By John Bibby
An associate of mine was bemoaning a recent uptick in ammunition prices. This person claims to be an ardent 2A proponent and has recently transitioned from one career path to another. The career decision has greatly improved his joy index, but his checking account has not quite recovered. Those things take time,…
By Duane Thomas
The progressive reloading machine is, in essence, a little mini-ammunition factory, that completes every process necessary to take empty shell casings and other components and put them together into rounds of loaded ammunition. One of those processes is adding a precise amount of gunpowder into every casing.
We will leave aside the…
By Duane Thomas
It will greatly decrease the amount of force necessary to resize casings (thus produce less wear and tear on your reloading machine, and your joints, over time) if you can spread a thin film of case lube over the exterior of the cartridge casing before resizing. At the same time, however, we…
One of the best parts about reloading ammunition by hand is that it saves so much money, due in large part to the fact that we can pick up free brass off the ground. One of the worst parts about reloading, however, is the fact that we have to pick up the free brass off the…
Some firearm terms are so misused by the media that even better-than-average shooters can become confused by what they actually mean. “Point blank” is a prime example, having been turned into the newscaster’s mark of evil, rather than being used as what it actually is: an aimingconcept that every hunter and handloader should be familiar with as they pick their riflechamberings, develop their loads, and set their zeroes.
If one were to define the term as it is used by every…
When it comes to choosing bullets and powder for hand loading ammunition, there tends to be two schools of thought: slow and heavy versus fast and light.
While this concept applies to any sort of loading situation – whether it be rifle or pistol – I'll use a United States Practical Shooting Association competition round as a simple example.
A…
Minimal muzzle flash is a desirable trait in self-defense ammunition or ammunition used while practicing for self-defense. Most self-defense shootings take place at night, or otherwise in low light. While having low muzzle flash doesn’t really matter if we’re shooting in bright light, in dim light, by contrast (pun intended), muzzle flash can leave us…
You will sometimes see, or hear, people refer to what makes cartridge casings work, which is their tendency to return to the same size, or close to it, after being fired as “ductility.” This is false. The tendency of a deformed material to return to its original size and shape is actually called “elasticity.” While it might seem we’re getting…
There is a belief among some people that applying a really tight crimp, so that the case mouth “grips the bullet tightly,” is how we avoid bullet setback as the bullet tip hits the feed ramp while feeding into the chamber. This is false. What actually prevents bullet setback is (1) friction between the bullet and the interior walls…
I try to employ some simple safety rules when hand loading to keep the “uh-oh” factor off my reloading bench as much as possible. One of the simplest and most effective is my self-imposed rule to try to use a powder that loads 50%+ of the case volume prior to seating the bullet.
Why?
1. I always visually check each case to make…
In his book Understanding Firearm Ballistics, Robert Rinker reported that Frankford Arsenal once conducted tests of military M1 ball ammunition by tilting the cartridges upwards (settling the powder to the base) and firing them, then shaking them level (settling the powder to an even distribution) and firing them, and then tilting them forwards (settling the powder towardsthe bullet) and firing them, measuring velocity with each firing. They reported that the highest average velocity occurred with the…
“Squib” is a term that you hear a lot at the firing line, and – while I have seen squibs come out of commercially loaded ammo – it is for the most part a phenomenon found amongst hand loaders.
Outside of shooting, a “squib” is a very small explosive device. Think of the smallestfirework on the 4th of July. It’s the one that makes a little hissing sound and then a pop and everybody shrugs and asks about…