A Look At Our Reloading Practices

Of all the questions we get, the most popular involve reloading. We’ve produced a number of articles and videos that focus on certain aspects of reloading, but our audience members have been requesting an end-to-end overview of our practices. By popular demand, here is that overview.

Many of our practices have been influenced by Glen Zediker’s book Handloaing for Competition. While there have been many books written on the topic, Glen’s book explains the rationale behind each practice. In our opinion, his approach teaches handloaders how to analyze what they are doing and make adjustments versus adopting rote practices and changing things up haphazardly. It’s the classic Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle popularized by Demming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA. As you can surmise, we highly recommend his book which can be found here: http://zediker.com/books/handloading/hlmain.html

This article outlines our practices in chronological order starting with fired brass. In cases where Ed and Steve have adopted different practices, we’ll call them out. This article outlines our current practices which may change over time, so be sure to check back periodically.

Be sure to wear safety glasses, particularly while priming. Always consult a reputable reloading manual. If you have questions, stop and seek advice from a more experienced reloader.

Fired Brass

We take our fired brass and clean with crushed walnut media in a Dillon vibratory tumbler. They come in two sizes and we recommend the larger one. Walnut media can be obtained at sandblasting supply or pet stores. Where you get your media will be dictated by convenience.

To keep dust down, add a teaspoon or two of mineral spirits. Your media will also last longer if you throw in a few used dryers sheets, paper towels, cotton cloth, or equivalent as they will attract dirt. Replace them with each cleaning session. We’ve also found that it is more effective to drape the sheets over the outer edge of the cleaner. If you just throw them in, every now and then they can get tangled up with some of the cases.

Some prefer to fine walnut or corncob media as Steve does. In Ed’s experience, the finer media can clump when removing sizing lube. Steve likes to add a bit of polishing compound for a brighter finish. Ed is satisfied with the results of naked media. Avoid any additives containing ammonia as it will attack the brass.

Whether you remove the primers from the fired brass is up to you. Ed leaves in the fired primers in as they will be removed during the sizing operation before the second cleaning cycle. Steve prefers to remove his primers.

You can tell if your media needs replacing if it leaves a black “bathtub” ring in the tumbler. Some of our more eco-friendly/miserly audience members report success washing their media and reusing it. We cannot comment on the effectiveness of this technique, but it has piqued our interest.

You can read our article on the topic here: http://www.65guys.com/a-look-at-brass-case-cleaning/

Annealing

The next step involves annealing the brass. We’ve used propane in the past, but have since moved to induction annealing. We’re quite happy with the results provided by the Annealing Made Perfect machine. The new AZTEC mode ensures that brass is perfectly annealed – it completely eliminates the guesswork.

You can read our in depth article on the topic here: http://www.65guys.com/weekly-gear-update-annealing-made-perfect-machine/

Sizing Lube

The next step involves the application of lanolin spray lube. You can purchase this lube from Dillon or roll your own as illustrated in the following article: http://www.65guys.com/brass-case-resizing-lube/

You don’t want to apply too much and you want to make sure the alcohol completely flashes off. 10-13 sprays is enough for 300 pieces of brass. In the cooler temperatures of a Pacific Northwest basement, wait for at least an hour. Some audience members speed up the process by heating the brass in a fruit dryer, over, etc. Just be careful when heating the brass as you can easily overdo it and destroy your brass.

Sizing Brass

We prefer to size our brass in a die without an expander ball. Instead, we set the neck tension by using a Sinclair expander mandrel. Ed prefers the .002” neck tension offered by the Sinclair carbide neck turning mandrels. Steve is currently using .015” neck tension, but you can only get those mandrels in steel if you stick with the Sinclair lineup. While the carbide mandrels are significantly more expensive, they can be used without lubrication just prior to bullet seating.

Using a mandrel does require a separate step on a single stage press. Ed uses a Dillon 550 where so this additional operation does not require any additional effort as it is a progressive press.

Ed has moved to Forster honed dies while Steve continues to use Redding bushing dies. Honing a die results in the brass being worked a bit less while offering better concentricity than bushing dies. Now will the improvement in concentricity mean the difference between a hit or a miss on a steel target? That’s debatable, but it doesn’t hurt to have more concentric ammunition.

If you want to learn more about using a Dillon 550 to load precision rifle ammunition, you can read our article on the topic here: http://www.65guys.com/precision-from-a-progressive-reloader/

If you’re in the market for a progressive press, you’ll find this article quite useful: http://www.65guys.com/a-look-at-progressive-presses/

Removal of Sizing Lube

The sizing lube is removed with another trip to the vibratory tumbler using the same techniques described earlier. Since the primers have been removed, the pockets will be cleaned.

You may have considered the use of a solvent to remove sizing lube. This may work if you have access to a lot of clean inexpensive solvent. If you reuse the solvent and it has enough dissolved lubricant, it will be like bathing your cases in lubricant all over again. Steve prefers to use solvent first and then follows up with a trip to the vibratory cleaner.

Brass Trimming

Next we trim the brass to size. Depending on the propensity of the cartridge brass to grow, some reloaders will trim every second, third, fourth etc. firing. Since we use the Giraud trimmer, it is so fast and easy to trim every firing thereby eliminating guesswork. The Giraud trimmer also has the added benefit of chamfering the brass inside and out.

Now there has been some discussion in the reloading community about whether to trim to minimum length or just below maximum length. There is a belief that brass trimmed just below maximum length will reduce the chances of a carbon ring forming. We prefer to trim to minimum length and have not observed the formation of any carbon rings forward of the case mouth. Things may change as we start shooting more 6mm. We have a Hawkeye bore scope and this allows us to see up close what is going on.

We have also heard that brass trimmed just below maximum length will minimize obturation of the bullet when being fired. Obturation of the bullet can degrade accuracy so the theory goes. We have no way to measure this, but it is an interesting line of thought.

For the beginning reloader, we recommend trimming to minimum length as there are certain hazards associated with “tickling the dragon” and running near maximum length unless you are very consistent in the way you trim your brass and do so with every firing.

After trimming the brass, you’ll want to remove any brass shavings or media stuck in the primer pocket or flash holes. Ed prefers to use compressed air at 100 PSI. Not only does this remove any debris, but it also blows away any ash left in the primer pocket. Wear safety glasses!

Priming

Steve uses a single stage press and prefers to prime his ammunition as a separate step. Ed prefers to prime on his Dillon 550 as it trims on the downstroke and provides excellent feel.

There have been many discussions around primer seating techniques. Some prefer to seat by feel ensuring that the anvil is touching the bottom of the primer pocket. This will ensure proper pre-stressing of the priming compound. This is the practice we prefer.

Others prefer to seat to a certain depth – .005” is a popular measurement. However, if you have a shallow primer pocket you could easily flatten the primer and crack the priming compound. Ed performed some experiments using Lake City and PMC .223 brass. The PMC brass has much deeper primer pockets and seating to .005” below flush meant that the anvils were not even touching the bottom of the primer pocket. With Lake City brass, the primers would bottom out but they would slightly flatten. Ed also observed that different brands of primers have different dimensions particularly when it comes to the protrusion of the anvil.

Here’s one thing that no experienced reloader will argue with: Never ever allow your seated primers to protrude beyond the face of the cartridge base. This can result in mis-fires. In the worst case, this can result in slam fires with semi-autos. With time, you can tell that your primers are properly seated below flush with the tip of your index finger.

If you want to geek out on primer seating, Glen Zediker goes into great depth in his book.

Power Dispensing

There’s been a lot of discussion in precision rifle circles around powder dispensing. While most reloaders have settled on the RCBS Chargemaster, Steve decided to evaluate the A&D FX120-i precision lab scale and you can find his writeup here: http://www.65guys.com/weekly-gear-update-auto-trickler-auto-throw-combo-with-area-419-billet-base/

In Steve’s analysis, the Chargemaster is surprisingly accurate, but the A&D FX120 can be a lot faster. For the beginning or intermediate reloader, you can get excellent results from the Chargemaster and save the A&D FX120 for one of your aspirational purchases.

If you’re using a single stage press you can dispense powder as a separate operation. In other words, dispense powder into all your cases and line them up in a tray. Or you could dispense powder one at a time, but you might be waiting for your dispenser. For practice ammo at distances of 300 yards and closer, you can really speed things up by using a culver type powder measure and not lose much from an accuracy perspective.

If you’re using a progressive press, it only makes sense to dispense power as you are assembling the cartridges. Ed doesn’t find himself having to wait too long for his Chargemaster as he likes to mark each cartridge with a permanent marker when they come off the press. Marking the brass makes them easier to find during matches and different colors can be used for different lots of brass. Perhaps the easiest way to mark brass, is to spin the cartridge by the bullet with the thumb and index finger while the bases rotates in a hole drilled into the workbench. The other hand just places a permanent marker next to the cartridges as it is spun.

Some folks like to run two Chargemaster at a time to speed things up. We’ve noticed that the scales tend to drift slightly, and if you are dispensing from two different units they will drift together and apart over time. We believe better results will be obtained by using a single scale and firing the cartridges in the order of which the powder was dispensed. That way, the powder weight variance from one cartridge to another is of little concern.

Second Mandrel Pass

Ed likes to use the mandrel again just prior to bullet seating. This has the benefit of removing any dings or imperfections and gives absolute assurance of proper neck tension. However, you can only do this if you are using a carbide mandrel as they don’t require any lube.

If you’re loading with a single stage press, the extra pass with the mandrel may not be worth the effort. However, when using a progressive there is no extra effort required to perform this additional operation.

Bullet Seating

We both use Redding and Forster micrometer seating dies. We both prefer the Forster dies for their larger easier to read micrometer. Functionally, they perform the same.

Ed uses a Sinclair concentricity gauge and regularly inspects for runout. Ed likes his loaded ammo to have less than .002” total indicator runout. These measurements are used as more of a diagnostic tool – if the numbers suddenly go up something is not going right and it gets addressed.

Bullet seating is a pretty straight forward task, but there are some additional considerations when shooting a compressed load: http://www.65guys.com/tips-techniques-bullet-seating/

Bullet distance from the lands will vary with cartridge and bullet type. VLD bullets either like to be seated where they are kissing the lands or jumped quite a bit. Traditional tangent or hybrid ogive bullets generally perform well .020” – .050” off the lands. We recommend you avoid seating your bullets into the lands. This can create problems if you need to remove an unfired round – the bullet can get stuck in the barrel and the powder can spill into your trigger disabling it. We’ve seen rifles go down during matches because of this. Seating into the lands can also result in higher pressures. Again, each bullet and cartridge are different so you will have to experiment.

You also want to avoid seating the heel of the bullet below the neck shoulder junction. Doing do can created problems if a “doughnut” forms. You’ll want to use a reamer pattern that doesn’t force you to seat below the doughnut. You may run into this problem with some of the newer high B.C. bullets.

Conclusion

While we both take slightly different approaches to reloading, our practices do not differ materially. In other words, both of our approaches result in perfectly acceptable ammunition. Be sure to check back as we will periodically update and refine our approaches.

Editor: Ed Mobley (ed@65guys.com)

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