CreamySmooth
CGN frequent flyer
I use Power Pistol. It's got lots of flash is its thing, but it's a close 2nd for me. You also have 3/4 of a pound of Clays at my place.
Took the plunge today!!!!!!! Lee loadmaster+ Glock=lots of shooting fun!!
- Thread starter Drewz
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I use Power Pistol. It's got lots of flash is its thing, but it's a close 2nd for me. You also have 3/4 of a pound of Clays at my place.
Corn cob media right now. Looking to see if that is the best option?
I may be back in your area in a week for work, I will text you.
Well over 2000 brass de primed and prepped. Over 1000 cleaned and another 100 in the tumbler. The press is completely assembled and adjusted and auto powder measure is set up. Might be loading this weekend!! Woohoo.
I've found that if you stick with CCI primers, the priming system works just fine - I think the slightly thicker cup makes them fractionally heavier and improves primer feeding. Eye pro is always a smart thing.
Actually my kaboom was with a cci magnum primer. Only time I've ever had a problem with the priming system. (I only use cci, just saying that for the most part I don't have priming problems)
Boy a magnum primer will ring your ears!
Boy a magnum primer will ring your ears!
Depriming pistol brass before cleaning is way over the top. If you were shooting for extreme accuracy such as master class bullseye shooting I'd say there may be some merit in doing that. But for regular plinking or other events (IPSC, IDPA, USPSA and the like) depriming is just a lot of extra time for pretty well zero return. And you've already doubled your work load by having to place and pull the lever an extra time to deprime them. Which sort of defeats the reason for getting a progressive.
But I know it's got that "new press smell" and you can't help yourself
Cleaning the brass is a whole other issue. I started out with a tumbler, corn cob media and some Dillon brass polish. I was underwhelmed at the job it did. The outsides looked nice but the inside was still black and crusty.
In looking around there was a lot of success stories about ultra sonic cleaning. I bought a small 1 liter unit and after the first results promptly gave away my dry media tumbler. In fact I just cleaned about 1000 .38Spl cases last night and they are sitting out on a couple of old bath towels drying right now. The ONLY downside to any wet cleaning is that it does take a couple of days to dry. But I've been considering a food dehydrater that should speed up the drying to about 24 hours. As for clean the US cleaner leaves the brass looking like new on the outside and mostly clean on the inside with only some very light staining on some casings where at least the stains look "brassy". And that's miles better than the crusty stuff that was left by the dry media. With rifle brass, which I do deprime first, the insides come out as shiny as the outsides. Also the stains I get are only in the deeper revolver casings. 9mm and .45acp come out bright and shiny inside and out and look just like new.
These days wet tumbling with stainless pin media is all the rage. And I don't doubt at all that it does a better job. But if I can get 80 to 90%% of the same cleaning results as the SS pin provides in 1/4 to 1/3 the time (tumbling times seem to be listed at around 45 minutes to an hour per batch. I've been using a 15 minute cycle) and not need to deal with cleaning out the pins I feel that's a good trade off. Plus I don't need to deal with rinsing or other tricks for removing the pin media. And if the outcome is that my handgun brass has some slight staining left inside the deep .38Spl and .357Mag cases then such is life.
I do know that I'll never go back to dry tumbling. I might need to wait for the cases to dry but at least they can do that by themselves once I've rinsed and laid them out. And any water I miss goes away by itself instead of still being in the cases if I didn't shake them out well enough.
But the choice of how to clean brass seems to be as personal and full of emotion as which solvents and oils to use on our guns. So look around for more opinions and check out some You Tube videos and decide for yourself.
Even I'm not locked in. As a closing note I'm starting to load more black powder cartridge stuff. And the black powder residue is FILTHY! ! ! ! And the stains it causes don't seem to want to wash away even in the US cleaner. So I may find myself setting up a modest SS pin tumbler setup yet. But for my general brass cleaning needs I'm still going to stick with the US cleaner.
But I know it's got that "new press smell" and you can't help yourself
Cleaning the brass is a whole other issue. I started out with a tumbler, corn cob media and some Dillon brass polish. I was underwhelmed at the job it did. The outsides looked nice but the inside was still black and crusty.
In looking around there was a lot of success stories about ultra sonic cleaning. I bought a small 1 liter unit and after the first results promptly gave away my dry media tumbler. In fact I just cleaned about 1000 .38Spl cases last night and they are sitting out on a couple of old bath towels drying right now. The ONLY downside to any wet cleaning is that it does take a couple of days to dry. But I've been considering a food dehydrater that should speed up the drying to about 24 hours. As for clean the US cleaner leaves the brass looking like new on the outside and mostly clean on the inside with only some very light staining on some casings where at least the stains look "brassy". And that's miles better than the crusty stuff that was left by the dry media. With rifle brass, which I do deprime first, the insides come out as shiny as the outsides. Also the stains I get are only in the deeper revolver casings. 9mm and .45acp come out bright and shiny inside and out and look just like new.
These days wet tumbling with stainless pin media is all the rage. And I don't doubt at all that it does a better job. But if I can get 80 to 90%% of the same cleaning results as the SS pin provides in 1/4 to 1/3 the time (tumbling times seem to be listed at around 45 minutes to an hour per batch. I've been using a 15 minute cycle) and not need to deal with cleaning out the pins I feel that's a good trade off. Plus I don't need to deal with rinsing or other tricks for removing the pin media. And if the outcome is that my handgun brass has some slight staining left inside the deep .38Spl and .357Mag cases then such is life.
I do know that I'll never go back to dry tumbling. I might need to wait for the cases to dry but at least they can do that by themselves once I've rinsed and laid them out. And any water I miss goes away by itself instead of still being in the cases if I didn't shake them out well enough.
But the choice of how to clean brass seems to be as personal and full of emotion as which solvents and oils to use on our guns. So look around for more opinions and check out some You Tube videos and decide for yourself.
Even I'm not locked in. As a closing note I'm starting to load more black powder cartridge stuff. And the black powder residue is FILTHY! ! ! ! And the stains it causes don't seem to want to wash away even in the US cleaner. So I may find myself setting up a modest SS pin tumbler setup yet. But for my general brass cleaning needs I'm still going to stick with the US cleaner.
Lots of the sponsors on this site will sell you Can-Pro or Berry's plated projectiles. They work great and will not generate as much lead exposure as jacketed will.
Stick with CCI or Winchester primers. Never used Federal because I heard they are more volatile. Sellier and Bellot were giving me some problems so I will not be buying them again.
I agree with the earlier comment regarding the Lee die. Lee makes a specific under size die called the "U-die" that may save you lots of time and money. It will also help eliminate the possibility of set-back which can cause a catastrophic failure of your firearm (and injury to yourself). I switched to one because I couldn't get my Hornady sizing die to work right and haven't had any problems since.
As for powder....there are too many to list and depends what your goals for reloading are and what projectiles you are using. The only thing I would recommend would be to avoid the niche powders you see out there like: Vit 3NXX, Autocomp, and Power Pistol to name a few. Most of them are geared towards shooters who are striving for some other goals that are not relevant to you like making major PF in IPSC or functioning properly in a race gun. However, since extensive powder selections can be hard to come by, you might not have a lot of choice.
Stick with CCI or Winchester primers. Never used Federal because I heard they are more volatile. Sellier and Bellot were giving me some problems so I will not be buying them again.
I agree with the earlier comment regarding the Lee die. Lee makes a specific under size die called the "U-die" that may save you lots of time and money. It will also help eliminate the possibility of set-back which can cause a catastrophic failure of your firearm (and injury to yourself). I switched to one because I couldn't get my Hornady sizing die to work right and haven't had any problems since.
As for powder....there are too many to list and depends what your goals for reloading are and what projectiles you are using. The only thing I would recommend would be to avoid the niche powders you see out there like: Vit 3NXX, Autocomp, and Power Pistol to name a few. Most of them are geared towards shooters who are striving for some other goals that are not relevant to you like making major PF in IPSC or functioning properly in a race gun. However, since extensive powder selections can be hard to come by, you might not have a lot of choice.
Thanks guys this is really helpful! I will be switching to a sonic cleaner in the future and I only deprived and sized so I could familiarize myself with the press. I hate making mistakes that could have been avoided. The casing I have are not very dirty inside so the cleaning is going quickly.
I am going to see if I can find more ClAys powder today and bullets. CCI primers is what I have used before so I will stick with them.
I am going to see if I can find more ClAys powder today and bullets. CCI primers is what I have used before so I will stick with them.
You can use Clays however, it was designed as a shot shell powder. It is very fast burning and if you look at the Hodgedon reloading centre, it produces lots of pressure without a lot of velocity relative to other offerings. Considering you are loading for a pistol 1.that has a history of going kaboom (youtube: Glock Kaboom) 2. you are new at this 3. you are loading for a round that is considered high pressure to begin with, I would look into something else.
Also, look at the recommended powder mass that you use for Clays. The max load is 3.5gr. I'm not sure what the density is, but there may be potential to double or even triple charge your round which would be very bad!
Good advice. I started out reloading 9mm with LongShot, just because an experienced reloader told me it was a fairly forgiving powder and it's pretty fluffy so you can easily spot a double charge. Did some reloading with Titegroup and I have to be looking right down the inside of the brass to check for proper charge (eg no charge or double charge). I've since standardized on N320 which is a very fluffy powder as well - fills over half the case, so easy to eyeball a proper charge as it goes through my XL 650.
