Hello Campfire family,
For more than 20 years I have been reloading for long arms (bolt, semi's, level/pump actions) but I have yet to load for pistol. Basically because ... why? I mean I use to be able to find ammo on the cheap and shoot shoot shoot. Not today. So I did my research and it seems like pistol is similar to straight walls I load for with a crimp. I don't use a crimp on my bottle neck cartridges for bolt action guns. I would use a crimp for the 300 Legend out of a bolt gun.
So the steps I have are:
Resize and de-prime (1st die)
Case prep (clean, trim, inspect, sort whatever)
Prime
Flange (2nd die)
Charge
Seat bullet without crimp (3rd die)
back out seating steam and adjust die down to where it contacts brass that has no bullet
turn die another 1/8 of a turn, replace case without bullet with case with bullet and raise the ram
measure the case mouth to the bullet. There should be around .003 difference and or run finger along case mouth looking for a smooth transition
once crimp is achieved, raise ram with loaded cartridge and lower seating stem until it contacts bullet tip.
Now I should be ready to load a bullet and finish the rest of the charged cases.
Sound about right? That is for a 3 die set. How much nicer is a 4 die set? Do you by the sets or piece meal together a set? Is Lyman better than RCBS? Oh also the charge. DAMN 2.7grs? Really? I don't think my beam scale can go that low. The Lee powder dippers start at 3cc's. Using Lees conversion chart, that would still be too heavy a charge. I'm thinking start with an empty pan on top of my Lyman electronic scale and just use a trickler until I reach 2.7grs.
Please comment...I mean keep it constructive.
HaYen
PS I am loading 90 RN into a 380 Auto case using Ramshot Zip
Last edited by HaYen; 04/30/21.
