My first reloads! and some questions

I assume that you know that backstops have limitations and by exceeding the rating of your clubs particular backstop in all likely hood damaged it to some degree.
It depends. I don't advocate breaking a clubs rules on loads on the indoor backstop, and anti-advocate talking about it on online :oops:

But, sometimes it is just myth. We had that rule at Hopkinton until the president commissioned a test. We spraypainted the backstop then put 50 rounds of 125gr@1340FPS into the painted area and observed no backstop damage.

There was one club I shot at where the regular rule was "no jacketed ammo" to protect the backstop. But, when they held indoor matches, the rule was "jacketed ammo required to keep airborne lead and lube smoke down". It should have been labeled the Schrodenger range.
 
To get a complete consistent burn, you need a strong crimp, a charge weight above the minimum, and if the load calls for it, a magnum primer. The powders that do best with magnum primers include 2400, W296, H110, Lil Gun, IMR-4227, and sometimes AA9. Longer skinnier cartridges are more likely to need a magnum primer than a shorter, fat cartridge. In other words, you are more likely to need a magnum primer with the .357 and .460 Magnums than you would be with the .44 or .500 Magnum.
Department of redundancy department department. W296 and H110 are the same powder manufactured by St Marks powder. (no way Eddie know that, but it seemed worth a mention).

How does a small rifle primer compare to a pistol magnum primer?
 
Question for the reloading pros. I’m about 1,000 rounds deep into my reloading career & have only now hit my first hiccup (well 2nd, but I figured the first one out).

I recently switched to a different bullet manufacturer after I went through all my Berrys bullets. No big deal, still using 115gr RN, so I assumed the die settings were still good to go.

Well, I went to range on Friday with two pistols; one ate these new reloads with the new brand of bullets just fine, the other pistol couldn’t shoot any of them without choking. Slide wouldn’t fully go back into battery after firing.

Question: when I change bullet manufacturers, should I be resetting the flare/bullet seating die? Could this be the culprit. No other changes to load or anything were made.
Your malfunctioning pistol was short stroking.
Did your previous load work in this pistol ?
If you rack the slide do the new loads pick up from the mag and chamber ?
 
That’s the other thing. I did check the dimensions with micrometer & they all fell under 1.169 & all the other demensions were in spec.

strangely I used both a Wilson full length case gauge & a EGW case gauge. The new rounds had issues with the EGW gauge, but fit fine in the Wilson tool gauge. So I took the risk & tried to shoot them yet had these issues. So it must be my die settings.

thanks!
pistols chamber makes the best gauge , if needed size to the tightest one .
 
Your malfunctioning pistol was short stroking.
Did your previous load work in this pistol ?
If you rack the slide do the new loads pick up from the mag and chamber ?

it was a new pistol, so I hadn’t tried it with the old reloads. I’m actually going back today to the range to see if the original reloads work.

when racking the slide, new rounds were picked up, but not all would fully chamber. Slide wouldn’t fully go back into battery, and I’d have to rip the slide back to eject the “stuck” round.

However, even some of the rounds that wouldn’t chamber initially I was able to get to chamber during further attempts & successfully fire.

I suppose there could also be a problem with the pistol.

going to range today with original reloads & factory ammo as an exercise in process of elimination to determine the problem.
 
Try plunking them in your barrel could be a width issue not all chambers are thevsame
This
Different bullets have different profiles. Sounds like The new bullet is contacting the rifling because it’s a slightly different shape. The different shape will also usually affect your coal because the seating stem will contact a different point on the bullet when seating.

The plunk test in your specific barrels is the only way to tell what will fit your gun. Drop the round in and it should be able to spin when fully seated.

As stated always check and rework the load when changing anything.
and this
 
it was a new pistol, so I hadn’t tried it with the old reloads. I’m actually going back today to the range to see if the original reloads work.

when racking the slide, new rounds were picked up, but not all would fully chamber. Slide wouldn’t fully go back into battery, and I’d have to rip the slide back to eject the “stuck” round.

However, even some of the rounds that wouldn’t chamber initially I was able to get to chamber during further attempts & successfully fire.

I suppose there could also be a problem with the pistol.

going to range today with original reloads & factory ammo as an exercise in process of elimination to determine the problem.
New pistol, did you detail strip and clean it first?
the anti corrosive stuff they apply to guns is far from lube and new guns are generally not clean.
Before you go plunk test old reloads in new pistol chamber after you clean it.
 
For pistol this gets real tedious - if your process is good then you only need periodic checks to make sure things haven't moved out of limits.
If you need to gauge every round to find defects then your process needs work.

I will turn a new powder thru expander to fit a particular bullet seating depth if I know I'm going to shoot a lot of them. Bullets then seat easy and consistently so no need to gauge every round. But not everyone has a lathe handy.
There is no need to gauge every round. I just do it if I was production running I would probably check every so often. Very rarely to I find any die movement but every once and a while something goes wrong
 
New pistol, did you detail strip and clean it first?
the anti corrosive stuff they apply to guns is far from lube and new guns are generally not clean.
Before you go plunk test old reloads in new pistol chamber after you clean it.

indeed I did.
Went back to the range today & tried my old reloads, all worked flawlessly. My loads aren’t very hot. Usually aim for midpoint between max & min grain limits per the manual. You guys should have seen my initial attempt on my reloading maiden voyage a few months ago. Didn’t realize there was a grain vs gram setting on my digital scale... cant fix stupid

This all means the Problem clearly was my laziness in not resetting the dies when I switched bullet manufacturers.

good learning opportunity.

thanks for all the help. The plunk test worked. Now I know.
 
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indeed I did.
Went back to the range today & tried my old reloads, all worked flawlessly. My loads aren’t very hot. Usually aim for midpoint between max & min grain limits per the manual. You guys should have seen my initial attempt on my reloading maiden voyage a few months ago. Didn’t realize there was a grain vs gram setting on my digital scale... cant fix stupid

This all means the Problem clearly was my laziness in not resetting the dies when I switched bullet manufacturers.

good learning opportunity.

thanks for all the help. The plunk test worked. Now I know.

If you examine one of the rounds that would not fully chamber, see if there's marks from the rifling on the nose of the bullet. That can tell you if the OAL is too long. If you have to rack it that hard to remove the round, it sounds like the bullet is getting stuck because its slightly too long. Had that problem with some 45ACP I made up once.
 
Question for the reloading pros. I’m about 1,000 rounds deep into my reloading career & have only now hit my first hiccup (well 2nd, but I figured the first one out).

I recently switched to a different bullet manufacturer after I went through all my Berrys bullets. No big deal, still using 115gr RN, so I assumed the die settings were still good to go.

Well, I went to range on Friday with two pistols; one ate these new reloads with the new brand of bullets just fine, the other pistol couldn’t shoot any of them without choking. Slide wouldn’t fully go back into battery after firing.

Question: when I change bullet manufacturers, should I be resetting the flare/bullet seating die? Could this be the culprit. No other changes to load or anything were made.
Any time you change any compoment.....make a batch of 20 or so and test.
 
Any time you change any compoment.....make a batch of 20 or so and test.
This is where I saved myself. When I changed to the new bullets the new rounds were giving me issues in the chamber gauge, so I stopped after making 30 or so figuring I’d better try these before I make a ton and have to dick around with hours of labor with those horrible bullet pullers
 
Question for the reloading pros. I’m about 1,000 rounds deep into my reloading career & have only now hit my first hiccup (well 2nd, but I figured the first one out).

I recently switched to a different bullet manufacturer after I went through all my Berrys bullets. No big deal, still using 115gr RN, so I assumed the die settings were still good to go.

Well, I went to range on Friday with two pistols; one ate these new reloads with the new brand of bullets just fine, the other pistol couldn’t shoot any of them without choking. Slide wouldn’t fully go back into battery after firing.

Question: when

This is where I saved myself. When I changed to the new bullets the new rounds were giving me issues in the chamber gauge, so I stopped after making 30 or so figuring I’d better try these before I make a ton and have to dick around with hours of labor with those horrible bullet pullers
Even projos of the same weight and "type" like jsp can have a different bullet profile (shape) that can cause you to have to change the seating depth or crimp to get them to cycle properly. I've had to do this with 45acp semi wadcutters. Switched to a new brand and had to seat them to a longer oal because the base was much longer.
 
Another beginner question surrounding bullet seating/crimp die.

I had an issue a few weeks ago when I switched bullet manufacturers, but fixed that.

Now, I have a new question. I have an RCBS 9mm bullet seat & Crimp die. As I'm still new to this, I'm seating my RN projectiles to just about max COAL because I'm new & didn't want to overseat them as I read that can cause too much pressure. I've now run into some issues on some pistols wrt failure to feeds, & wanted to change the seating depth instead of using the max COAL.

So, if I were to change my seating/crimp, why can't I just take a factory round of 115gr RN, run it up the press, run the crimp die all the way down until it hits the factory round crimp & then run the seating die down until it hits the factory round projectile? Seems like this would eliminate the unknown of dimensions being an issue for my failure to feeds since I've had no problems with factory ammo. At which point then maybe it's my charge?
 
Different bullet profiles will have different affects on feeding. Is it getting jammed in chamber or is it not even picking up a round?
 
Another beginner question surrounding bullet seating/crimp die.



So, if I were to change my seating/crimp, why can't I just take a factory round of 115gr RN, run it up the press, run the crimp die all the way down until it hits the factory round crimp & then run the seating die down until it hits the factory round projectile? Seems like this would eliminate the unknown of dimensions being an issue for my failure to feeds since I've had no problems with factory ammo. At which point then maybe it's my charge?

That might work if you were going to use jacketed, and jacketed only, in a very similar profile or design.
As you change to plated or coated lead, your changing diameter, so you'd run into over crimping there.

You can play around with seating depths and not run into massive pressure spikes, but you also don't want to exceed sinking it too much, because bad things can happen. A little is good, a lot is bad. Again, powder plays a big role in that. Fast powder compressed can be painful.

Full disclosure- I absolutely hate the 2 in 1 dies, and think they're an absolute waste of money and are geared towards people who don't know any better or like to argue "its one less step"

So this article may or may not help you with your crimp question, but make sure to read it anyway, because it pertains to 9 and has some pretty good info in it-
 
Berrys 115gr plated round nose. All the dimensions are in spec.
 
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So hodgdon lists 1.100 to 1.169 for an oal, but lists lead @ 1.10. All the jacketed are a little longer.
Western powder lists Berry 115's @ 1.13
Alliant lists 1.12- 1.125, but doesn't list berrys as an option.

Whats your current oal, and when it fails to feed, does it leave any tell tale marks?
 
So hodgdon lists 1.100 to 1.169 for an oal, but lists lead @ 1.10. All the jacketed are a little longer.
Western powder lists Berry 115's @ 1.13
Alliant lists 1.12- 1.125, but doesn't list berrys as an option.

Whats your current oal, and when it fails to feed, does it leave any tell tale marks?

I meant plated round nose, not played. derr.


Usually I'm measuring over 1.16.

I also am using a relatively slow powder (HS-6) on the lighter load end, & from my research it appears HS-6 doesn't like light loads

I just manually reset by dies to set at 1.155, & am going to bump up my charge a bit towards max & see what this does.


I knew this to be a learning process, & every time I i fix something I learn. So it's been fun. I also erred on the side of caution so fully expected to experience small problems while dialing in what works.
 
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