New to Reloading On a Budget

[PugslyCat]

Back at Thanksgiving I bought the Classic Lee Loader kits (aka Whack-A-Mole) in .38 special and .45 ACP. These kits seemed like an economical way to get started in reloading. To do it again I would have only bought one or the other, gone through the process, and evaluated whether to get the second kit, move on to a regular press, or give up reloading altogether.

After Christmas I finally gathered components, a few more tools (dead shot mallet and caliper) and literally hammered out a few rounds.

I sized and primed a fifty once fired .38 special cartridge casings, but only finished ten rounds with powder and bullets. It seemed prudent to test fire those to see how they went rather than replicate some mistake on all fifty rounds at once.

This past Saturday I finally got back to the farm where I could test my handwork. The first five rounds flew out of my Charter Arms Undercover as planned. It was chosen as the test platform because it was my cheapest and most expendable pistol, just in case something went wrong. Everything went BANG as expected instead of KABOOM as I feared it might. The next five rounds went in the gun, and it wouldn't **** for some reason. A little investigation showed that I hadn't seated one of the primers correctly, thus stopping the cylinder from rotating. It was removed and the other four went off just fine.

I was shooting offhand at a reactive metal target from 50 feet with a snub nosed revolver, so don't have any grouping data. It probably wasn't good, due to the gun selected and my own poor marksmanship. I really need to make the reloading work so that I can afford more practice rounds.

The faulty round was disassembled and the components recycled. A second, more carefully examination of the remaining sized and primed cases caught two more that needed the primers seated a bit better, but they were at a state of construction where doing so was quite simple. With the confidence that comes from a 90% success rate, I finished the other 40 rounds. Maybe I'll get them tested early in February.

My thoughts on the Classic Lee Loader:

• The system may seem a bit crude, but it makes rounds that work.
• One quickly realizes that pounding on bullets with a mallet is just wrong, but you get over that. I'm told the really touchy part is when setting the primers, as one will pop off from time to time.
• It takes a lot of pounding to get the cases into the sizing die. I started sizing cases on my coffee table, but it was quicker and easier once I moved to working on a board against the garage floor.
• The possible recipes are limited by the fact that powder is measured by volume rather than weight with one dipper supplied in the kit. Getting a scale or the comlete Lee Powder Measure Kit will open up a lot of possibilities.
• It's slow, but I have a lot of free evenings and am only shooting a box or two of ammo each month it is fast enough for my purposes.

Between finishing those first ten rounds and testing them I decided to try a little bit more of this reloading. Due to most suppliers being sold out of any presses or complete reloading kits within my budget, I have ordered a Lee Reloader single stage press and die set. I don't know that it will be much faster than my current Whack-A-Mole setup, but it should be much quieter. I'll continue to use the Classic Lee Loader priming tools, recipes, and powder measure I have on hand for a while.

 

[tinashubby]

Sounds like you are hooked! I loaded 150 rounds of 9x19 on my Lee turret yesterday, now the problem is getting more components. Picked up 600 primers over the last two days, shop will only sell 300 per customer at a time. I've only got about 50 .355 bullets left, but about 250 of .358 left so I guess I'll load some .38 specials now...
And it was a COLD day at the range today! Took a friend from work who just got laid off, we fired a bit of everything-.38 and 9mm on the handgun range, then went to the rifle range and shot ruger 10/22, remington 700 in .243, and his evil black rifle. Then over to the shotgun field so that I could miss a few clays with my 12 guage, and my buddy showed me up bad. Oh well, by that point I could no longer feel my fingers...

 

[Crixus]

Paul, I have loaded many a .38 round in the past with a trusty little Lee Loader. I see you bought an additional single stage press. Before I read that part of your post I was going to suggest the portable "nutcracker" Lee press to both re-size your used brass and to set your primers. That really cuts down on some of the whacking and the occasional primer ignition.

I found the Lee Loader to be quite slow but adequate to support my 30-40 round a week habit with my Chief's Special. I used the same sized yellow dipper filled with Red Dot powder for each load, so it made things pretty simple.

If you are married, the constant whacking with the Lee Loader might be met with some annoyance. Just so you know.

 

[tinashubby]

Paul- be sure to put a drop of oil on the ram and linkage of that press before each use and it will last a long time. I think you will be loading much faster with it,if you do each step in batches of 50 or so, and most of your time will actually be spent setting up your dies. One thing you will need if you don't already have is a caliper.

 

[PugslyCat]

TinasHubby - Yea, I'm hooked. My goal is to make it affordable to support a 50-100 round per month habit with a couple of pistols and pistol caliber carbines (evil black rifle wannabes) I have. The numbers aren't at hand, but by going low budget to start with it doesn't take that many boxes of ammo to at least break even.

I really looking forward to reaching the point that I can experiment with different powders and charges.

The first ten rounds were made without any careful measurements. The bullet was just seated to the crimp groove. It seemed like a good idea to get a caliper and do some sanity checks before firing them off, though. The bullets were seated about 0.01" low in the first batch, but I went with it. Subsequent batches have maintained the correct overall length.

That was a good tip to oil the ram and linkage. The on line reviews of the single stage press were very mixed but I suspect that is the difference between people who maintain their equipment and those that don't. Another difference may be whether the user is just doing a few pistol rounds like I am or attempting to do a lot of large rifle rounds.

Crixus - I had ordered the single stage press and die set on Friday, then on Sunday had stumbled across the Lee Hand Press at Cabelas on Sunday. I had actually been wanting one of those instead of the single stage Lee Reloader press. I split my time between an apartment near the office and my farm, so the portability will be handy.

There is no way I could have used the Lee Loader while my wife was still alive. Between the noise and the idea of pounding on bullets with a mallet there is no way I could have convinced her it was a reasonably safe process. As it is, the cats go into hiding every time I do a few rounds.

 

[Crixus]

Crixus - I had ordered the single stage press and die set on Friday, then on Sunday had stumbled across the Lee Hand Press at Cabelas on Sunday. I had actually been wanting one of those instead of the single stage Lee Reloader press. I split my time between an apartment near the office and my farm, so the portability will be handy.

There is no way I could have used the Lee Loader while my wife was still alive. Between the noise and the idea of pounding on bullets with a mallet there is no way I could have convinced her it was a reasonably safe process. As it is, the cats go into hiding every time I do a few rounds.

Yeah, Paul, that Lee Hand Press is the nutcracker I spoke of. Was very fond of mine.

You can likely make your single stage press portable also by first bolting it to a rectangular piece of 3/4" plywood and leaving enough free plywood area that you can use a couple of c-clamps to clamp the whole contraption to some bench or table edge at the farm. Several ways to go, but you get the picture. Happy shooting.

 

[the_ogre25]

TinasHubby - Yea, I'm hooked. My goal is to make it affordable to support a 50-100 round per month habit with a couple of pistols and pistol caliber carbines (evil black rifle wannabes) I have. The numbers aren't at hand, but by going low budget to start with it doesn't take that many boxes of ammo to at least break even.

That is the problem with reloading, you start out wanting to shoot the same amount as before you started. I know I ended up shooting about 3 to 4 times as much ammo so it is pretty much a wash as far as savings.

 

[PugslyCat]

Bryce - That 50-100 round per month habit is actually one I want to acquire. Last year I only made it out plinking a couple of times using less than 150 rounds of pistol ammunition.

One of my personal goals is to get back to the level of skill I had a decade ago or even improve upon that. To do so requires hitting the range much more than a couple of times a year. I haven't done that in part because I couldn't justify that much ammunition and partially a lack of interest. Reloading brings the price in line with what I can justify and there is the added interest of seeing how different loads perform.

 

[PugslyCat]

The bench mounted press and dies from Midway USA came in while I was out sick the last couple of days. This weekend I will probably use the hand press and dies to finish the box of .38 cartridges that I sized and primed with the Lee Loader last weekend.

Last weekend a neighbor gave me a few hundred spent .38 shells that he doesn't have a gun for. I deprimed them with the Whack-A-Mole and washed them last weekend. I'll probably size them this weekend and try to pick up reloading components on my way to the farm next weekend.

Last weekend I also picked up the Loadbooks manual for .38 special. Lee die set also came with a bunch of recipes. Between those and the various manufacturer web sites I should be able to choose from a much wider array of bullets and be able to come up with an appropriate load.

I have decided to forego buying the .45 dies for now and make my next purchases additional components and powder handling equipment.

 

[PugslyCat]

Crixus - I had indeed thought about making the Reloader single station press portable. I hadn't thought of installing on a plywood plate that is in turn clamped to the bench. That sounds better than what I had in mind.

I have a disused, much abused, and quite expendable end table that is small enough to throw in the car. If it was going to be steady enough I was going to mount the press directly to that. Whether that works or not depends on exactly how hard I have to pull the lever on the press. I wouldn't think that pistol ammunition would need enough fource to tip the table.

 

[the_ogre25]

Are you close to the Davenport area of Iowa Paul? I just saw you are from Iowa and I go to a public outdoor range just east of there.

 

[PugslyCat]

I split my time between an apartment in central Iowa and my farm in southwest Iowa. Obviously I have my own range at the farm, but am thinking about joining the Izak Walton League of Ames so I have a place to go when I spend weekends up here.

 

[Kentos]

I split my time between an apartment in central Iowa and my farm in southwest Iowa. Obviously I have my own range at the farm, but am thinking about joining the Izak Walton League of Ames so I have a place to go when I spend weekends up here.

You farm guys with a range out back make me green with envy! I can't imagine the feeling of making a few rounds and testing them immediately!

 

[PugslyCat]

You farm guys with a range out back make me green with envy! I can't imagine the feeling of making a few rounds and testing them immediately!

I'm looking forward to being able to do that. For the first time I loaded a few rounds I made a few and waited for my father to come by before testing them. As I told the neighbor, I wanted somebody to be around that still had fingers to dial 911 if things didn't go well.

 

[PugslyCat]

Last weekend I picked up a powder measure from Cabelas. A scale, priming tool and a couple of other tools from Midway USA arrived yesterday. I guess that has me set up to do some real reloading as opposed to the powder scoops and mallet I've been using. A couple of more die sets and I'll be set up to crank out consistent ammunition at a slow and stead rate.

 

[the_ogre25]

That is a decent scale, I have the same one and used it for a few years. Do you have a beam scale to check it against or just going with the digital? If just using the digital try to remember what the pan weighs and check it before weighing a charge as mine drifted around a little.

 

[PugslyCat]

Bryce - I haven't tried the scale, yet. I assumed it would have a tare feature to take care of the pan weight. I'm further guessing that the tare weight will need to be adjusted out at the beginning of every session and periodically throughout the session when the scale doesn't zero between measures anymore. My experience with beam scales back in college chemistry class was that I could zero one out at the beginning of lab and it would stay in adjustment for hours.

I kind of wish I had gotten a beam scale primarily for the same reason that I wish I had bought a dial caliper instead of a digital caliper. Starting a reloading session and suddenly not being able to weigh powder or measure OAL due to a dead battery is a show stopper. Running for a replacement battery introduces at least an hour delay of game, if Wally World actually has it in stock. Going old school just seems to be the no hassle solution, but the battery powered stuff was what was in stock while I was shopping.

The biggest benefit of the electronic scale seems to be it's small size and thus portability. That's a bonus when I am constantly on the move between two locations and want to be able to reload at each of them.

For now I am weighing every charge, but my understanding is that when using the powder measure I got last weekend I need to weigh powder charges to calibrate it and then test weigh random charges throughout the batch. That should help stretch battery life and speed up the reloading process.

 

[PugslyCat]

Goals for the next couple of weeks:

1. Reload about a dozen rounds tonight - I'm just a few short of a full box for the range this weekend. I'll use the hand press, Lee Ram Prime, and plastic scoop powder measure that came with the Lee Loader. I will probably weigh charges with my new electronic scale just to gauge how consistent I'm being with the scoop.
2. Complete the portable bench that Crixus suggested this weekend - It's just a matter of mounting the single stage Lee Reloader press and powder measure to a waste piece of counter top I have on hand. I'm thinking about gluing felt to the bottom to protect whatever surface I clamp it to. It would be done already if I hadn't left my lumber and tools at the farm last weekend after a deck building project.
3. Reload the next few hundred rounds by next weekend - I'll use both presses and the Lee Perfect Powder Measure for these, so I'll be completely away from the whack-a-mole system and doing some big boy reloading. The hand press works great for decapping, resizing and priming. The bench mounted press provides more stability for using the powder through belling die and powder measure. If I can get a spare shell holder I'll seat the bullets with the hand press immediately after charging so as to avoid any potential spilling, otherwise I'll charge the whole batch and then seat the bullets with either press.
4. Buy .45 ACP dies and components by next weekend - Up until now it's all been .38 special, but the goal is to branch out. My neighbor has a 1911 and some childhood reloading experience, so this may be the beginning of getting a little more sociable with my new hobby.

Does anybody have any advice to offer on how I should prioritize getting a tumbler? Up until now I have been soaking my spent cases for several hours in a mixture of vinegar, water, salt, and dish detergent with occaisional agitation. It's a process I saw in a YouTube video. I'm guessing I really should be striving to get to the point that I'm tumbling my brass, especially after it has been fired a few times. The soaking isn't getting the cases completely clean even after the first firing.

 

[the_ogre25]

Yes, the scale does have a tare function. I check the weight when I lift off the pan to meter out my check charges to make sure that it has not drifted. I check every tenth charge.

I do not have Lee dies so I do not have the powder through feature. I use loading blocks to keep the shells upright and move the block under the powder measure to speed up the powder filling.

I think a tumbler is a good investment because clean brass is easier to size and it is easier to check for defects when inspecting. Berry's tumblers get good reviews, but they are not taking any new orders right now. I have a used smaller model Lyman that I got used and tumble with a 50/50 mix of corncob and Lizard Litter (fine ground walnut shells).

Edit: Post some pics of your .38 Special rounds. I think a .357 revolver is going to be my next gun purchase.

 

[tinashubby]

Paul- sounds like you are moving along! I didn't see mention if you had loading blocks, if not you might wanna get a couple. I assume you will be doing your rounds in batches, since you will need to change dies. It is a good idea to put all of your charged cases in the loading block, and look in them with a flashlight to compare powder level consistency between the cases to ensure you have no double charges or squibbs, before seating your bullets.
As far as weighing charges goes, I use a Lee Auto disk which charges through the die during the mouth belling stroke. I weigh every tenth case. Variation usually does not exceed 1/10 grain and is acceptable for .38's. I have a beam scale, and the same electronic scale as you, they work equally well, the electronic is a smidge faster, but I am not in a rush anyway.
Also just a heads up, lubing your cases reduces the amount of effort needed on the press lever, even though it isn't required with carbide dies. I just started using Imperial Die Wax and find it very convenient. I don't think I'll go back to using the non-lubing technique.