By Duane Thomas Polymer-coated bullets have become quite popular among handloaders, since they’re generally less-expensive that jacketed bullets, and avoid any of the negative issues than can attend firing bare lead bullets. However, loading coated bullets does require a bit of attention to detail, especially when adjusting the case mouth expansion die. An important part…

By Duane Thomas If there’s one area in which many handloaders’ final product, re: autopistol rounds, could be improved, it’s in crimping the case mouth. The case mouth must be expanded to accept a bullet, then after the bullet is seated, the flared case mouth must be smoothed back down, otherwise the oversized case mouth…

By Duane Thomas At our reloading machine’s case-flaring station, we need to expand the case mouth to accept the bullet considerably more with plated bullets than we would with jacketed or hard cast lead. It would be impossible to overstate the importance of this. Of course, with harder and/or jacketed bullets we don’t really like…

By Duane Thomas There are two sorts of malfunctions that typically occur in the Winchester Model 92, a lever-action "rifle" chambered for pistol cartridges. They both relate to cartridge overall length. These are (1) failures to feed, (2) double-feeds, i.e. two cartridges coming out of the magazine tube instead of one. The Winchester Model 1892…

By Duane Thomas As you get into reloading, occasionally you’ll hear people refer to “carbide sizing dies.” What the heck does that mean? I’ll give you the technically correct definition, then the practical definition. The technical definition is that carbide is “a compound composed of carbon and a less electronegative element.” For all practical purposes,…

By Duane Thomas “Old West” lever action long guns chambered for pistol cartridges operated through two basic systems: the elevator/push rod system, with the latter piece sometimes called a follower rod though not by me (Henry, Winchester Models 1866 and 1873) and the shell lifter, sometimes called a shell carrier though also not by me (Winchester…

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…

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…

​Okay, you’ve got your cases sparkly-clean and are now ready to introduce them into your reloading machine. But wait! There’s still one more preparatory step, one more thing you need, to do the job right, and that’s case lube. This is a liquid lubricant that, when you apply a thin coating over the cases before…