In reloading there are several basic components. One of those components is the gunpowder, often just referred to as powder. The gunpowder used for a given caliber differs in a few manners. These are commonly broken down to burn rate, density and particle shape.
Reloading without a mount between the table and the press is something I did for at least a dozen years. I figured the double layer plywood top combined with the mount’s base were quite strong. And they were. But strong and rock solid are two different things.
In precision reloading, this is a step that helps some people get noticeably tighter groups. This is not a process to bother with if you are reloading 9mm for a 3 Gun competition. The pistol targets are almost never more than 25 yards away and some slight variance of bullet length or weight is not…
Storing gunpowder, even fairly large quantities, is not nearly as dangerous as we might think, because modern smokeless powders are not explosives, they’re flammable solids. When unconfined, they burn, generate little pressure, and leave quite a bit of sooty residue. When contained, for instance when inside a cartridge casing, which is surrounded and reinforced by…
A common question among new handloaders is, “How long will my primers last?” The answer is that there are a lot of variables affecting that, and no definitive answer. But basically the answer would be, “If you do your part, pretty darn long. Decades, certainly. If you don’t do your part, considerably less.”
Ideally you…
In “When checking ammunition to ensure it makes power factor (pf), a number derived based on the bullet’s weight and velocity, the most important measurement, of course, is the average velocity for a multi-shot string. Arguably the next most, and still critically, important number would be the standard deviation (SD).
Renowned trainer Clint Smith famously says “Two is one; One is none.” This means odds favor one of anything being carried to fail, so take this into consideration! If you begin your adventure with only one of an item, be ready to have none.
As I said in my article on Dillon’s Primer Flip Tray, “I’m not fond of primers. Those slippery devils have been a pain to work with from my reloading beginning. Spill a box and forever crawl around on the floor, recovering a max of 97 out of 100.”
I actually do hate handling them but…
When Cowboy Action Shooting began taking off, a lot of shooters wanted to fire guns with Old West period-authentic black powder. They just didn’t want all the problems that came with doing that (more about which shortly). The time was right for a superior alternative, that gave the feel and experience of shooting black powder…
As I have mentioned, during the birth of my ammunition-reloading sojourn, I bought a single-stage press and standard carbon steel dies. Pretty much everyone did. When I realized the thrill of lubricating cases wasn’t, I bought a sizing die with a carbide insert. A whole new world!
Priming compound, the material with which the primer cup is filled, is pressure-sensitive and ignitable, in other words, you hit it and it burns. Priming compound is a complex blend of chemicals designed to accomplish different things, but for purposes of this discussion we’re interested only in what makes the compound pressure-sensitive and ignitable, which…
I’m not fond of primers. Those slippery devils have been a pain to work with from my reloading beginning. Spill a box and forever crawl around on the floor, recovering a max of 98 out of 100.
Early on I realized I needed more than the two primer pickup tubes included with the press (small…