By Duane Thomas
There are two errors, when it comes to the amount of gunpowder we’ve dropped into a handloaded cartridge’s case, that we never want to experience, the squib and the double charge. The former refers to putting together a round of ammunition with no powder. At best this will lead to a bullet…
By Duane Thomas
It’s important to realize, when I say “hollowpoints for handloading,” I’m referring to loading pistol ammunition for accuracy, not handloading for self-defense. I’m a “handloads for practice/match use, factory ammo for carry” kinda guy.
With that out of the way, why might we choose to handload hollowpoints into our practice/match ammo? There…
By Duane Thomas
In common with many of you, I’m sure, I have spent a considerable amount of time struggling over accuracy problems with plated bullets. In this article I will address one very particular concern: the thickness of the plating.
According to the friendly folks at plated bullet companies – and even non-plated bullet…
By Duane Thomas
In 9mm which, in common with most handgun shooters, is what I mostly shoot these days, there are three common bullet weights: 115, 124 and 147 grains. There are also two commonly accepted sorts of recoil we can strive for through handloading, if we’re competing in any sort of sport where the…
By Duane Thomas
A lot of people these days kind of turn their nose up at loading bare lead bullets, instead going for jacketed, plated or coated. Partly this is due to concerns over lead poisoning due to inhaling lead-laden smoke after firing, but a large part of it is the huge amount of time-consuming,…
By John Kleespies
I started competitive shooting with a Gen 2 Glock 17 that patterned like a shotgun, so (like many newbies) for a cool minute I achieved my accuracy via volume. As soon as I had the pennies saved, though, I transitioned to a Single Stack .45acp that I shot to the point of…
By Duane Thomas
Over-crimping, i.e. applying more crimp to the case mouth than is necessary or desirable, will deform even jacketed or hard cast lead bullets, degrading accuracy. With plated bullets, given the fact they have an extremely soft lead core, that’s even more likely to happen, Bear in mind the plating’s relative thinness compared…
By John Kleespies
I’m currently in the process of building a new .308win rifle and went to Lapua.com for some new brass. There, I discovered that they have two offerings for my rifle: “.308win” and “.308win Palma.”
Curious, I reached out to Lapua to learn the difference between the two types of brass, and I was informed…
By John Kleespies
Let’s say that “I have this friend” who was doing a bolt-action build that might be viewable at my website, CloverSpear.com. The last part to arrive was the Zermatt Arms action, and so when it showed up, he excitedly rushed to get the 8oz Timney HIT trigger installed. And, of course, the…
By John Kleespies
I’m currently researching a new .308win load for a rifle that I’m building, and in the process I discovered that there are actually two .308win brass choices offered by Lapua: “.308win” and “.308win Palma.”
When I asked Lapua what the difference between them was, they informed me that the brass is identical, except that…
By Duane Thomas
Many people choose plated bullets to handload, since they cost less than jacketed but don’t cause barrel leading like bare lead. Problem: most people can’t load such bullets so they shoot accurately. Simply using the same procedures we can get away with, when using jacketed bullets or even hard cast lead, and…
By John Kleespies
A handheld chamfer and deburring tool is a double-ended tool that looks like Flash Gordon’s rocket ship. Or… rather… Dr. Zarkov’s rocket ship, to which Flash availed himself. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call it Flash’s ship from here on out…
The pointy end of the rocket ship is used to remove burrs from the…