Teach me about reloading..

[Dirtbike]

I'm looking for some load data for 124gr FMJ-RN Hornaday bullets, I was looking through my Lyman manual but no mention of this particular setup, I've got the OAL determined but looking for Min/Max loads, I'm sure it's in the Hornaday book but I didn't get one of those (yet). .... the closest I'm coming to what I need is 124gr jhp using Unique powder MIN Charge 4.5 / MAX Charge 5.0, with a max OAL of 1.169, any suggestions @Chris Timmerman or @Shawn Agne ?

 

[Dirtbike]

Got my first loads done today with some instruction from a friend of mine that's been into reloading for awhile, loaded about 150 rds of 9mm 124gr fmj @ 4.7gr O.A.L @ 1.136 with CCI #500 small pistol primers, man this thing moves quicker than I can lol, I've got 300 more rds separated according to head stamp and inspected waiting to hit the press, I'll be busy for a little while loading 9mm (about 3500 rds left to go then I'll setup for .45acp and be on that for a bit


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[Dirtbike]

Well in the interest of full disclosure seeing as this is an educational thread; a lesson that I learned today was in bulged brass. .....I was out test firing my first batch of reloads this afternoon and all was going well until it wasn't. ....started shooting a fresh magazine of 10 rds (after 20 mags of 5 rds ea) first round fired without any issues and the casing ejected, next round goes into battery but I noticed the slide did not fully seat, I kept the muzzle pointed down range and tried to pull the slide back but man that thing wasn't budging for nothing, needless to say it cut my range time down a bit today, I got the weapon home and was able to work the slide back (in a safe location of course) got the live round out of the chamber and disabled it, now that it was safe I started inspecting the casing and noticed a hell of a bulge at the bottom 3rd of the casing, (I checked all of my loaded rds after this and there were no issues, must have been the one that got away I suppose) anyways I guess the point of this is and the lesson that I've picked up today is to be a bit more prudent in doing a final inspection on my brass, I'm glad this was a lesson that could be learned rather painlessly that's for sure, (see pics below, you can visually see the bulge at the lower third of the casing) something else that I noticed was some burning on the wall of the casing, I'm thinking I need to adjust my crimp a bit more, my OAL is set good so I wasn't worried about that portion of the process, all in all my groups were nice and tight setting at 4.7 grains of Unique powder with 124gr hornaday fmj bullets. View attachment 648 View attachment 649 View attachment 650 View attachment 651 View attachment 652 View attachment 653

 

[RangerTim]

Perhaps you didn't run the casing all the way down in the resizing die? That would explain the bulge low on the case.

 

[Dirtbike]

[QUOTE="Chris Timmerman]Perhaps you didn't run the casing all the way down in the resizing die? That would explain the bulge low on the case.

[/QUOTE]
I thought that as well, I went and ran a few cases through a little bit ago and they seemed to be cycling good, maybe I didn't get a full stroke on that particular case, it was at the beginning of my tray and was one of the first rounds made so it's a pretty big possibility that could of happened

 

[Shawn Agne]

Fairly certain that is what you did.

 

[Dirtbike]

Doing a little 5.56 case prep tonight, I gotta leave town for work again for a week on Sunday but wanted to get a bit of a start on this 5.56 brass that I have, the Tupperware container isn't even scratching the surface here,..... got the stainless media and the wet tumbler rolling along.......think I'll load up some more 9mm tonight while the tumbler is doing its thing View attachment 712 View attachment 713

 

[Dirtbike]

While the brass was tumbling I went ahead and loaded a few rounds of 9mm, after about an 2 hrs the brass was done and wow did it come out nice! That wet stainless media tumbling is really the way to go! View attachment 718 View attachment 719 View attachment 720

 

[Shawn Agne]

Glad you liked it Although I see your primers are still in your brass. You really need to deprime the cases before you clean them. That way you clean out the primer pockets. You will want to get a Universal depriming die (RCBS) so that way you don't resize them when you are doing this step.


Sometimes they don't get as shiny as others, this is usually when you overfill the container.


If you really want to be a believer find some old dirty cruddy piece of range brass that has been lying outside in the mud forever. It will look just like what you have when you are done.

 

[Dirtbike]

Yes I Def need to do that, I'm waiting on my dies and tool head , and conversion to come in for 5.56, I was gonna initially set the tool head up to deprime and size, then clean, then trim, I got a little ahead of myself here lol, I Fig I can hit these ones with the hand tool, I'm gonna have to put everyone of these cases on the Swage tool (all military brass) prob going to be a while til I get to loading them lol


Edit: the RCBS Die that your referring to, your though process is that it's better to deprime without sizing then go through the process

 

[Shawn Agne]

Yes. When you size a case there is a lot of stress on the case. Add that to depriming and you have a very hard stroke on the handle. Depriming first takes away that, plus you can then clean the case which gets the primer pocket. I haven't used my primer pocket tool for ages.

 

[Dirtbike]

[QUOTE="Shawn Agne]Yes. When you size a case there is a lot of stress on the case. Add that to depriming and you have a very hard stroke on the handle. Depriming first takes away that, plus you can then clean the case which gets the primer pocket. I haven't used my primer pocket tool for ages.

[/QUOTE]
Good deal! I can see where your coming from here, so let's get on the topic of crimped brass for a min if you don't mind, after the brass is deprimed and cleaned, I would then use my crimp tool to open up the primer pockets, then resize, now are we just taking a neck resize or the whole case?, then trim..... Next question is I've noticed my AR brass on some of the casings has a dent from what I want to say is happening during ejection; will this need to be sized out our is it acceptable to load? We're not talking creases or anything like that but more like a blended dent in the case body

 

[Shawn Agne]

Yes remove the primer crimp, then size (make sure you've lubed the cases). You can then trim, but truth be told I haven't trimmed mine for awhile. If they are somewhere south of 1.760" you will be ok. After a couple firings you may want to check them. Trim length is 1.750" so I'm guessing they are closer to that. As far as the dent don't worry about it. Stuff will get dented on a semi. When you fire the case any dents in the body will get blown out, but probably another dent will be put back in its place.

 

[Dirtbike]

Copy that, I figure to get all this brass prepped and processed first then I'll set up and get them loaded, I Fig to make a couple of different batches to check the grouping then start producing, ya this is all once fired LC brass from my rifles only so I at least know their origin, I've looked all my casings over already and purged the ones that are looking to be in bad shape, maybe take a sampling from each lot that I make and run the case gage on them to check for length, if you don't mind sharing; have you come up with an optimum load and projectile for Semi Auto 5.56 at under 200yds? that's about as far out as I take these rifles, anything further I tend to go to my bolt rifles

 

[Shawn Agne]

55gr FMJs or 52g BTHPs with around 25gr of a lot of powders works well. With the light bullets I like H322 with the little bullets as it meters great.

 

[Dirtbike]

[QUOTE="Shawn Agne]55gr FMJs or 52g BTHPs with around 25gr of a lot of powders works well. With the light bullets I like H322 with the little bullets as it meters great.

[/QUOTE]
I will add this to my notes, thanks Shawn! Just for kicks I went and ran a caliper on a good sampling of my brass and I'm just setting south of 1.750, mostly around 1.74ish granted none of these have been sized yet though, I'm not sure whether to expect any variation after the sizing process but it's something I'll be learning as I go for sure, so far so good as I'm enjoying the hell out of this and am able to shoot twice as much as I was before!

 

[Shawn Agne]

fired cases are shorter than sized cases but if they're once fired you will be fine. Don't worry if they are different lengths. My 1000yd cases for my 280 and 243 aren't the same length and they shoot fine there so for 100yd don't worry about it. I'll look up my M193 load using H322 and 55's and send it to you.

 

[Dirtbike]

Just finished up prepping another batch of 9mm, just letting then finish up in the oven for a bit, the wet tumbling and stainless pins are the cats ass! Had the wife pick up some lemi-shine today, what a difference that stuff makes! View attachment 829 View attachment 830 View attachment 831

 

[Dirtbike]

So I've got a box of both 124gr and 147 Hornaday XTP bullets but am having a hell of a time locating load data for these, I went on Alliant ' s website and the only loads they show are for Spear bullets, I went on Hornaday ' s site with no luck either, my Lyman manual shows loads for 147gr but only in fmj and for 124gr jhp, anybody out here have a manual that they wouldn't mind popping their head into to reference for me? Looking for 9mm load data, I've been wanting to give some jhp's a go and picked up a couple different boxes to see what I like best

 

[Shawn Agne]

While bearing surface does play a part, with the identical mass you could use the load data for the 124/147s you found in the manual. As with anything start low and work up to what the gun likes.