First time reloading

S

Singed

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I reloaded my first 10 rds of 38sp tonight and I found it a little stressful but also fun.
My first load is 5.5gn of n350 with campro 158gn jacketed bullet with remington primers these will be fired from a Ruger 77 357 I plan on reloading 357 as well

I have a couple questions, I am using lee dippers and a hornady scale, the dippers were only dropping about 4.8ish gn so I topped them up to the minimum start load of 5.5gn is this ok or should I just do one scoop and not top it up?

The manual calls for a min length of 1.437 mine are running about 1.438 to 1.440 is a little longer ok ?

Last question which might be a little dumb whats the best way to clean up the little bits of powder I had a very small amount on the bench and floor which I wiped up with a damp paper towel , is the a better way of cleaning it up and should I worry about a few pieces of powder on the floor or bench?

Thanks for any help with these question
 
Singed, as a beginner, you are doing it right! If the book says 5.5 gr as a starting load, top up your Lee scoop to 5.5gr. some rare times, less that recommended starting charges can be problematic.

Pne way a too light load manifests itself in a revolver is to lodge a bullet in the barrel. If you are experienced in shooting light loads, you may notice the different recoil and muzzle blast - no muzzle blast! but if you trip the trigger again, as in DA speed drills, you may dump a second round into the essentially obstructed barrel. jacketed bullets are more prone to do this than lead.

Your COL should be good. The minimum case length is to guard against seating too deeply - which causes smaller case capacity, and therefore higher pressure with the same powder charge. Seating a tad long will still cycle a .38 special in a .357 cylinder - as in it won't protrude and jam against the forcing cone - but again, taking this to too great an extreme would result in much lower pressures, poor consistency, and maybe stuck bullets again. I am not familiar with either your powder nor bullet, so I can't comment on how critical this may be, but I would think a few thou long would seldom be a problem.

There is no real reason to shoot jacketed bullets in .38 Special, a good cast bullet delivering all the possible terminal effect within the velocities generated at .38 Spec, at less cost, but I have never had any luck casting a bullet for .357 velocities. I have seen the side profile of a SWC at the fifth hard cast bullet out of a stout .357 load!

As for cleaning up spilled powder, best not to spill it on carpet! Otherwise, a wee brush or, as you suggest, a damp paper towel will clean it up nicely. Like any other craft, neat and clean contributes to a better end product. I would never leave a gun in a dirty cluttered gunshop, and it is good to keep your loading area clean and neat as well. Lots of booboos arise from haivng several cans of powder on the bench at the same time. Keep all powder off the bench, until charging cases -or charging powder measure - then open the one powder you will be using, place out in plain sight on the bench, use it, and then return un-dispensed powder to the can, and close the can put it away from the bench, and y voila, there is one major source of boo boo eliminated, simply by procedure.
 
Singed said:
I reloaded my first 10 rds of 38sp tonight and I found it a little stressful but also fun.
My first load is 5.5gn of n350 with campro 158gn jacketed bullet with remington primers these will be fired from a Ruger 77 357 I plan on reloading 357 as well

I have a couple questions, I am using lee dippers and a hornady scale, the dippers were only dropping about 4.8ish gn so I topped them up to the minimum start load of 5.5gn is this ok or should I just do one scoop and not top it up?

The manual calls for a min length of 1.437 mine are running about 1.438 to 1.440 is a little longer ok ?

Last question which might be a little dumb whats the best way to clean up the little bits of powder I had a very small amount on the bench and floor which I wiped up with a damp paper towel , is the a better way of cleaning it up and should I worry about a few pieces of powder on the floor or bench?

Thanks for any help with these question
Click to expand...

Little bits of powder will eventually become a bigger problem.
Especially when someone runs a vacuum cleaner over the spot you have been reloading at.
Add a few dropped live primers and things get interesting real fast.
As for you reloading practice of dipping and checking the weights do as the book suggest.
Eventually , you may progress to a progressive stage and those charges do not get weighted
for every pull of the handel.
But, I think ykkid has covered more than my comments.
Tight Groups,
Rob
 
Reloading is lots of fun. Wait till you get to 44Mag (24gn of H110) and 50 (42gn of H110). Get a good scale.
 
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