Back into Reloading......

I think Cortina is kind of an idiot, but maybe gun eccentric is better. I learned I can't get away with just neck sizing on my own, long before youtub. Not having the funds to buy a bushing die, and bump die, and not wanting more things to worry about I stuck with turning fl dies out to fit the chamber and haven't looked back. It is functionally better than neck sizing from what I can tell.

I do have a Lee collet die and did use it for while, and I feel the same about it, it's a great idea and I think it works the brass less than traditional dies. The only problem I ran in to was after a few firings I would need to bump the shoulder back, buy a bump die, and now I am doing in two steps what a FL die does in one, but I was not using a progressive at the time either. Maybe I should revisit this since it really would not add any time to my rifle process these days. I also wonder if the collet dies could eliminate the need for neck turning? I may have to try that since I now have one chamber that requires neck turning for thicker brass.

I doubt I invented this but I have not seen them for sale either, and this isn't my best example, but I came up with this after I started using cartridge gauges. It's not like something froggy invented, its far less useful, but I can measure my sized cases so I know they are within .003 or less of a hard closing bolt. For this gun it works out to exactly 1.630, or the same as a go gauge. Factory chambers are usually a few tho longer. But does it make difference? If it does I doubt I could measure it.


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I clean rifle brass because I can see the carbon, and the religion says it will scratch my expanders and such. And perhaps puts more garbage down the barrel, and the doctrine says thou shalt. In the days when I was using dry media and the little vibratory cleaner, yeh might as well not do it because it did nothing for carbon build up.

I tried to Viht 565 yesterday in the 243, at 43 grains and 44 grains it produced SDs around 12. All other charges produced SDs in the mid 20s. I love loads that are round numbers, and that's typically where I end up. Very seldom do I believe that 44.2 is better than 44 or whatever, I like rounding. For me, 1/10 grain load adjustments need to be made at the bench on that particular day to be effective.
 
39 grains of H5227 and a 300gr hornady head at saami length. Hopefully didnt over crimp. See the RCBS roll crimp section of the seating die rolled them in a bit after crimping about 1/2 of them with the lee collet crimper.

Got 25 loaded after a 10 year or so break from loading. Nick is pretty rough this past week, so might load some more tomorrow in 308. Going to start with saami length and load a few in 1 grain increments up with winchester 748, got AA2230 as an option to it.

See how I do with them, I also have reloader 10x, imr3031, and AA1680 to burn up. Might buy another gun in a caliber that likes all this powder. aa168 is good for 7.62x39, tempted to get some dies for that caliber again. Used to reload those the most. Reloader 10x is good with 223 in light heads. imr3031 is good for 308 and 30-30 got those already.
 
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