Yes, I do...

Sure. Here we go, left to right, back row:

.223 with 50g V Max, .220 Swift with 60g V Max, 6.5x55 with 155g Lapua, 7mm Remington Magnum with 160g Sierra, .300 Savage with 150g Sierra, .308 with 168g Match King, .30-'06 with 180g Partition, .348 Winchester with 200g Hornady, .375 H&H with 300g Sierra, .458 Winchester Magnum with 500g Hornady, .45-70 with 400g RCBS gas check bullet and smokeless powder @ 1,900 fps (for Marlins and such), .45-70 with Paul Jones "Creedmoor" 540g over black powder, .40-70 SS with 300 grain RCBS over black powder, .40-70 SS with 400 grain BACO over black powder, .45-2.4 with 400g Lyman over black powder, .45-2.4 with 500g Lyman over black powder, and .45-2.6 with 550g Hoch over black powder.

Front row, left to right:

.357 mag with RCBS 150g, .44 Special with Lyman 250g Keith, .44 mag with RCBS 250g Keith, .44 mag with 300g LBT, .45 ACP with 200g RCBS, .45 ACP with 230g swaged bullet from Speer (the only lead bullet in the photo I did not cast), .45 Colt with 250g Lyman over black powder, .45 Colt with 270g RCBS, and .45 Colt with 300g LBT.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1670108221.jpg

Jeff-thanks!

It has been my understanding that shooting cast lead makes for a lot more cleaning. True or not?

If you are shooting "store bought" bullets yes, that is absolutely true. We simply cannot buy decent cast bullets. There are a few reasons for that.

First and foremost, the alloys used in commercially cast bullets are universally far too hard. This is driven by the handling requirements of manufacturing, packaging, and shipping. They have to be hard enough to not get deformed through all of this, including just minor dents or nicks on their bases and driving bands. Any of that will hurt accuracy.

Cast bullets are absolutely dependent upon either swaging down when entering the bore, or obdurating ("bumping up") when they enter the bore. We generally try to use cast bullets that are at least .001" over groove diameter, .002" is even better if it will still chamber. Soft lead alloys are easily swaged down or bumped up when entering the bore, providing a gas seal that prevents leading. Hard bullets, while they will still swage down (they have to or they wouldn't go down the bore), will never "bump up". In either case, they will not seal as well as a softer bullet.

Leading occurs when there is gas leakage past the bullet. These hot, high pressure gasses essentially vaporize small bits of lead and deposit them in the bore ahead of the bullet. The passing bullet then irons them in, causing "leading". Leading isn't really caused by the sides of the bullet in contact with the bore "smearing" as much as it is by this blow-by.

Bullet lubricants are meant to mitigate this, since we will never get a perfect gas seal. Commercially applied lubricants have the same problem, for the same reasons, that the lead alloys have - they are far too hard. Too hard to get blown out of the lube groove by those hot gasses, too hard to get squeezed out of the lube groove under acceleration. They simply stay in the lube groove and do nothing. The soft lubes required to get satisfactory cast bullet performance would not survive packaging and shipping.

Bullet shapes are also dictated by manufacturing requirements. Good sharp, square edges on the base of the bullet are paramount in cast bullet shooting. They also help when applied to the driving bands and lube grooves. Well, these sharp edges make it more difficult to drop the bullets from the molds. Commercially cast bullets have beveled bases and rounded driving bands and lube grooves so that they drop easily from the molds. The beveled bases are the worst - they give that gas erosion a place to start, where a good sharp edge helps stop it.

Sometimes these bullets work well enough in lower pressure, "standard velocity" loads in calibers like .45 ACP, .38 and .44 Special, .45 Colt, and the like. Velocities below 900 fps or so, pressures in the under 20,000 PSI range. They will still lead a bit, but not nearly as bad as they will in magnum revolver loads or rifle loads.

With all of the cast bullets I shoot, I only have one gun that mildly leads its bore, and it only does so with really heavy hunting loads. Never with lighter plinking loads. I'll put up with that, because it is a hunting revolver, and I only shoot enough of the heavy loads to ensure it's still zeroed. Even my 1,900 fps "Marlin loads" in the .45-70 do not lead, and cleanup is as easy as with any jacketed bullet.

So, yeah, it's the nature of the cast bullets a lot of guys shoot. All of the commercial ones I have tried have leaded the bore. Not quite so bad at lower velocities, but completely unusable at higher velocities.

I reload all my 9mm competition ammo. I use a Dillon 550C. I buy all my supplies in bulk (I go through a lot of ammo). I buy bullets 3200 at a time, primers 5000 at a time. Powder when I need to. Most brass I get is range brass. I pick up all I can at the end of a match (except for " lost brass" matches). I make 100 rounds in 30 minutes.For me reloading works best due to staying within Power Factor. If you don't stay within Power Factor for the division that you are competing in, you will be disqualified. I chrono several rounds everytime I change bullet and/or powder manufacturers. I do not have much difficulty finding supplies.

P.S. I use polymer coated load bullets. They shoot very clean as far as the barrel is concerned.

Wow, Jeff and everyone. I’m going to have to re-read this thread a few times, there’s a lot here. Thanks.

I saw a guy at the range who was putting the pistol down and retrieving the brass after every shot. I figured he was shooting something interesting, and went over to chat on my way out. I get near and blurt “Wow, is that a Mannlicher?” Sure enough, he was shooting a Mannlicher from 1907. A former Argentine military pistol.

https://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/SM1900/sm1900.html

That pistol fires the 7.63 mm Mannlicher cartridge, a round never used by any other gun. I’m going to guess the ammo has been out of production for the better part of a century. A friend had made him some ammunition by modifying another kind of case, so that’s why he was looking for and saving every last case.

I don’t know how well a 115 year old pistol, with the tiny sights and rudimentary ergonomics of the time, is supposed to shoot. When you’re putting down and picking up the gun with every shot, that can’t help with consistently holding a grip that looks like a squared-off banana. Still, he was doing like a 5” group at 50 ft which I thought was very respectable considering. So we chatted some more. Yeah, he’d been to Camp Perry some.

That’s actually what got me thinking about reloading. But I don’t own a Mannlicher …

Yes, like most of our hobbies, it can get expensive. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1670128171.jpg
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The latest additions and as has already been mentioned, primers, which us to be a penny each have gone way up, when you can find them.

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The vaccine is to load more.

The problem with that is there is always another sub-variant (caliber) out there.

Damn wildcats.

[QUOTE=Racerbvd;11863946]Yes, like most of our hobbies, it can get expensive.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1670128428.jpg

So Byron what are the two twins on the bench? Looks like Dillon 1050's CH or Hollywood Gun shop presses but with the extras its hard to tell.

And more added every year. I have an older copy of Barne's Cartridges of the World (1972). It lists over 1,000 metallic cartridges, centerfire and rimfire. Most are now obsolete, of course, but there remain dozens in "common use" today. The variation is staggering.

At the end of the day, though, how many do we really need, that provide a distinct enough difference or advantage over anything else? There is an awful lot of overlap and redundancy. There are constant efforts to "modernize", many of which simply "revisit". The current man crush the shooting world has displayed over all of the new 6.5 Whatevers is a great example - not a one is better in any way than the old 6.5x55, dating from 1896, and many are inferior.

Manufacturers always try to squeeze a new one in somewhere, in their attempts to sell us new guns. All of the "short magnums" were a recent attempt at this. 20 years on, most are now impossible to find ammo for, while the stodgy old stand-bys (like the .30-'06, .270, etc.) soldier on. The .40 "Short and Weak", the .357 Sig, and other wundercartridges are all dying a slow death while the .45 ACP and 9mm keep on truckin'. This is a tough game, and most new cartridges simply cannot find a gap into which they fit to justify their existence.

I've always advised folks who just want to shoot to go "mainstream", to stick with the tried and true "standards". Ignore the new proprietary stuff, like the new range of Nosler rifle cartridges. There is not a one of them that materially improves on the standard cartridges of similar bore size, except on paper. In the field we will never know the difference. Until, of course, we find ourselves on our dream elk hunt in Wyoming, and the damn airline lost our ammo. Just try to find .26 Nosler in the hardware store in Rawlins, WY, next to the .30-'06, .300 Win Mag, .270 and the like. Ain't gonna happen, and you'll be hunting with the guide's nephew's open sighted thutty thutty that is stocked with a wired on piece of driftwood. I've personally seen this happen.

Beyond the new whiz-bang overly marketed nonsense, we have the oddball and esoteric, often obsolete. These are the province of the hobbyist handloader, the guy who isn't doing it to "save money". It's an interesting pursuit in and of itself, reloading oddball and obsolete stuff, but it's kind of getting into "grad school" reloading. The field here is limitless, only bound by one's determination and inventiveness. My own .40-70 Sharps Straight is a good example of what we have to do once we start plying these waters. Here it is, standing next to and laying down next to a .45-2.4, aka ".45-90". Look at the head stamp. I'm forming brass for one very obsolete cartridge from another almost obsolete cartridge. And no, no one manufactures bullets in the proper diameter. We must cast our own:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1670203104.jpg

In light of all of this, the newest rifle cartridges for which I personally reload, for example, are the 7mm Remington Magnum and the .223, dating from the early '60's. Other than the oddball and esoteric "just for fun" stuff, I prefer to let them "age" a bit before I commit to them. Next newest is the .458 Win Mag and the .308, both products of the mid '50's. From there, they age precipitously. The .220 Swift was 1937, the .300 Savage before that, and the .375 H&H 1912. My most "modern" handgun round is the .44 Mag, from the mid '50's, then the .357 Mag from the mid '30's, the .45 ACP from 1911, then right back into the 19th century.

Cartridges come and go. We do have a proven list of old standbys that will do anything we ask of any cartridge, rifle or handgun. It's best, if one wishes to begin reloading, to stick with these. There is readily available data, components are (relatively, in these days) easy to find, and if you misplace you ammo on an important hunt, you can run into town and buy more.

I have had folks trying to sell me on the new wonder-caliber .30 super. They claim it has the power of 9 mm but more capacity. Nope for just the reasons listed above.

I watched this video on reloading .38 SPL SWC and counted all the ways to screw up. Then I counted the potential screwups that seemed (to me) potentially dangerous to shooter when he pulls the trigger. Came up with mis-measure charge, double charge, seat bullet too deep. Miss any?

I tried to guess at how long it would take to reload 100 rounds starting with dirty picked-up-off-floor brass, using that press, which I think you call a single stage press? I guessed 2 hours if you only ever reloaded that one load, so didn’t have to reset and recalibrate everything. About right? 100 rounds of factory .38 SPL SWC costs around $60, more or less. I’m slowly trying to figure out the dollars and cents of this.

I’m not ignoring the other reasons to reload or not, but the economic part is calculable so I’m trying to calculate it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oYfttMkTmoM&feature=share

Here is a great, high level introduction to handloading from one of the best. Easy to watch, lots of information, starting with the very basics question of "should I?".

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/irC3NuIKDm4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I wandered over the border into Arizona this weekend and wanted to pick some stuff up to replenish without the ID check and fingerprinting.

Went to Cabela's and Bass Pro. All I have to say is unless you're shooting 223, 556 or 6.5 Creedmore you're screwed buying off the shelf.

When I was competing in IDPA I started reloading so I could get the best popular competition loads regarding power factor and lightest recoil.

I always policed and reused my brass. Shooting 9mm in a Glock 34 I always used Precision Delta FMJ 147 bullets, Federal primers and Titegroup powder.

At the time, Winchester white box and Federal 9mm 115 at Walmart was around $9.99-$11.99 when you could get it for a box of 50. My cost for reloading 50 rounds was about $7.00. I probably reloaded 8-10 thousand rounds over the couple years I was competing/practicing.

Thanks for the hard numbers!

My, how times have changed. I just did a quick "back of the envelope" calculation for loading .45 ACP 230 grain hardball on a per round basis, using component prices found on Midway's website. Here's what I found:

Primer: 0.10
Powder: 0.03 (assuming $30.00/pound and 6 grains per load, rounded up from .0257)
Bullet: 0.25 (bulk 230 grain FMJ "hardball")
Brass: 0.02 (assuming 0.35 each, reloadable 15 times, rounded down from 0.02333...)

So, about 40 cents apiece for .45 ACP 230 grain hardball using cheap bulk bullets. As an aside, imagine if bullets were "free" - that's why I cast. Anyway, pretty much equivalent ballistically to Winchester "white box" hardball, which runs about 60 cents apiece.

We can spend a lot more on fancy bullets (up to a couple bucks apiece), and some powders are at $50.00/pound, so we could spend a bit more. But, if we use bulk bullets and one of the older "standby" .45 ACP powders (Bullseye, Unique, Winchester 231, etc.), we can make it happen for 40 cents each. Not a bad savings - 33% (or 50%, depending on how we want to express it).

That's assuming we have the necessary equipment. Again, perusing Midway's site, I found a number of reloading "starter kits" that have all of the necessary "generic" equipment that is required for every caliber, and is the same for every caliber. This includes a single stage press, powder measure, powder scale, re-priming tool, cartridge block, reloading manual, and some way to lube cases for resizing (for cases that require that - .45 ACP does not). These run from a bottom of about $300 to whatever you want to spend, up to $800-$900 or more. Good, serviceable, quality sets can be had for around $400.

Beyond that, you will need caliber specific dies and a shell holder (this holds the case in the press, on top of the ram). A die set for .45 ACP will run about $60, a shell holder about $8.00 (some die sets come with a shell holder, so you might not have to buy one separately).

So, for less than $500, you can have all of the equipment you need to load one caliber on a single stage press. Adding additional calibers will only require a die set and shell holder. Everything else is "universal", and is used across the board.

How quickly will you close that initial $500 gap by saving 33-50% on ammo costs? I think the general consensus is that you never will. If you get hooked, you'll simply shoot more. And, like any hobby, buy more cool schitt - there is an endless array of nifty little tools that you will find you "need". In the end, the startup costs are a write-off. Don't ever count on making it up.

I usually reload for the .45ACP because, a Jeff mentioned, they are expensive to buy new. Whereas 9mm is as cheap as chips - doesn't seem fair. But I don't like reloading so I haven't been shooting for a while. Just can't be bothered for some reason.

As an aside to this conversation, I have to say that I am bewildered by the range of calibers on offer. I wonder if the gun makers developed a caliber specific to their firearm in order to increase revenue or to fill a specific need.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_handgun_and_rifle_cartridges