Reload Knowledge Needed


Kramer1113

Kramer1113

New member
Greetings Reloaders.

My Oldest son and I are going to try our hand at reloading.
Lee Press is on its way, its a simple 4 position Turret Press.
Questions are as follows:

Any suggestions for Powder Brand and type *Best Bang For The Buck* :wink:

Primers. I have no idea. Are my .45 ACP and 9mm Small or Large? My .223 and 5.56 Large or small? How about my sons .308, Small or large?

Where do you buy your FMJ bullets?

Any and all positive advice is greatly appreciated.
 

The .45 ACP has both small and large primers on factory ammo. I sort it by large and small primers. 9mm is all small pistol primers.

I use 3 different types of powder. Unique, Power Pistol, and Tite Group. Great versatility with all those powders. But poll 10 reloaders and you'll get 10 opinions.

As for bullets, these guys-http://www.xtremebullets.com/default.asp?m=0

And get a reloader's handbook. Lyman, Speer, Hornady, just to name a few. Read it and be familiar with it. Study your calibers of choice thoroughly...
 
Depending on where you are, might be whatever you can get. I have been forced to try powders I had never used for my .40. But that got me into a powder I would not have tried that is very good in my hk. 5.56 small primer, .308 large primer.
 
Great to have you loading Buddy Bro. I use Winchester Powders, Primers and Cases. I like the 231 Pistol and the 748 (I think, it is in the shop outside so check at the Winchester site) for rifle. Now, I have been doing this since 1974 and have used IMR for rifle and Unique for handgun loads but settled on the Winchester family. What I have done these many years is order 2 for 1. If I needed 100 rounds of slugs I bought 200 rounds. This has given me more than an ample supply for these lean times so I do not know how the supply is in other areas as for Arizona we have a hit and miss. I found 1k of Large Primers for my .45 acp a few weeks ago and they are Federal. Reloading Pages of M.D. Smith is a good site, along with other on line resources but a good manual is invaluable. Midway, Dillon, Cabela's should have a good supply, and Midway, Dillon are a few that have an assist with NRA dues so you might want to go thru them. Let us know how it goes. Sorry, I got carried away. Hum.
 
There is some good stuff right here. I passed most of this on to my son so we can discuss some of the content.
I am all for finding one sourse of powder and sticking with it as well as primers. I may experiment a little with weights of bullets. Also thinking of melting lead myself and seeing where that goes.
Time and study should allow us to get the process down. I'm OK with my son showing the old man a couple of tricks.
 
I use win 231, hodges titegroup, and
Alliant bullseye. I've used factory fmj like Montana gold if you buy in 4000 round pistol packs you get a good deal, but for smaller quanties I use Berrys plated bullets in rn. 9mm and .45. Work great. Just load with lead data and not fmj because they have 1/4 the copper coating of an fmj. So they are not as strong but they are very clean and work great for plinking and a lot better than lead bullets, plus the price can't e beat.
Also google Berrys 115gr with win 231 and whatever you are working with and the high road or hand loads.com and other forums will pop up with usefully information.

Read the laymans 32nd or w/e edition they are on reloading manual.

Doing 9mm and .45 I can give you my loads
 
Howdy,

macnorman said:
The .45 ACP has both small and large primers on factory ammo. I sort it by large and small primers. 9mm is all small pistol primers.

I use 3 different types of powder. Unique, Power Pistol, and Tite Group. Great versatility with all those powders. But poll 10 reloaders and you'll get 10 opinions.

As for bullets, these guys-http://www.xtremebullets.com/default.asp?m=0

And get a reloader's handbook. Lyman, Speer, Hornady, just to name a few. Read it and be familiar with it. Study your calibers of choice thoroughly...
Click to expand...

I've never seen .45ACP brass that uses a small primer except for a very limited amount of target ammo. Probably 99.99% of .45acp brass uses a large pistol primer.

For pistol powder I use Universal. Down through the years I have used a lot of different powders but a few years back I decided to use only one type of powder for all my plinking/blasting/IDPA/IPSC ammo so I decided on Universal.

I do have a couple of other powders like Blue Dot for hot loads, especially 10mm, but I used Universal for everything else.

For .223 I used BL(C)2.

One powder makes reloading simpler and safer.

Paul
 
You can go to the IMR website to get load data for your ammo. Stick with the load data center info in the beginning. You can get FMJ on line or go to any quality gun show. They will often have vendors selling reloading supplies. I put the link to IMR data center below. You have to agree to the warning that if you blow yourself up it aint their fault in order to get the data. Really good resource.

Link Removed

One other thing you will need...actually 2...a good digital scale and an RCBS hand priming tool (the universal one) will make life very simple. The scale is so you can check the charges once in a while. Don't completely rely on the proper charge being dispensed every time.
 
Federal and blazer brass do a lot of small pistol. They call them clean ammo because they have less lead due to smaller primer. Kind of a dumb concept.

Small and large you can load the same, just a pain to separate them.

I would say 40% of range brass online now days is small pistol
 
There is about a 50/50 split small primer vs large primer in my shop. Speer, CCI, Winchester, Federal, Fiocchi, just to name some of the top of my head.

With the current difficulties finding primers, being able to load either will keep you shooting when you can't find one or the other.
 
As soon as everything gets here and we are ready to load we will be loading:

9mm Will be a large part of it because we both shoot 9mm
.45 ACP I'm the only one with .45
.223/5.56 again this is just for me.
.308 is my sons rifle of choice.
 
You definitely need to purchase a good book on reloading, and go by what it says. Lyman 49th edition, or Hornady 9th edition are two excellent books. There are good suggestions posted, but going with published data from a reputable source is highly recommended.

Pistol bullets: Berry's and Rainier are good choices.

Brass: For new brass, Starline. For used brass, always inspect the cases for cracks. Don't use steel or aluminum cases, brass only!

Powders: For pistol Winchester 231 or Hodgdon HP-38 works in about every pistol load. For rifle, Hodgdon H4895 is fairly universal.

Primers: I'll only mention the brands I prefer. CCI or Winchester.

As far as the press itself is concerned, you would have been better off with a Dillon RL-5550B which has a quick change head. The Lee is OK, but you're going to see a lot of set up time between all those calibers you mentioned.

How are you planning to measure your powder? Redding and RCBS are good choices. I have never used the Lee Perfect powder measure, so i don't know how accurate they are.

You need a powder scale to verify how much powder the measure throws.

You may also need a powder dribbler.

What kind of dies, standard or carbide? Standard die require lubrication. Even with carbide dies, you need to lube rifle case with necks.



Kramer1113 said:
Greetings Reloaders.

My Oldest son and I are going to try our hand at reloading.
Lee Press is on its way, its a simple 4 position Turret Press.
Questions are as follows:

Any suggestions for Powder Brand and type *Best Bang For The Buck* :wink:

Primers. I have no idea. Are my .45 ACP and 9mm Small or Large? My .223 and 5.56 Large or small? How about my sons .308, Small or large?

Where do you buy your FMJ bullets?

Any and all positive advice is greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
If you're going to cast bullets, you need to get the Lyman cast bullet handbook. You have to watch velocities, especially on rifle bullets.

Kramer1113 said:
There is some good stuff right here. I passed most of this on to my son so we can discuss some of the content.
I am all for finding one sourse of powder and sticking with it as well as primers. I may experiment a little with weights of bullets. Also thinking of melting lead myself and seeing where that goes.
Time and study should allow us to get the process down. I'm OK with my son showing the old man a couple of tricks.
Click to expand...
 
I agree with the scale, but it doesn't have to absolutely be digital. Ths RCBS 10-10 is a very good choice.

JimTh said:
You can go to the IMR website to get load data for your ammo. Stick with the load data center info in the beginning. You can get FMJ on line or go to any quality gun show. They will often have vendors selling reloading supplies. I put the link to IMR data center below. You have to agree to the warning that if you blow yourself up it aint their fault in order to get the data. Really good resource.

Link Removed

One other thing you will need...actually 2...a good digital scale and an RCBS hand priming tool (the universal one) will make life very simple. The scale is so you can check the charges once in a while. Don't completely rely on the proper charge being dispensed every time.
Click to expand...
 
Try starting with one caliber and master that first before you start making outher calibers. I olny load .40 caliber and it took me weeks to get it dialed down correctly. I only use Hodgon TiteGroup powder (4.00 grains going 965 FT per second), Montana Gold bullets, 1.125 OAL. You want to start off with a good reloading manuaul or try the the web for suggested starting weights. It was a bit scary at first especialy firing the very firsy round I made. But now its easy. Make sure you do not double charge a round. Also reloading alone without distrations is a must.
 
flintlock62 said:
If you're going to cast bullets, you need to get the Lyman cast bullet handbook. You have to watch velocities, especially on rifle bullets.
Click to expand...

Casting bullets is going to be the last thing I try!

2 VS 3 VS 4 Die sets?

I see a lot of Rifle sets with only 2 dies. What am I missing? We are going to be using a Lee Perfect Powder measure for powder. I am going to get a scale before we begin.
My son can shoot in his back yard so testing and trial and error on the 9mm will come easy.
I appreciate all the input and am looking at what is being referenced so Please, Keep it coming.
Best I see on Small Pistol Primers is around .3¢ each.
 
Usually, a 2-die set comes with a FL sizer and a seater, and the 3-die set comes with a FL sizer, Neck-only sizer, and a seater. Neck sizing only has advantages. Neck only sized cases must be fired from the same gun as it will conform to the chamber size of that gun. Case life will be increased by neck-size-only. You may also see increased accuracy. If the cases were fired from another gun, they then have to be full sized.

I forgot to add, you will need a case trimmer for rifle cartridges. Straight wall pistol cases do not need to be trimmed.


Kramer1113 said:
Casting bullets is going to be the last thing I try!

2 VS 3 VS 4 Die sets?

I see a lot of Rifle sets with only 2 dies. What am I missing? We are going to be using a Lee Perfect Powder measure for powder. I am going to get a scale before we begin.
My son can shoot in his back yard so testing and trial and error on the 9mm will come easy.
I appreciate all the input and am looking at what is being referenced so Please, Keep it coming.
Best I see on Small Pistol Primers is around .3¢ each.
Click to expand...
 
Depends on manufacturer. My Lee 3 die set came with full length sizing/decapping die. Seating die and Lee factory crimp die. Read one of the above manuals and decide what you need what type of rifle and most importantly how much you want to pay. Then look at the various manufacturers and find what you need.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
 
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