First round of reloading....GREAT SUCCESS!!

Great Crouton

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Well....hello there, addiciton number 2. I thought it was fun buying all the stuff to get reloading. Turns out it's 10x the fun actually assembling it and 20x the fun shooting it. Wow....what a rush that was. I'll admit it, I was quite nervous pulling the trigger on the 1st rnd. However it went boom, there was a hole in the target and it cycled the next round. Awesomesauce!!

So anyways...had a question. The entire reloading procedure went pretty much as expected but did have 2 questions:

1) When I took the hopper off the press (Lee turret press) I noticed a fair bit of powder was sticking to the throat of the hopper where the powder comes out. I did wipe the whole thing down pretty good with an un-used boucne sheet to reduce static but didn't want to wipe any spot that would come into conact with powder. I'm using Alliant Power Pistol which is a pretty fine flake powder. Is this to be expected with this type of powder? Better way to do this? Perhaps a better powder? I'm hoping IMR stick powder measures through it better.

2) The crimp die. Followed the instructions to a "T". The instuctions state to back out the knob that contols the amount of crimp. Insert a finished cartridge and turn in adjusting crimp screw until you feel it touch the case, back out the cartridge and adjust the crimp screw in a half turn for a light crimp and a full turn for a firm crimp. I set it at halfway for a light crimp. I couldn't really tell if it was crimping though, should I apply a firmer crimp?


Thanks all! REALLY looking forward to doing some more!
 
Nice work!

1) You could try wiping down the outside and neck of the powder container, that may help in the future. If there is powder left in my powder measure, I just wipe it out with a bounce sheet...

2) To see exactly how much crimp you're getting, you can put a band around the mouth with a sharpie. Run it into the die and it will rub the sharpie off where the case is making contact.

Good luck!

SL
 
What cartridge are you reloading? Some, such as 9mm and 45 acp headspace on the case mouth, and require a taper crimp that really ends up on readily visible, but it still works.
 
I have been using a lee pro 1000 for well over 20yrs. When your press is on the down stroke and the poweder is dropping I give the powder disk a little rap with the handle of a small screwdriver, usually ensures any powder sticking the the walls drops into the case. I generally use powders like bullseye and win 231.
 
Is Bullseye a little easier to get through the meters? I figured when I've gone through the 2 pnds of Power Pistol I have, I'll maybe try something else out that flows a little better. I only selcted it as the Lyman manual I'm using indicated best accuracy with the bullet I was using. Bullseye and Unique also seem to be popular.
 
1) When I took the hopper off the press (Lee turret press) I noticed a fair bit of powder was sticking to the throat of the hopper where the powder comes out. I did wipe the whole thing down pretty good with an un-used boucne sheet to reduce static but didn't want to wipe any spot that would come into conact with powder. I'm using Alliant Power Pistol which is a pretty fine flake powder. Is this to be expected with this type of powder? Better way to do this? Perhaps a better powder? I'm hoping IMR stick powder measures through it better.


I had a pretty bad static sticking problem with powder in my brand new Redding powder measure. The dryer sheet trick didn't work. So, on the advice of a post in another forum, I rubbed the internals of the measure down with a healthy dose of graphite powder. Presto, no more static.
 
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