I've loaded 275 rounds of .223, 275 rounds of .45ACP and 650 rounds of 9mm so far this week. I'm off to the range tomorrow evening...

After going to the range and testing several batches of my reloaded rounds, I came home and made 750 rounds of .40S&W and 200 rounds of .303British. Tonight I'll be reloading 9mm. I've been taking notes and determining which "recipes" give me the best results. Unfortunately, supplies of powder, primers and bullets are in short supply and I am often limited by what I can get my hands on. I'm now going to concentrate on buying my components in bulk to reduce costs now that I know what I get the best results with. I really enjoy this new hobby!

I'm having trouble finding reloading components as well.

I think this is what I have on hand:

• 600 115 gr. FMJ 9mm bullets
• 200 115 gr. HP 9mm bullets
• 400 55 gr. .223 bullets
• 180 .30-30 bullets (forget the weight)
• 25 lbs. 7½ shot
• 5 lbs. Red Dot (used for 12 ga. and 9mm)
• 2 lbs. BL-C(2)
• 1000 wads
• 1000 misc. 9mm cases (Thanks Nick!!!)
• 120-ish AA 12 gauge shotgun shells
• 800 small rifle primers
• 1100 small pistol primers
• 80 large rifle primers
• 1000 shotgun primers (forget the type)

I used my new Lee Loadmaster .223 Progressive press this weekend. It took me about an hour to load 100 rounds, including tweaking the settings, which is about 2½ times my normal speed with my single-stage press. The nice thing is that as I was getting the settings dialed in, if I made a mistake, I could correct it with the single-stage press. I also noticed the primer feeder stopped working when the stack got down to around 3 primers.

I'm doing OK, except that primers are tough to get and I'm going to a gun show with my BIL and Tab Tanner (fellow Pelican) next weekend in Maumee, OH to buy bullets and powder. I collect brass at the range and friends/family save it for me. I like BL-c(2) for my AR15 and Unique for my pistols, but Power Pistol, Universal and Accurate are a close second...

Well done, Art. It sounds like you're well and truly hooked, now that friends and family are saving their brass for you.

Make sure you sort that brass by head stamp, and even by lot if some one gives you boxes of empties. You would be surprised how much brass varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even between the same manufacturer's different production runs. Heavier brass = less capacity = higher pressures/velocities. You might find you need to tweak the powder charge up or down depending on which lot of brass you are loading.

The other reason to sort it by head stamp and lot is for your own record keeping. You need to keep track of how many times each piece of brass has been reloaded. Brass stretches during the firing and subsequent resizing cycle. It must be kept trimmed at or below SAAMI maximum length. If it gets too long, the case mouth may actually be protrude into the leade a bit, restricting its ability to open enough to release the bullet. This can result in dramatically raised pressures. Your .223 brass may need to be trimmed every third or fourth loading, depending upon how hot you load them. Make sure you measure a representative sample from each lot after sizing them; you will soon get an idea of how many loads you can get between trimming them.

With all the brass you are accumulating, such record keeping gets ever more important. It's great to have a lot of brass. It sucks to lose track of how many times they've been reloaded. Brass does have a finite lifespan. Depending on caliber and load, it can be as few as half a dozen loadings or as many as several dozen.

Your pistol brass should fall into that "several dozen" end of the spectrum. It won't grow as fast as the .223 brass, but its trimmed length is every bit as important. Auto pistol brass head spaces on the case mouth, since there is no rim to serve that purpose. That makes its length very critical. You won't actually have to trim them very often, but it pays to measure them after every firing and resizing.

Jeff,
Thanks! As always, you have a lot of great info and I'm glad you share it with us! I'm sorting brass and I prefer the nickel-plated brass, since it seems to run through the resizing die a little easier. I'm checking the length of the cases and noting how many time the brass has been reloaded. Almost all of the brass I get has only been fired once and I load "light" loads, so I'm hoping to be able to reuse the brass more. I have a Dillon Super Swage 600 and I like to reload military brass and swage the primer crimp. The military brass is heavier and I like the way it performs in my AR15. I just bought a Sig P226 in .40S&W and .357Sig and I tested a sample from my .40S&W loads on Sunday and they all performed well. I don't have any .357Sig brass yet, but I'm expecting several thousand cases from a friend soon. This is really the perfect winter hobby for me and my goal is to spend the entire "non-Porsche" season reloading ammo, then when the warm weather hits I'll have enough ammo to shoot all summer, then get back top reloading in the late fall. I'm using 2 Lyman turret presses this year, but I plan to buy a Hornady LNL-AP progressive press next fall. Finding supplies is the biggest challenge I face as hardly anyone has primers, bullets and powder. Thanks again!

Still no priimers available anywhere online, but my friend found some at a local shop and he got them for me. I cleaned and sorted brass last night and the next few nights I'll be depriming and resizing .40S&W and 9mm brass, then reloading 1000 of each caliber next weekend!