How mouch do I have to do ?

[esweber]

Reloading, have done 1000s of pistol rounds but vary new to rifle have made about 100 been doing a lot of reading here and elsewhere.
My method up to now has been.
Clean brass in tumbler
Lube fl size and decap on brass i have not used in my gun trim
Chamfer and De-burr clean primer pockets
Back into the tumbler then prime weigh every drop and set the bullet
Been thinking I might need to put it neck turning,weighing the brass. A little ocd
Will be trying to shoot 300 to as far out there as i can.
To much not enough out of order??
308 tikka 20"

 

[eclipse57]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

This is not what yu are going to want to hear, and I don't say it to be an asshole.

Go to the top of the reloading forum and read all of the stickys. I really got a lot of information out of everything by Tresmon and doc76251.

Untill a few months ago, I had only loaded pistol rounds. I understood the concept of loading rifle rounds, just never did it. I read everything from these two individuals and it made process very easy. Some things I have not done yet, such as weighing the cases and actual bullets, but I am sure I will take these individual steps in the near future.

Good luck. It is addicting!

 

[MALLARD]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

forget neck turning.

get a flashole and primer pocket tool use those instead

if your running a bolt gun get a neck sizing die,

and upgrade to a bushing die , either F/l bushing for semi auto or neck bushing for bolt gun.

get some rubber orings and use them between your lock collars and press

run the press slow

weight sort your bullets, get an Ogive tool like the hornady comparator and sort your bullets with it. Use that tool to determine seating depths.

 

[Paladin2147]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

It is really not that complicated. Many people just like to make it complicated.

 

[VKC]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

I agree that a flash hole tool is useful, but you only really need to do it once on new brass.

Weight sort brass within 2grs if you want more consistency.

Full length resize for semi-autos.

Some people advocate neck resizing for bolt guns, but I like to FL resize because I have custom guns with tight chambers. I'll trade minimal accuracy gains for better realibilty without stuck cases. Plus, I just don't want to get into the hassle of neck resizing. Check you rifle's tolerances, and then decide.

I don't weight sort my primers since I use CCI BR2 which are fairly consistent.

Concentricity with bullet seating is extremely important. I suggest considering a competition bullet seater from Forester or Redding.

 

[Deadshot2]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

How much do you HAVE to do? Only as much as you want to.

Just remember that some of all those tedious steps contribute to consistency which spells "Accuracy" at long ranges.

Some only have to be done once like flash hole deburring, primer pocket uniforming, and "weight sorting" (if you keep all the like cases together in a lot). Likewise with neck turning which can contribute greatly to uniform speeds.

Bullet measuring, weight sorting, meplat trimming, and "pointing" all have there followers and a like number of detractors.

The answer to your question really depends on how accurate you want your finished ammo to be. Good enough? Or the best it can be?

All that said, it really won't matter if your rifle isn't up to the task or your shooting skills could use some work. It's all part of a complex "recipe" where the final results depend on everything that goes in the mix.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

The first tumble is enough, my key purpose in tumbling my brass is to prevent introducing grime (and wear) into my dies. I hand wipe with a soft cloth to remove lube. A second tumble after decapping can introduce media crumbs into flash hole, blocking them. I always give my brass a quick visual inspection to ensure I can see light through the flash hole, just to be sure.

Unless my chamber was made with a tight neck reamer, neck turning has a very limited benefit. Chambers made to SAAMI standard chamber specs are loose enough that major efforts toward neck thickness and concentricity are probably only partially effective.

My flash holes get reamed once as part of initial case prep. Doesn't hurt, isn't a lot of work, and I think it helps.

I have never cleaned primer pockets; as long as the flash hole is clear, I figure I'm good to go.

I set the drop, then weigh ten accumulated charges. If the sum of the charge weights divided by their number falls within .1gr or less, I will drop without weighing individual charges for sighters and practice loads, but will weigh each charge with match for-score rounds. Load development test charges each get weighed.

If the sum, divided, is greater than .1gr; I will readjust the drop until it is less. Ideally, it should come out to less than 1/2 of .1gr.

I do some other things, mostly tricks of my own; but I won't recommend them because I can't say for sure whether they really help or not. I believe that some of them may do little more than inspire my confidence, but I also believe that's probably a good enough reason all by itself.

Over a bunch of years, I've done just about every reloading technique and trick I've heard of. In general, I believe the simplest way is the best way, and that the key is in the consistency with which I do the basic steps.

For me, handloading is not much more than a necessary evil. Do it right, but don't let it take over the bulk of your efforts.

I do what I must as best I can; and willingly surrender what gains the rest of the techniques may or may not buy me. I figure that if I can meet my consistency goals, I'm not surrendering very much at all.

The time that counts most for me is what I spend at the shooting bench, and not so much what I spend at the loading bench.

Greg

 

[littlecalm]

Re: How mouch do I have to do ?

Well, as much as the pinned reload tutorial thread is helpful, it's a lot of info and it could be boiled down to a simpler set of steps and made much easier for first timers to digest. When I first started, after actually going through all the steps a number of times and determining what worked and what didn't work for me, I made my own list of steps and it was much simpler. I only tumble once. I do uniform the primer pocket every time but only deburr the flash hole on new brass. I FL size new brass (even Lapua b/c new brass necks are seldom ready for seating) and then only neck size thereafter -- there are some threads here discussing the advantages of that in terms of case life. I do not anneal. I try to stick with Lapua brass for the most part -- it seems expensive at first but over the life of the brass the cost is negligible and I do feel it is the best quality. A Redding or Forster micrometer seating die allows you to seat based off ogive rather than COAL. I generally seat .02" off the lands. My shooting skills are not sufficient enough to get into hard core uniformity protocols in the case and bullet dept. Shooting a TRG-22.