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



 







 







Trial Run of the 300 AAC Blackout and I GAINED ANOTHER FOLLOWER, WOHOO!!!!

     My followers are just like customers, they are the most important part of a business, but also to a Blog too, so I would like to take the time to welcome my newest follower, BadgerMedic to the Mess. I didn't see that you had a blog of your own, if you do, please let me know. I will make my best effort to respond to your comments and contrasting points of view. I own a small business, college student, father of 2 boys, husband of JUGM and probably, soon-to-be Little League Coach maybe, so bear with me.



Well I took the day off, not because of the Super Bowl like most other MAROONS, but JUGM and I both had Dental appointments for an exam and cleanings. I came out with flying colors, JUGM, well.....

{I will be sleeping on the cough tonight for this, but C'mon, you all laughed.....}

 



Anyways, I decided to make up a few more 300 Blackout cases to make the total count at 100 cases. I decided to only load up 5 rounds and take them for a spin. Here is the load data used:

Bullet weight,Brand,Style: 125 grain Speer, Spitzer

Powder weight & brand: 17.1 grains, IMR 4227

Primer: Winchester small rifle

Case: Lake City

Case length: 1.365 (Max trim length: 1.368)

O.A.Length: 2.072 (min: 2.060)

 

Using my Lee hand priming tool, loaded up the cases with the primers, then used my electronic scale to fine tune. Min load was 16.5 and max was 17.7. Just like a wise man said, put it in the middle, can't go wrong.

 

 

Next step, into the one arm bandit and seating the bullet.

 

 

Bullet seated

 

Next step is to check the Over-all length (O.A) to make sure it meets my mark of 2.072.

 

Once that was complete, I like to add a little more crimp to the rounds, so I slapped the LEE Crimp Die in and gave it a light crimp.

 

 

Now like a kid, I packed my Blackout up and headed to the local range to try them out. The rounds fired good, no bulging primers, cases, or tears in the casings. Everything looked great. I didn't stay to long at the range, the ventilation system was down and looked like a forrest fire in there so I got out of there without my target.

 

 

Once home, I said, what the hell. Put the Sizing die in and sized, trimmed and deburred the rounds I shot today and they went into the tumbler with the other rounds I made today. Since our group has a camp-out planned for later this month, I will make up some more rounds because I know DUKE has had a big interest in obtaining a 300 Blackout barrel to make him one and we have talked abit about the 300 blackout, also I know he is itching to shoot one and critique it. I know STEPHEN will want to shoot it as well to contradict DUKE's review. Next round for the 300 blackout will be transferring the dies over to my LEE Progressive press to really crank some rounds out. Best so far on it is 400 rounds a hour loading .223.

 

 

Til next time....

 

 

Senior