08rangerdan's reloading and casting logs

[08rangerdan]

I'm fairly new to reloading and my purpose of this log is to interest other new hobbiests into reloading, and to essencially keep all my questions, progress, recipes, and techniques I learn in one place. Im also looking for any knowlegeable reloaders to post their techniques, and ideas to help make my learning curve easier.

Finally I calmed down and thought out what I wanted in my reloading gear. Its very easy to go over the top with this stuff. There is just soo much available. For any beginner the single stage units are going to be the best dollar and most convienient stations available. Your decision will essentially become what is easily available to you and what also has good product support. These single stage units allow you to focus on each stage of your reloading. They are also fairly compact and fit the bill for a recreational reloader. Personally I cant justify a progressive kit. I prefer to take my time with each stage and produce a smaller batch of perfected ammo. Another thing to consider is the construction of the press. Many are of aluminum construction and use a 'c' shaped frame. Depending on the size or calibre you are loading, those c shaped frames can be distorted. The Hornady single stage press has a solid frame, with support in the front and rear to promote proportional stresses on the press. Often presses will come in kit forms and include many of the required items in the kit. This is why Hornady won out for me with their Lock-&-Load Classic kit. This kit will do very well for any pistol calibers and also doubles for rifle cases.

The kit included;
-Press frame
-all metal powder drop (comes with rifle insert/rotor only!, needs pistol rotor to drop smaller powder loads)
-GS-1500 Scale, works great for the cost but lacks in some ways. (review below)
-hand priming tray,, works very well
-The Hornady Reloading Handbook,, great info!
-powder trickler
-One Shot spray case lube,, it works but really dry lube
-3 lock and load bushings included,, will need more for each die set up if you dont remove them from your dies setups
-de-burring tool for chamfering cases
-loading tray for rifle and pistol cases,
-powder funnel,

Requires;
-dies
-shell holders,, per calibre
-pistol rotor for powder drop if you intend to load pistol.. $40

On top of the press I've acquired more gear to set up my bench. For anyone wondering if sonic cleaners are worth the money,, they really are! I was very doubtfull that they would do such a great job. Be aware, sonic cleaners clean the inside of the cases beautifully with just a few cycles. It also cleans primer pockets effectively, but usually with help of a brush or q-tip before the wash. A tumbler does NOT clean inside of cases or primer pockets, tumblers simply polish and are completely cosmetic. I feel a sonic cleaner is a necessary piece of equipment. I picked up an inexpensive hornady cleaner for under $60, and it works beautifully and does a bunch of brass efficently.

I'm going to lightly cover my casting equipment. Currently I do my finished casting in a lyman electric furnace. It also came in kit form like my press. It was lymans master casting kit and comes with their 4500 sizing press, the pot, dipper and ingot mould, different lubes, and the lyman casting handbook,, very nice to have

soon after I got my casting equipment, I felt pretty set up. now I'll begin to get more technical in my following posts..

Pictures and more updates later

 

[08rangerdan]

i'll run through a quick idea of the press and my method of doing 9mm.

my early stage starts with cleaning up some spent brass casings. the best reason to own a sonic cleaner! but it really isnt necessary. Im more or less concerned with removing the powder residue from inside the casing. To do this here I've used medium steel wool and spun it inside each casing for a few revolutions, quickly removing the residue. if you need to do this a couple hundred times,, fingers begin to hurt.. so a cleaner is your friend.

next is to just slightly chamfer the case mouth, you should only do this once or twice in each case lifetime.

set up your sizing and deprimimg die per instructions. its not difficult.. and deprime and size each case.

Removing residue from primer pockets, brushes and cleaners are available. usually q-tips and steel wool work well

opening the case mouth with the flaring die to recieve a bullet. set the die up per instructions, easily done.

Hand prime each case, watching primer orientation!

pour and measure each load, take time and care. some powders dont drop as well as others.. spot check often and recalibrate the scale often.

NOTE: GS-1500 scales;

Presentation of the unit is as good as you can expect. it comes with a decent metallic tray, 100g calibration weight, fully backlit, and good storage case with magnetic flip lid.I consider myself a fairly precise reloader, and I like my drops as consistant as possible. I measure every load I drop. I find this unit takes about a half hour of use to warm up before it begins to drop 'consistant' loads. Great scale for the money and I intend to keep using it. But it wasn't uncommon for me to drop 100 9mm loads then spot check a couple to find a substantial variance and then redo all my loads.You really gotta pay attention to your initial pan weight and keep checking. Take time with this unit and not rushing the drops has been able to create very consistant ammo

finally seat bullets to specific depth, set up die according to directions. These loads are for my Beretta 92fs, 1.09 OAL using a 115gr hornady xtp with 5.5 gr of power pistol,, gun functions flawlessly. but will be shooting cast lead very soon.

 

[08rangerdan]

casting.. keeping it simple and fun.

to sum up the complications, I've come to realize when selecting ww alloys is to simply crush each weight with a pair of side cutters. The point here is, if its soft its lead and if it hardly detents its likely another alloy. Steel is easy to spot and is usually identified by FE, the zinc weights are usually identified with ZN, but not always from my experiences. Side cutters made quick identification of every piece. The ratio of lead to ZN is usually low. Per 50 pounds of mixed weights I had 2 ZN weights. Steel was more familliar to see but even they were few and far between.

I came across a couple free sources of lead ww. Commonly aquired lead from scrap yards will cost anywhere from 25-50 cents a pound, and usually a mechanic will ask for 20-25 dollars for a 5 gallon bucket,, I wouldnt pay any more then that.. Ive gotten lucky and found a few mechanics that let me have a bucket or 2. I've also melted down some soft lead sheeting from a roofing company, all into seperate 1 pound ingots. My prefered and perfected method is fairly simple. I would begin sorting the alloys, separating lead from steel, ZN, and garbage. Then I took my dirty lead to the burner on my bbq and melted it in a cast iron fry pan. I used household candle wax to flux the liquid lead and then skimmed the garbage off the top. I repeated the skimming a couple times till I felt I had a clean melt. I then carefully poured the melt into the ingot mold to create more manageable pieces to melt indoors with the lyman pot. Starting with clean lead is really nice to work with inside.

When a batch of clean ingots makes it to the electric furnace, you need to determine what kind of caster are you.. For me I like to make a day out of it lol. I turn my pot on in the morning and cast 50 then walk way and come back later on. Letting the melt sit unattended for extended lengths of time allows the surface to oxidize and certain components of the alloy will become seperated and sit on top of the melt..This is particularly a problem when casting with a very hot melt..sometimes necessary when using aluminum lee moulds like I have been starting with. The oxidants give you a hard time in many ways, (sticking to the dipper, lack of tin produces poorly filled out bullets, hardness issues, etc..). What we need to do when this happens is reduce the oxidants back into the alloy. saw dust is a very good reducer, by simply taking a weak hand full and putting it into your melt and mixing it around will bring your alloy back to a managable state. different woods produce different level of effectiveness. Ash wood or any hard wood dust works best. leave the burnt dust in your melt. Flux the surface with wax or oil to bring the burnt dust to the surface but leaving the dust on top of your melt helps reduce future oxidization from returning. Simply flux when you need to and reduce as necessary to keep the melt consistant.
heres a resource;
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chapter_4_Fluxing.htm
a good read for any reloader, lots of great info on this site

Im currently casting bullets for 9mm using a lee 120gr TC mould, easy to use but your mix does need to stay reletively hot.
It is necessary to smoke these moulds with a dirty flame to help them fill out,

sooo i got some bullets..

Hardness is another factor, too soft or too hard can get you into a mess. Most ww casting wont give you issues though, reletive hardness I've found is no less then 10bhn. Wheel weights are all I use to cast, maybe ill add 1 or 2 parts of the pure sheet lead to soften up a melt but this set of bullets were reading 14bhn, which is just fine for pistol or low velocity rifle. 22-24bhn is better for high velocity rifle. To achieve the higher levels of hardness it is necessary to 'quench' your freshly cast bullets. The sooner you get the bullet to the water the better. You want the lead as hot as possible and the water as cold as possible to achieve maximum hardness. Some claim to be able to achieve a 30bhn reading after quenching ww alloys. When I find my source for that claim, I will post it. After the dip, sizing will technically remove some of the case hardening. Some prefer to cast the bullets then size them. After they will bake them in the oven for a couple hours at the highest temperature possible then quench them after. I'm not that motivated for the extra step. When I begin to produce rifle bullets ill explain how I work around this issue.


The lee hardness tester is another interesting contraption.. its essentially everything I imagined it would live up to be. difficult to manage, and not overly accurate by itself. the biggest flaw is the handheld microscope scale. It is very difficult to accurately hold it in place to determine correct identification.

the ball detenter die does work as promised, and is easy enough in itself to use. but something had to be done to steady the scope. my attempt was to modify an old microscope that was laying around in the closet. it was a well aged old metalic scope used for some school program from back in the day, i picked this one up years ago for a couple dollars at a yard sale. I tore apart the lenses and removed the internals. surprisingly the pen scope is very close in diameter as the bottom lens mount on the based scope. i retained the top lens cap and opened up the cavity to accept the diameter of the pen. I also replaced the table of the scope for something without the light hole in it. with a bit of new paint i came up with this..

works like a charm!

 

[DrNick]

Lookin good Man!

If I make a suggestion though: Don't smelt lead with your BBQ. You want to keep the lead (and other associated crap that comes with raw wheel weights) FAR away from where you prepare food. Go buy a $50.00 propane burner and set it up in another corner of your yard I know...it's more cost but you appear to have purchased very fine quality equipment and this is the health our you and your family.

Happy casting!

Doc

 

[WCTHEMI]

Thanks for starting this thread, as someone who is thinking about starting reloading, I think it should be a valuable resource.

 

[Paulinski]

Lookin good Man!

If I make a suggestion though: Don't smelt lead with your BBQ. You want to keep the lead (and other associated crap that comes with raw wheel weights) FAR away from where you prepare food. Go buy a $50.00 propane burner and set it up in another corner of your yard I know...it's more cost but you appear to have purchased very fine quality equipment and this is the health our you and your family.

Happy casting!

Doc

Agreed....

Looks like you are doing everything else correct.

 

[SHPRAC]

x2 looks great. One step i add for myself is a concentricity gauge. Hornady makes a great one.

Just yet another step you can add to help a little.

Tony

 

[08rangerdan]

Agreed....

Looks like you are doing everything else correct.

I agree. I may take a few risks with my casting. But its just the inconvenient feature of tight spaces living in a condo. I do take care to keep the lead off the grills and no spillage off of a cookie sheet I use as an underlay for the bbq casting. I also clean my bbq well before I use it for any cooking

I'll make more update later on. Happy reloading

 

[stevebc]

Just curious- why the concern about how clean the inside of the cases are?

 

[SHPRAC]

Just another thing you can do to help with accuracy. If there is build up inside the casing on one spot, and the rest is cleaner it could cause pressure spikes.

 

[08rangerdan]

Thats very true, debris in the cases does not help your ammunition perform any better. I'm more or less concerned with debris getting into my die sets, and I just preferred to start with clean components. Just cleaner to handle and makes It easier to spot defective brass.