What did you do in the reloading room today?

[NavyVet1959]

Loaded 100 rounds of 10mm... Drank 4 beers in the process... I probably should factor in the cost of beer when calculating my true reloading costs...

[waltherboy4040]

Sized, swaged, and trimmed 300 223 cases

[taco650]

Loaded up 13 rounds of 30-06 to finish off a box of 20. 6 were with Lee 309-180R (that only weigh 168!) and 16 grain of Longshot, the rest were HDY 150SP's over 48grs of IMR4320.

[FISH4BUGS]

Started sorting a 5 gallon pail of range brass.

[tygar]

Just to complain - I've been prepping brass for numerous calibers for weeks, interspaced with loading up various 223 & 5.56 for different rifles, 308, 375, 416, 450 Marlin, 458, 458 Lott & 450 Watts. I HATE prepping brass!!!! Especially trimming 223s, but trimming all really sucks! One reason I have such large quantities of brass is so I can shoot a lot without prepping.\

Also, it's been either to hot, to windy or now it's pouring rain with lots more to come & maybe a hurricane, to shoot a round.

[coxa2]

Sized a couple hundred 125gr hollow points to .358. Then used them to load up some 38 special plinking rounds.

[robertsm53]

Received 200 pieces of 38/55 new Starline brass, received a set of cowboy dies also in 38/55 and a mold also in 38/55. Got real busy then, casting a few hundred bullets, pan lubing them and finished by loading up 109 rounds ready to go for my wife's new Sharps replica rifle. Saturday will be a fun day!!

[guncheese]

i went goofy
got a new 6 hole Lee tool in ( i love how good those 6 holers work!)
so i cast,coated,sized about 900 200gr SWC
and around 200 148gr WC

[Black Powder Bill]

Cleaned the shop then tried to load some 12 ga on my MEC 9000h. Rio Hulls didn't want to drop into the size'r. By the time I noticed this I have hundreds of pellets on the floor. Deprimed and tumbled some 06AI,223,45lc,380,9m,38s,357.
Tried to get all the odd cases cleaned up. AND then melted 25lb or range scrap into sparkling wrinkly little bars.

[Seeker]

First day of archery season here. I got up at 5:00am and it was starting to rain. Getting everything around to load up some 255 rf in Colt cases with Bullseye. Good day to spend some quality time in the reloading room. You all have a good one.

[Dave C.]

Observed a moment of silence after finding a piece of 45 ACP brass from 1942 that was only loaded 50+ times cracked unexpectently.
It was a WCC 42. It will be sadly missed.

Dave C.

[triggerhappy243]

Dave, I think that piece of brass should be enshrined in liquid lexan.

[62chevy]

Observed a moment of silence after finding a piece of 45 ACP brass from 1942 that was only loaded 50+ times cracked unexpectently.
It was a WCC 42. It will be sadly missed.

Dave C.

I feel your pain Dave but he is in a better place now.

[Black Powder Bill]

Set up to load my first run of .380.......augh they are small! Ran off six 45lc 230 J hp for a test shoot.

[NavyVet1959]

Dave, I think that piece of brass should be enshrined in liquid lexan.

When I first read this, I thought it said "liquid Texan"... And I'm thinking, "How well does beer preserve brass?"

Ooops... Never mind...

[NavyVet1959]

Decided to search my reloading room for some more 10mm bullets (Lee TL401-175-SWC) to reload. It appeared that I was on my last container of them, but I was thinking that that there should be some around there *somewhere*. If I couldn't find them, then I was planning on casting a pot of them. While searching for them, I came across a set of Forstner bits that I had bought from Harbor Freight about a year or two ago and had never used, so I tried one out in a scrap piece of lumber with a hand drill. I liked the clean cut and nearly smooth bottom of the cut, so I decided to build some reloading blocks. I decided that I had gone long enough without a drill press and after looking at the bench top models that Lowes, Home Depot, and Harbor Freight offered, I started driving towards Lowes to examine their choices. Passed by a Sears Hardware store on the way there and decided to stop and see what choices they had. Decided that it was good enough for my use and bought it. Spent awhile putting it together without bothering to read the manual. After I finished, I grabbed a beer and then read the manual to see if I had done it right. The only thing I had done wrong was not removing the shipping lubricant / protectant from the chuck before hammering it on. I'll wait for it to come loose before correcting that.

So, I grabbed a scrap piece of 2x6 that was square (i.e. 5.5x5.5), marked out a 1/2" gridwork, and started drilling after having set the depth stop. Sure is nice being able to drill straight holes to a repeatable depth without the drill bit wandering.

I foresee it also being used for rough trimming .223 brass for conversion to .300 AAC and .30-06 brass for conversion to 7.7x58.

Now, I wonder how many reloading blocks I need to build to pay for the cost of the drill press....

[scaevola]

Enjoy the new drill press.

This goes through my mind every time I buy a tool of some kind.

...
Now, I wonder how many reloading blocks I need to build to pay for the cost of the drill press....

[NavyVet1959]

Enjoy the new drill press.

This goes through my mind every time I buy a tool of some kind.

Well, the plastic ones from Frankford Arsenal are currently $5 each at Midway, so I'm probably looking at drilling a LOT of holes before this would pay for itself.

Hmmm... Let's see...
2x6x8 currently going for $3.53 at Lowes. Can probably make about 17 of them from one 8 ft 2x6, so that means that each costs about $0.21. That means that I would save $4.79 on each block. The drill press was about $150, so that means I need to make about 32 blocks for it to pay for itself. That's only 1600 holes I need to drill.

Of course, that begs the question -- Do I really NEED 32 reloading blocks?

Interestingly, it is cheaper for me to make these reloading blocks that it would be to buy the cardboard and styrofoam ammunition boxes from Midway. Those are around $0.45 each in quantities of 100 over there.

[Harter66]

I gave up on beer and tool cost for loading tools for total cost .

You'll get to making neck expander pins soon enough too.

I dismantled an AR looking for why the accuracy had disintegrated after having closed groups to almost everything I needed and to replace the M2 fore end and gas block for a free float .
Why do I need 2.5 ft rail on a 16" bbl ? It all just unscrewed leaving just the last foot of top rail permanently fixed . I guess the gasified lead was impacting on the shoulder of the 30 cal flash hider and sticking to it and the threads and the 27 cal muzzle crown . I got the crown cleaned up and the knocked the nominal fouling out of the bbl with just a couple of wet brushes and a few patches . A quick range trip showed that that was a cure as the jackets immediately grouped 1.6 " . In spite of the optics and the whole rifle having being scattered all over the bench .

Off to the bench to load a few more jackets to take as a backup for the deer hunt next weekend .

[NavyVet1959]

I gave up on beer and tool cost for loading tools for total cost .

You'll get to making neck expander pins soon enough too.

I had already considered that. I figured that I would buy the Lee Powder Through Expander die inserts for calibers slightly larger that I'm needing, chuck them in the drill press, and then take a file or emory cloth to get them down to the size that I needed.