Shot my first reloads - was fun

[Beegwally]

I bought the Lee turret press and hate the scale. Anyway I have a new scale coming. I just zero it before every weight check.
I read and read and checked and tested everything about 4 times. I made blank bullets and chambered them and measured before and after to ensure I had an ok crimp, checked overall length. Like it at 1.150 OAL my self imposed tolerances are + or - .003

The first rounds I loaded using the disk measure .37 seemed a bit light coming out about 3.8 or 4.0, hard to tell. I made 5 and took to the range. Shot them and all worked ok but felt sorta weak...like poof instead of bang.

Went home and put in the .40 disk and it appeared to throwing 4.3 - 4.4 ish. I decided to go with that and made 100 rounds. Took them to the range on monday and they worked awesome. tight groupings, nice snap, consistent.

so the end of the day it was

4.3 grains of titegroup powder using .40 Lee auto disk measure,
124 grain plated Berrys bullet
OAL 1.150 + or - .003

Was cool but I admit was a bit nervous. Gonna make more tonight

 

[BLACKBRIAR]

Glad it went well. Just be careful of the "poof", You wouldn't want to leave a surprise in your barrel for the next bullet. I hated my lee scale as well.

Welcome to the addiction.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

great stuff, and well done!

i load the same, though i go with 124 frontier bullets (got 5k of the EE) with 4.0 gr of tightgroup. likely more accurate then i. and i think mine are at 1.100" but i don't remember.

Glock 17.

what are you shooting them out of?

 

[Beegwally]

Using a CZ Shadow

Yeah when they went poof I made sure there was a corresponding hole in the target

 

[Powderfinger61]

your hooked....welcome to the joys of reloading

order in bulk quantities and have fun shooting your own ammo

post some pics of your targets if you get a chance

 

[buttman]

Man I wish I lived close enough to a range to load 10 rounds and go shoot them and go again later in the day! I have to make a good 30 minute drive by highway to get to my range when traffic *isn't* a joke.

Glad you had fun. I started with 9mm myself recently but the past few weeks I've been doing .308 stuff and making a really precise operation of it and it's a load more fun than handgun ammo. You have it to look forward to next.

 

[tigger]

Every clay broken, every tight group and every hunted dinner seems to come with more satisfaction with reloads, worth the frustration of learning, welcome to the club, no you will not save money in the end, just shoot alot more!!

 

[lacesout]

just reloaded my rounds ever today.9mm in a hornady lnl ap. drove 10 minutes to the range and blasted 50 off to test. Reloaded another 225 after. I ran out of clean cases or i would have loaded more. I was using 115gr rn berry, federal primer and case, 4.4gr win 231. Didnt test accuracy on paper. Shooting plates down like it was no tomorrow tho! So fun!!!

 

[Skinny 1950]

Glad it went well. Just be careful of the "poof", You wouldn't want to leave a surprise in your barrel for the next bullet. I hated my lee scale as well.

Welcome to the addiction.

If you go on to the Pistols and Handguns forum there are horror stories about squib loads and what happens if you chamber and fire another round with a bullet stuck in the barrel. With re-loading constant vigilance is important to keep it safe. Over-charging and squibs are the most common problems... both are serious.
I have had 4 or 5 incidents since I have been re-loading... all of them could have been a lot worse than they were.
To lighten up a bit... re-loading allows you to shoot a lot and also experiment with different combinations to suit the application.

 

[Suputin]

Good job. It is nice to see someone capable of working through the process all by themselves. It seems today most are not capable of such without posting inane and blindingly obvious questions to anonymous groups on the Internet.