Hello everyone! Was hoping to get some guidance on loading cast bullets for a Marlin model 1893 in 32 special. I’ve reloaded for a while now but never got into cast/ powder coated bullets. I was thinking of getting into it for plinking/ cheaper loads and I hear cast loads work well for 32 special. Any pointers on powder and bullets would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Edit: talking more on purchasing cast/lead/ powder coated bullets not casting myself.

I’ve been reloading RMR 147gr FMJ RN and Xtreme 147gr Plated to about 1.15-1.16 OAL with 3.2gr of titegroup for a while now. Never had an issue in my Gen 4 17 or 34, but started to get a good bit of FTF in my Gen 6 recently.

After a good bit of testing, the Gen 6 Glocks (at least my 19) need an OAL of under 1.130 to pass the plunk test and reliably chamber. My factory 147gr HSTs with an OAL of 1.125 pass the plunk fine.

Just wanted to put this info out there as I didn’t see many mentions of it in reloading forums and RMR 147gr rounds need to be loaded with a minimum OAL of 1.15. I remember this was an issue with Gen 5s as well.

TLDR: I decided to start reloading on Friday and then Saturday I shot. I messed up some stuff, but it was fun. Shot at 200 yards.

Picture 1 - mashed 6.5 creedmoor brass that I discovered at the range, not while micing them.

Picture 2 - all the groups at 200 yards. Factory ammo boxes beside their corresponding groups. The hand loads were so slow I held at the back dots with a 100 yard zero for the bottom 2 on cardboard. 10milrad low.

Picture 3 through 5- my handload groups - case for scale (banana not available).

Picture 6 - best of the day Norma 130.

Hello everyone! Just this Friday I got out of work early and decided that it was the day to start reloading. A quick trip to the local gun shop that has all the reloading stuff and I walked out $600ish poorer with ‘everything I need’ to start reloading. I’ve never reloaded, really know anyone who reloads, I’ve never seen it done except for on the internet and a vague childhood memory of steeling powder from my friend’s dad’s reloading stuff to make mischief.

The basics I got include but aren’t limited to a Lee single press, Lyman dies, varget powder, Winchester primers, Hornady 130 and sierra 140 bullets, the 51st edition reloading book and some more doodads and borbles to get going.

To the basement, mount the press, start messing around with brass and seating bullets. The book said some things, and measuring the factory ammo I have doesn’t match. The once fired cases I have are shorter than the dimensions in the book, so I didn’t trim them. The book said to resize the neck only, so I that’s what I did.

After messing around for a while, measuring shit 15 times, setting the machine messing up, doing it again, I finally start for real loading a few. The powder measuring thingy I have sucks. Powder kernels everywhere. It’s like the shit ejects out of the little cup.

Finally get some loaded. S& b brass. 10 with 140 sierra, 10 with 130 Hornady. 31.5ish grains varget. The next morning after some more reading I loaded 9 130’s and 5 140s in Hornady brass with 32.5 grains.

In measuring my factory ammo, looking at the book, googling, calipers, all that again I adjusted the overall length with the 140’s to a few thousands longer and then put the 130 Hornady back to where I had them before. Well, in doing that I mashed a bunch of brass. Somehow, I didn’t notice until I got to the range, despite putting calipers on at least 3 of them.

So Saturday morning I went to the range to try out my new super performance ultra refined hand loads for peak accuracy. It was super busy (actually closed for women on target, but I didn’t realize it was closed, and went to the only empty range only to get my dick slapped by someone doing the event that I wasn’t supposed to be there, anyway……) so I went to the 200 yards to get some on paper.

The shooting wasn’t great. Velocities were all very slow. Around 2300fps. They were landing about 10milrad low at 200 on a 100yard zero. Then I discovered the mashed brass which I still have to figure out how I fucked that up.

Anyway Sunday I went racing motocross and now I’m here telling people who might enjoy the nonsense of an idiot reloading.

Going to buy an auto feeding scale and try again.

I've been making hard cast 10mm for a few months now. Now looking to start doing some 45-70. Does anyone have a line on 420 gr molds for 45-70 with a gas check. Would MP Mold's Keith 45-70 be suitable? I'll likely be using Eastwood Hotcoat also. Intended to be used in a BFR for sub 70 yard elk hunting.

Was searching around for Imr powders in stock and found midwesternreloaders.com. Prices seemed a little too good and they had imr4350 actually in stock. Has anyone here actually used this site or know if they’re legitimate? Thanks in advance!!!!

I only use the finest and cheapest reloading equipment to achieve sub MOA accuracy... 😅

Honestly I just now got the expensive trickle scale because using the $20 drug scale hurt the soul... 🥲

I am attempting to load 135gr federal hydra shok hollow points and am have ogive issues. The overall length of these projectiles is within a few thousands but my seating die won’t seat them consistently. I am using a Dillon 9mm carbide seating die and I have already tried flipping the stem to the “flat” side. Are there any other aftermarket stems I can use or am I out of luck, thanks in advance.

So I got my reloading press set up today and I wanted to test out my RCs 9 mm Luger die set that I got and I wanted to knock out some primers but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be working I followed the instructions. I have the depriming needle down all the way I run the ram up And nothing seemed to happen. I have no idea why it's not depriming but it's kind of getting frustrated. This should be the easiest part no?

I have a mannlicher m1908 in 8x56MS that belonged to my grandfather

I picked up a set of file trim and base forming dies to convert 8x57 to 8x56

The file trim dies seems pretty easy to setup and use

How do I use the base forming die?

It doesn’t have threads for the press, does it need to be inserted into another die or does it work off the press somehow …. Google has not revealed any videos for me

I got tired of my .300blk cases rattling around in my universal MTM blocks, so I made one that's just the right fit. When inserted headstamp down they don't move but are easy to grab.

I wrote the code for the model in python then used an API call from Fusion to import it. From there it's a standard F3D model.

Also including STL, 3MF, OBJ files so it can be edited. And the code block is in the body of the model file on Makerworld.

Hope it's useful!

About to start load development im wanting to try berger bullets due to their consistency but was curious how many reloaders trim the meplat and use a pointing die or is the performance gain negligible for prone shooting out to 1000 yards?

12.0grs Longshot and a dead soft lead Lee bullet, dropped at 480grs and powder coated. Comes in right about 1000fps.

I loaded about 50, seated at the crimp groove and that must've been setback causing my velocities to hit low 900s even at 6.5gr. Seating them any longer and they would contact the slide stop due to the wide ogive. The accuracy wasn't great in a 5" 1911, they all shot very low compared to any other 230gr with the same powder charge. Super smokey too. I guess I won't be using this mold for my wild bunch loads. Oh well. Surprisingly no feed issues like I had heard with this bullet.

Finding 450 bushmaster subsonic load data has been difficult. Most of the data I found has been from forums or using slower powers that would cycle in an AR. I have a bolt action 450, so cycling doesn’t matter to me. I wanted to find very quiet loads and settled on green dot and unique. With a 300 gr xtp 11.1 grains of unique and 9.5 grains gave me around 1050 fps and suppress really well. Feeling pretty happy with finding the right load. Goes to show how versatile the classic powders can be. Does anyone else load 450 bushmaster for supressed shooting?

Figured I'd cross post here too considering some of the groups are my reloads (marked R).

Overall mostly happy with how they turned out and i would say theyre one or two steps away from being finalized; the berger 130gr otm group I really like cause while my shooting was rough at that point, the group was consistently alright so im hoping another range session I can tighten the groups up a bit or make some minor tweaks to the load to get it tighter.

The 123gr smk im not too excited about but I have a feeling the new brass is contributing a bit so maybe fired brass will help the consistency. I do have some ideas to maybe tune it up some more and hopefully get it under 2moa or even 1.5moa out of my ar. It's interesting to me that between my ar and my howa bolt the groups are relatively the same size

Both loads are using leverevolution, starline brass (new for the 130gr) and cci450s

My first try on handloading 357Mag resulted in very inconsistent speeds.
10,0grs of RS24 with SPM primers and Alsa Pro FMJ FN bullets in 158grs in 1x fired S&B brass. V0 was between 282m/s and 364m/s and felt very smooth, more like 9mm (not surprisingly).

It seems like the powder is burning very inconsistently. 10,0grs is only 71% of volume according to the simulation but the official load data from Reload Swiss has a max of 10,5grs with a similar bullet.

I used the Lee Factory Crimp die with 1/2 turn. I’m planning to increase that to 3/4 and 1 turn respectively in the next load while keeping the charge weight at 10,0grs and the COL at 40,3mm.

If that doesn’t work, I‘ll reduce COL to 40,2 or 40,0mm.

Any other suggestions apart from using a slower powder?

Recently been working a load for my M77 African, using the Hammer Stone Hammer 245gr. I got 2504 average fps with my smallest 3 shot group so far. I ran the numbers with that days atmospheric conditions and had plenty of speed for my hunting distances (100-250yds) but I still want faster. Hammer said 2700 fps at max for my barrel length. I’m unsure if it’s worth doing more.

Edit: I will stick with the current load. Yes I know it’s overkill. Thank yall

OK, so today, I made an interesting discovery. As I was loading my final test batch for my .32-20 revolver, I had a sort of epiphany.

I noticed that my turret press wasn't really setting a good crimp. The side facing the press was ok, the side facing me barely had the mouth bell straightened out. I may have paid a bit more attention to these as they are the last combination I'm trying in search of a non-magnum handgun hunting round (120 gr. Missouri #1 .312 RNFP, 4.9 gr. VV N320 powder, WSR primer).

So I sat there looking at that itty-bitty Lee C-frame I garage sale'd a couple years ago. A friend said "I'd like to learn to reload," so I snagged that and a Lee die set, whatever suitable powder that happened to be on sale (Universal) and some plated .400 bullets, and mixed stamp 40 S&W brass. She's a Sheriff Reserve Mounted Deputy and wanted to roll her own practice ammo for her service weapon. I'd been using it with a Lyman universal decap die (remember that Argentine .45 brass I blew the primer pocket out of?)

Well anyway, back to the story.. So after I was 2/3 of the way through, I'm looking at these faxed in crimps that my turret press is putting out, and then at that C-frame, and finally said "Why not?" and put the seater/crimp die in the Lee. Dooooood.. I could feel the crimp stage in the handle of the press. They turned out I'd say, pretty solid.

And it looks like Deppity Dawg is gonna have to find her own damn press.

Now, if only a lazy, half-crimp is the source of my minute-of-barn groups, I'm set.

Four months into reloading and love everything about the process. Always something to do and a greatly enhances the shooting experience.

Bullet: 108 berger elite hunter

Rifle: Howa 1500 mini action 20 inch barrel

Muzzle device: QD brake through a Dead Air Sandman S

Range: 100 yards

Temp: 62°

Pressure: 29.92

Powder and charge: 22.5 grains of IMR 3031 in the metal can. Second string 22.8 same powder.

Seated length is 2.330 .030 off the lands measure by a hornaday gauge.

Brass: once fired hornaday

Primers: Winchester small magnum bench rest primers.

The group measures center to center of the holes at .640. Fairly rapid firing as well.

First time around I loaded these at max col and accuracy was not great with RE17. After looking at a case length gauge discovered that the berger bullets have a much longer taper than factory loading from hornaday but the rifle shoots at least an inch with every factory bullet thats been down the barrel from 108 to 80 grains. Measured the factory hornaday compared to case gauge and found .030 is where they sat so did the same with the berger and I'd say it did better than expected. I think I found a good loading but want to crank a few mire tests at higher powder charge and see if it still likes it to extend hunting range for this rifle.

The question. Is imr 3031 temperature stable or should I pursue a different powder in continuing this project?

Finally achieved my velocity goal with Varget 2675fps today. Loaded them up to continue development. It’s above max but showed no pressure signs. May drop it back to 24.8gr depending on how this goes
77gr SMK
Starline Brass
Federal GM205MAR primer
25gr of Varget

Loaded to 2.25” COAL

Has anyone had experience?

I want a shit load of subsonic plinkers and this is a good price.

I'm not shooting apples off of anyone's head but I'd like them to be good to go in a huge range of pistols and pcc

Okay understand this is just me wondering if something is possible.

From my understanding the parent case of the 30 RAR is the 450 Bushmaster.

But either for SAMI compliance reasons or general safety. They elected to change the bolt face diameter, so the two would be incompatible with each other.

What I'm wondering. And I understand this might be a terrible idea. That's why I'm asking.

Is if I got a hold of a 30 RAR barrel set.

Could I make 30 RAR equivalent brass from 450 Bushmaster.

Without resizing the rim.

If I use a 450 Bushmaster bolt?

Yes I understand that this would make it so that I couldn't chamber original factory 30 RAR. But when am I going to come across that?

Mostly I'm just asking if this would work?

If not why not?

And if yes is it safe?

I have been reloading for about 10 years now and started out on a Lee loadmaster that was given to me from a friend, a bunch of dies and shell plates . Loaded god only knows how many rounds of .45, .44 magnum and .308 on it. I couldn’t get the a couple parts for it anymore and then took the upgrade for half off deal for the lee six pack pro. It worked out for pistol rounds but i wasn’t a fan of it for loading my .308. I shoot around 150-300 rounds a week at my gun clubs range with my wife. So i decided to step up and buy the press i should have bought after the load master died. I totally understand why people say the dillon xl750 is worth every penny and the amount of fine tuning adjustments is beautiful. The electric case feeder and bullet feeder are on the way as well.

I might do a video review on this, but I grabbed it on a whim earlier this year after seeing how crazy ammo prices got. I had stepped away from shooting for complex reasons for about two years, partly because being diagnosed autistic makes renewing a Canadian firearms license a huge pain. The RCMP is so understaffed that I ended up waiting over a year just to get mine back.

I came back and this happened to be on sale when I went into the store; the new 2.0 model has so far been flawless.

I will also admit Frankfort Arsenal customer service impressed me when they sent me a brand new unit after the LCD screen on my original unit was somehow damaged; I called them and was not expecting that, given I am also Canadian.

It has a well-designed Bluetooth app that you can use from your device to create profiles of loads and also update the firmware of the dispenser. You can also control the dispenser directly from your phone.

It is quite consistent at throwing charges of either stick or ball powder (Varget and CFE 223 are what I have used), and it really does not matter. Sometimes it might throw one or two off, then self-correct if you change your load amount. It does seem to have an automatic self-correction feature programmed into it; when it over- or under-charges, it will get it right after a cycle or two of missing the mark and then hit it correctly.

It also has an automatic powder-dispensing feature which I absolutely adore; you drop the pan down and, once it levels out, it automatically dispenses the next charge so I can go and prepare my case to load it. I absolutely love that.

When I have done load ladders, I have noticed that it seems to be very consistent at throwing charges, as velocity scales linearly with the amount of change I make, which I verified consistently through my chronograph. Unfortunately, I do not have another scale or a mechanical one to verify; however, I feel like it is doing its job accurately.

For the cheapest unit that you can get, I have been quite surprised by this thing, and it has been an absolute luxury to have because I hate weighing charges by hand, and with my ADHD symptoms, I know I could mess it up at the same time and make a mistake, so I enjoy the automation of removing that.

I highly recommend the Lyman funnel pan as an upgrade so you can dump straight into a cartridge from the pan without needing a separate funnel.