the bullet and case together. You can still pull a completed round off the shell holder and put the case and bullet in the shell holder with the same hand.