Reloading 101 - Part 1, Introduction, Basics, and Tooling: Presses

Reloading 101 - Part 1, Intro & Tooling: Presses

I figured with the wealth of knowledge that I have gathered from various places that I would compile it all in one spot to help others who are on this new venture. The chances of someone reading this small upstart blog? Probably none, but if it helps one person, then my time wouldn't feel completely useless.

I'll start with this - With anything, especially when it comes to the world of firearms, two things hold true. The quote "Buy once, cry once" and buying the best and highest priced stuff won't always give you the best results.

Reloading is a fantastic extension to the firearms/gun hobby, but it requires a good deal of money to get tooled up. I can confidently say that easily made back my investment 100 times over since. It is also very therapeutic and relaxing. 

Organizational skills

If you aren't an organized person, you definitely should work on this if you intend to reload. Being organized is paramount, from your workbench to your storage area.

For example, if you are reloading a specific formula that uses say Hodgdon H110 powder, you shouldn't have a different powder on the bench which can potentially cause any confusion.

Stages of Reloading

1.       Case preparation: inspection of cases

2.       Case preparation: de-priming

3.       Case preparation: resizing

4.       Case preparation: trim/chamfer/deburr (if necessary)

5.       Case preparation: reaming/swaging primer pocket (if necessary)

6.       Case preparation: cleaning primer pocket

7.       Case preparation: expanding case mouth (if necessary)

8.       Case preparation: wet or dry tumble cases

9.       Priming

10.   Charging

11.   Bullet seating

12.   Crimping

13.   Inspection / quality control

This is how I generally break down my steps. If you are loading new cases, you can skip all the case preparation steps.

 
Case preparation: inspection of cases
Inspection of cases is very important. You never want to reload cases where they have significant dents (figure 1), splits at the top of a necked case (figure 2), or damage to the bottom by the rim - case head separation (figure 3). If you have any cases like this, toss them in a recycle bin. I suggest picking up a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket. I use one to dump spent primers and damaged cases into.

Case preparation: de-priming & resizing

De-priming and resizing are pretty self-explanatory. The only thing that I would like to touch on is case lube. If you don't want to deal with the headaches of stuck cases in your resizing die, make sure you use case lube. When I first started, I used the RCBS case lube pad and the RCBS case lube-2. I later found that lanolin and 99% isopropyl alcohol mixture works fantastic with nowhere near the mess.

I use a 10:1 ratio of alcohol to lanolin and store it in a dark brown glass spray bottle. I purchases all the items I needed on Amazon.

Case preparation: trim/chamfer/deburr (if necessary)

After you resize your dies, you should trim/chamfer/deburr the cases, especially the necked ones are usually the ones that require trimming.

Case preparation: reaming/swaging primer pocket (if necessary)

Reaming/swaging primer pockets is not a mandatory step, but I wanted to list it. If you purchase any used brass or were shooting milsurp ammo reaming/swaging may be in your future. Military ammo has a crimp or staking of the primer pocket, so your primer won't seat properly. Reaming or swaging will remove this crimp or stake.

Case preparation: cleaning primer pocket

There are many people who don't clean the primer pockets, but I feel that you should. Why clean the entire case and not the pocket, right? You can use a hand-held cleaning tool or part of a large case prep tool like the Lyman Case Prep Xpress. I currently use a Hornady Lock-n-load case prep Trio.

Case preparation: expanding case mouth (if necessary)

There are some bullets that require the case mouth to be expanded to seat properly. For example, 45 ACP, 45-70 Government, and 50 AE. If you don't expand the mouth on these bullets, you can crush your case because the bullet won't seat properly, and you will have wasted a case. Ask me how I know. If you are loading boat tail rounds you won't need to worry about this step.

Some people expand during the loading phase, I just prefer to do it while I am doing all the case prepping.

Case preparation: wet or dry tumble cases

Please, please, please do not be lazy about cleaning your brass. Some people don't clean their own pickups and only clean range found brass. Don't get into this mind set. You should always clean your brass.

The question is dry or wet tumbling? I currently do dry tumbling, but I plan on switching to wet. There are many differences of opinions on which is better, some do both. Dry has been becoming annoying to me, it causes dust, the media is messy, and I find that the media gets stuck in the primer pockets and in some instances, the polish/cleaning goop has sometimes left residue inside of the case. You also have to replace your media where with wet tumbling you buy the steel pins once.Wet adds and extra step by having to dry but I've read that it has far greater results.

I'll do steps 9-13 on my next post.

Moving on to Tooling, more specifically Presses.

Picture stolen from Ultimate Reloader

Presses

There is nothing wrong with getting a Lee or RCBS single stage press. Single stage presses are great for beginners since it gives you what you exactly need - a slow pace. One of the largest cause of errors when reloading is rushing. This type of press also lets you be more organized since you are dealing with less. Like that old saying goes, "sometimes, less is more".

I've loaded 9mm all the way up to 338 Lapua Magnum on my Lee Classic Cast. It does get monotonous at times, but I've done hundreds of rounds this way.

Lee has a varying array of single stage presses ranging from $68-$260. RCBS has a single stage that will cost you $136 with the upper tiers running you $160-$500.You also have to realize that buying a single stage press shouldn't be seen as a waste. Even though I own two progressive presses, I still use my single stage a great deal.

I exclusively use my single stage press when I am loading match grade ammunition. With a progressive press, there is less control and more variance. You want dead accuracy of powder drops, and bullet seating up to the ogive of the cartridge. This is much easily obtained by using a single stage in my opinion.

I find that using a progressive press with automated powder drops like the Lee Auto Disk and Lee Auto Drum still have a variance of powder drops like 0.1-0.3gr per drop, more on the Auto Drum. If you are just making plinking ammo this is fine, but if you are trying to do some precision shooting, you want the lowest number of variables.

Single Stage vs. Progressive break down

With Single Stage you have to do each stage/step of reloading/loading by volume, hence single stage. For example - say you were reloading 9mm. You have already done all of your case prep and now you have 100 cases ready to load. With the Lee Classic Cast, you can prime and charge your case at the same time but with three or five physical actions - I will clarify below.

1. place your case in the shell holder

2. pull up the ram

3. Prime (using the Lee primer attachment)

4. pull down the ram to seat the primer

5. pull up the ram

6. drop powder through the powder drop die

Some people may prime and charge prior to even starting the loading process.

My preference is to prime all my cases separately and then charge all my cases afterwards. This can be done during the loading process, but I prefer to do it all separately.

To reference stage 3, you can prime at the same time as another function. In the picture above, the de-priming/resizer die is in place. I would never do this since you would not be able to clean and ream/swage your primer pocket (if needed). In my opinion, the most ideal would be to use the expander/powder drop pass through die if you want to do two stages at once.

After your cases have been primed and charged, you would switch out your powder drop die, place in your bullet seating die. Some dies will seat and crimp at the same time, but again I prefer to do this in separate stages. Doing this in separate stages will require you to change dies out again to a dedicated crimp die.

7. place bullet on top of case, pull up ram and seat the bullet, retract the ram

8. place the complete bullet back into the shell holder and pull the ram up into the crimp die 

Now the advantage of the Progressive press is that you don't need to keep switching out dies for each stage/step. You just simply actuate the handle and the shell plate rotations through each stage, and you can place another case in with each actuation. The Lee Loadmaster's turret has 5 stages, typical setup would be:

1. de-priming/resizing die

2. primer/expanding die

3. automatic powder drop - i.e. Auto Drum or Auto Disk or mounting a manual powder drop like the          Lee Perfect powder drop or the RCBS Uniflow powder measure using the die adapter

4. bullet seating die

5. crimp die

I have two independent Loadmaster's, and they configured differently for pistol and rifle loading.

Since we used pistol loading as an example for single stage, my Loadmaster is configured as such:

1. case feeder system/expander die

2. priming system

3. automatic powder drop via Auto Disk

4. bullet seating die

5. crimping die

If you are like me and have limited space for your gun/hobby/reloading room highly suggest getting a Quick-change press mounting system from Dan over at Inline Fabrications. The Ultramount is single handedly one of the best reloading purchases I have ever made. He also makes tons of reloading organizational accessories. And for those who are wondering, I am NOT sponsored by them. I just tell it how it is.

You can see from my picture below; I also have two progressive presses - Lee Loadmaster's. With a progressive press comes additional costs, but the reward is speed and convenience. Not only is the press itself more costly, but now you have to factor in turret heads, automated powder drops, shell plates, etc.

At the end of the day, progressive presses are great if you do a large amount of shooting.

Dillons are probably one of the best progressive presses on the market, but it comes with a steep price tag. I opted to go with the more affordable Lee and do upgrades to them.

You can find some of these upgrades for the Lee Loadmaster on Etsy under sellers ADePdesigns and ElectricMarvels.