Spent a lot of hours at the bench and came away a little frustrated.
So I'm officially a reloader now. I loaded my first 20 rounds of .45 ACP.
Went with a 200 gr Berry's plated flat point over 4.2 gr of HP 38 and CCI 300 primers.
First set my dies up and loaded a dummy to plunk in my M&P 45 barrel. It was at this point I think I screwed up in my bullet choice starting out. Took me a while to get the hang ofe flaring, seating and crimping.
The Lyman loads for 200 gr all had an OAL longer than I could get to plunk or chamber. Found a Hodgdon load for JHP with an OAL of 1.155. even that wouldn't work. Seated down to 1.152 and it finally worked with a crimp of .471.
My first crimp looked like I put the thing through a hydraulic press. Oops.
Satisified with the dummy round, I set my lock rings and started sizing and priming. The Lyman turret priming system sucks and the damn plunger fell apart twice on me. Finally got that sorted and had twenty primed cases.
Went to dinner and came back. Started working up a powder load and of course I don't have any cast data for this OAL. Berry's seems to say either cast or jacketed data. With my OAL so short I went for just above a starting cast load in my Lyman manual. I suspect these might be too light so I'm going to be shooting these slow and ensuring I don't get a squib.
My RCBS 505 scale wouldn't repeat for shit when trying to zero for check weights. Bought it used and don't trust it so I put it on the shelf and took out my little Lyman electronic.
That was cooperating so I started loading cases. About half way through I realized I forgot to flare the case mouths. Crap.
Dumped the powder and flared them.
Charged the 20 cases which took forever because I haven't gotten my powder measure going yet so I was trying to get the hang of scooping and trickling. Got powder everywhere.
Spot checked a few cases and they were coming back consistently on the charge.
Seated and crimped the 20 rounds and the OAL was pretty consistent. Chambered a few and they cycled.
Boxed them up with a card indicating the load.
Took a bunch of notes during the process.
We will see how it goes. Pretty sure I won't blow up my gun. Wish I had started with 230 gr round nose bullets.
What an ordeal. I'm sure it will get easier heh.
So I'm officially a reloader now. I loaded my first 20 rounds of .45 ACP.
Went with a 200 gr Berry's plated flat point over 4.2 gr of HP 38 and CCI 300 primers.
First set my dies up and loaded a dummy to plunk in my M&P 45 barrel. It was at this point I think I screwed up in my bullet choice starting out. Took me a while to get the hang ofe flaring, seating and crimping.
The Lyman loads for 200 gr all had an OAL longer than I could get to plunk or chamber. Found a Hodgdon load for JHP with an OAL of 1.155. even that wouldn't work. Seated down to 1.152 and it finally worked with a crimp of .471.
My first crimp looked like I put the thing through a hydraulic press. Oops.
Satisified with the dummy round, I set my lock rings and started sizing and priming. The Lyman turret priming system sucks and the damn plunger fell apart twice on me. Finally got that sorted and had twenty primed cases.
Went to dinner and came back. Started working up a powder load and of course I don't have any cast data for this OAL. Berry's seems to say either cast or jacketed data. With my OAL so short I went for just above a starting cast load in my Lyman manual. I suspect these might be too light so I'm going to be shooting these slow and ensuring I don't get a squib.
My RCBS 505 scale wouldn't repeat for shit when trying to zero for check weights. Bought it used and don't trust it so I put it on the shelf and took out my little Lyman electronic.
That was cooperating so I started loading cases. About half way through I realized I forgot to flare the case mouths. Crap.
Dumped the powder and flared them.
Charged the 20 cases which took forever because I haven't gotten my powder measure going yet so I was trying to get the hang of scooping and trickling. Got powder everywhere.
Spot checked a few cases and they were coming back consistently on the charge.
Seated and crimped the 20 rounds and the OAL was pretty consistent. Chambered a few and they cycled.
Boxed them up with a card indicating the load.
Took a bunch of notes during the process.
We will see how it goes. Pretty sure I won't blow up my gun. Wish I had started with 230 gr round nose bullets.
What an ordeal. I'm sure it will get easier heh.