Stun Gun Show, Cranking up the Presses and 5 years

     Saturday, JUGM and I dropped the kids off with the Outlaws and headed to the gun show that was in town. Let's just say it was practically a stun gun show full of junk. It seemed as every isle you walked down there was 2 vendors setting off a stun gun. Hell, one vendor with a serious sales look on his face suggested JUGM purchase a stun gun for her safety. She turned to him and said "Son, I carry a gun" and laughed as we walked away. One old man in a wheel chair was trying to sell a Bushmaster AR for $1800. We saw him before we left and he was writing on his sign, make offer. He must have been hurting for money, but hell, I'm not hurting for an AR, have too many of them, but they are investments for the future, they don't fluctuate like precious metals or stocks.   

As JUGM and I sat watching the DVR Saturday night, since there wasn't anything worth a shit on TV, she said to me, "Why don't you teach me how to reload"? I said, ok we will start tomorrow. So before I went to bed last night, I went out and calibrated my manual powder dispenser for 300 Blackout as I wanted to show her how to start out with the basics on a single stage press. It was around noon when we got started and I explained how to figure out how many grains you need use in each round, so grabbing load data sheets and showing her how to read the sheets, identifying all the components such as bullet type (125 grain Spitzer BT and IMR 4227 powder)) we came to a powder measurement of 17.1 grains. Using the LEE powder dispenser, we put 17.1 in and place the casing on the press, place a bullet on top and the marriage was complete, minus a factory crimp that came after we loaded up 30 rounds.

 

   Next we head over to the progressive press I have set up for 5.56x45mm or .223 Remington for you civilians.

 

    I again explain how this press works, this press only has three stages. I do all my priming via a hand priming tool. I do not trust a press to seat primers. IMOP, you a playing with fire using a press, you just don't get the proper feel of the primer seating in the case and take a chance of destroying the primer of having it go off. Here I am before the football game.

 

  

 

I ended up with 293 rounds primed and ready to go so we set out to running the press. I usually stop for a few moments during a reloading session to QA my settings, usually between 10-20 rounds. Today we were using a 55 grain FMJ BT with Hodgden H4198 with a minimum of 19 grains to a max of 21grains. Well we loaded at 20 grains with an expected velocity of 3038 f.p.s. After an hour and a half, we were done and the product is.

 

    The next step in JUGM's learning process will be the depriming, sizing, and deburring of the casings. See, you always start with the best part of reloading to keep their interest, then you teach them the dirty side of the work.

 

   Today was the 5 year anniversary of my mother passing. It sure as hell doesn't seem that long ago and I still miss her every day. Here is a pic of her when she was 18 in Southampton England.

 

 Senior