Reloading Automation

Onlyest problem now - is finding the dies.

No 30.30 tools to be had anywhere...

Just looked, Midway had some odds and ends:

Lee Pacesetter 3-Die Set 30-30 Winchester $30.49 - Available - Add to Cart

I noticed yesterday while looking for/downloading new reloading catalogs that LOTS of stuff was out-of-stock, back-ordered, sloow-boat... Good luck finding what your looking for, you need it ;-)

Bless you, Leon! But you cost me a bunch of money today... :)

I called and spoke with a very knowledgeable young lady named Britney. They did indeed have the dies - in stock! Lee dies, but ok, that's what we'll start off with.

So I ordered those and added a small starter kit (that was also in stock!).

I think I can get brass, bullets and primers locally. At least they were on the shelf here yesterday.

500 rounds of brass seems like a reasonable supply to keep on hand?

I read the Hornady book the other day and came to understand that this really isn't rocket science. Good engineering attitude will pay off, but it's not all that difficult.

I'm still curious how the necking works out, but have a local guy who says he'll be glad to help me learn the ropes here.

I want to thank all of you guys who have added your knowledge, and occasionally wisdom, to this thread. It would have been a lot more intimidating otherwise.

Thanks

Richard

If you are not loading to get the nth degree of muzzle velocity than it is a pretty routine procedure. Remember that millions, of "rounds" were hand loaded routinely before the advent of cartridge weapons :-)

Might try some of those. But mostly target plinking and whatnot...

Tuesday I received my Lee LoadMaster progressive press for .223 Remington. Adjusted and tested, weighed several powder charges, etc. I reloaded a few cartridges last night and ran a small batch tonight, now I have 126 reloaded cartridges plus 80 purchased. The 126 was the number of brass I had ready to reload...

Some of my brass has crimped primers, I need to ream or swage them to the correct shape. I have some other brass that has the Berdan primers. I saw some info on the internet about drilling Berdan primers out to accept regular primers.

Potential for further automation includes an escapement for case feeding and a bullet feeder.

RogerN

Lee is ok for starter gear..but it wont hold up to thousands of rounds of ammo

Cast steel...RCBS, Lyman, Pacific etc etc are what will hold up over a couple million rounds

Gunner

Thats a very good setup. Any questions you have about reloading..call me

805-732.........5308

Gunner

Good luck with that. Berdan primed cases get sold as scrap by me. Just not worth the time and effort to do all the work to convert them. It's FAR more work than just drilling them out.

You should try running some of your reloads through your semi-auto before going any farther. Story...

Years ago when I was ambitious I loaded up some .223 ammo with a recommended recipe. They didn't work so well in a Mini-14. You would get off one shot and then a jam. What was happening was the shell was being extracted while the powder was still burning, leaving powder debris in the chamber. The next shell would jam in this debris. I'm sure that same recipe would work okay in anything but an auto-loader but I learned this the hard way...

Auto-loaders can be pretty picky on what you feed them :(

Watch your crimps too, auto-loaders really man-handle their ammo...

Id STRONGLY suggest you do NOT drill berdan primers and attempt to reform them unless its a "last resort". There are some issues that can cause a weapon to frankly..blow up ...when doing this.

I you need .223 brass...its available on the net cheap enough (still) or I could send you several hundred.

As for crimped primer pockets..there are two methods that work well enough. The first is simply using a case mouth deburring tool and with a turn or 3..cut off the burrs. The best way..is to buy a RCBS/hornady/wlson etc "primer pocket swage" and use that.

Or make your own out of 7/8-14 all thread and machine one as an exercise.

etc etc

Ive used the reamers on drill press..and have used industrial cutting tools with better results on the drill press.