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What have you reloaded today?
- Thread starter madcow
- Start date
Given the number of rounds you loaded, if you're concerned, just pull the bullets, reclaim the powder, and reload. I haven't weighed LOTS of pistol brass, but a 1gr variance in the brass+primer weight sounds small to me - but as you say, if that weight variation is due to powder, then you could be in for a wild ride.
I just weighed a piece of 45ACP bare brass and it came in at 70gr, so the variance you're seeing could be down to simply variations in your case trim length.
I know you're not in a situation where you're reloading mixed brass, and you have all Starfire case heads, I'd think the weights wouldn't be too different as long as all the cases had the same length give or take a thou, but weighing the finished round isn't particularly useful if you're working recycled brass (or new brass, for that matter). The powder mass is a small fraction of the overall mass of the round.
I just weighed a piece of 45ACP bare brass and it came in at 70gr, so the variance you're seeing could be down to simply variations in your case trim length.
I know you're not in a situation where you're reloading mixed brass, and you have all Starfire case heads, I'd think the weights wouldn't be too different as long as all the cases had the same length give or take a thou, but weighing the finished round isn't particularly useful if you're working recycled brass (or new brass, for that matter). The powder mass is a small fraction of the overall mass of the round.
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5 rounds of .303 Brit and 10 rounds of 7.62X54R.
If you do pull bullets and reload using this new digital scale, you might want to follow Hodgdon's 'official' starting weight and dial the powder back to 6.5gr unless you have more reliable recommendations.
Obviously, you have to be careful there too, because at a certain very low load, you won't get semi-automatic guns to cycle and you risk a round being stuck in the barrel.
My initial foray into pistol reloading was to start at that starting load and actually ladder downwards since I wanted to build a recipe that would stay reliably subsonic from a long barreled gun. I ended up with a couple hundred rounds of (pretty) accurate 38 Special that chronoed at 800fps +/- 20fps out of a lever action. All I need now is the stamp to come thru' on the can.
I'm also of the opinion (and I'm prepared to be corrected) that even with a modern gun, for plinking purposes, why not load a bit light? More fun to shoot, and less wear on your gun, unless you're looking to create a really high-performance round.
Your right, I should have started with the min. Load, I just found the xtp bullets at the store and didn’t want to waste them on lite loads,I should have just waited and ordered some cheap lead wad cutters for my first time loading ammo. I just got excited when a got my reloading set up finished and went to the store and bought what they had for components.
You're not really 'wasting' good projectiles. I found that there are so many potential variables at play that having reliable components that you can trust (for example, bullets with really consistent dimensions and weight) make the whole process less fraught with sources of error.
For example, you said that you had some variation in OAL - that will have an effect on ballistics - but so does bullet length - because if you're seating good, consistent bullets of the same length in the same headstamp cases, you can be far more confident that the case capacity that you're leaving is consistent. And case capacity really does affect chamber pressure, performance and accuracy.
Education isn't free anyway - you need to futz around with different components to see what works for you and your guns.
Also - re: Wadcutters - there's NOTHING so satisfying as shooting good, 'accurate-enough' wadcutters at the range at a paper target and getting a tight group of perfectly neat circular holes for your efforts.
I loaded a quick 100 this morning, just to be safe.
