Handloading

No calipers? Yes, load development is a bitch. I suggest the poorfag's ladder test.
>Load up some rounds from minimum to maximum load, with increments of .2 or .3 grains
>make 2 or 3 sets of these
>bench rest gun or use lead sled
>shoot at 150 to 200 yards at target
>after each shot, walk downrange and mark the hole, which also allows the gun to cool
>the closest together holes are your best choices for load development
This way you can figure out what your rifle prefers and you can load accordingly, without a chronograph. Once you find your sweet spot you can mess up by .1 grains while loading and it won't be a total mess.

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I have calipers, I just don't want to spend the money on new bullets if their length to ogive isn't shorter than what I already have whilst giving me the same or better BC. I'm having to play distance off the lands against available case volume against velocity trying to get a combination that satisfies all my requirements.

I see, good luck bud

Fuck RCBS dies.
Get a universal case trimmer
Measure twice
Lee pacesetter dies are great.

Yup, I'll get there. I would like to try a ladder test though, I admit I have never heard of it until recently on Jow Forums. Unless I'm mistaken it's basically figuring out your barrel time through shooting.

>barrel timing
Not sure if the ladder test is figuring out your barrel timing, or it has more to do with harmonics, but regardless it's a great poorfag way to work up a load without a chronograph. Not to mention, if you have a poorfag powder dispenser that might be .1 grains off occasionally, it's a good method to help minimize flyers.

Just started casting/powder coating

Nice, how's that going? Feeling pretty good or are you getting nervous about lead and powder inhalation? I want to start casting 12 gauge slugs but im a scaredy-fag.

Get a digital powder scale. The old fashioned postal-weight kind are rage inducing.

I do it all outside. The casting is fun, but I've rejected like 90% of my bullets. I think getting a bottom pour pot will help instead of ladling it out of my melt pot. So that's coming in the mail. Same with better powder coat.

Word...
Loading 137 pieces of small pistol primer 6.5 creedmoor... Not sure if I should be happy starline threw in two extra pieces or concerned with their accuracy...

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What's the minimum kind of setup I'll need if I want to reload rifle rounds for an auto-loader?
Are there even much savings in loading .357, .308, or 8mm mauser?

check local auctions, pawn shops, craigslist, armslist, etc.
I got a full reloading set up for $30 at an auction, and there's a pawn shop near me that sells any set of dies for $20 a box.

Start with a lee loader if you want, they're usually $20-30.

>Are there even much savings in loading .357, .308, or 8mm mauser?
It depends on how much work you're willing to put in.
with range brass and casting bullets from wheel weights, I have .357 down to around 6 cpr.

I started with a lee turret press which is faster than single stage but still provides separation of stages for more control. I was happy with it but I disabled indexing and found I had way more consistency when operating in single stage without auto indexing the stations. It doesn't take long to get proficient with your equipment and tools it will take time to get comfortable and in you'll know when your ready to upgrade. I use hornady lock in load progressive now and couldn't be happier and while you can really rip out rounds with consistency it's not hard to fuck up and then have to disassemble a couple of hundred rounds because your not positive you didn't double charge once or twice. The paranoia of double charging can really get to you if you screw up once or twice and it'll end up ruing and entire session.

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>The paranoia of double charging can really get to you
Tfw you weigh every charge. Takes forever but feelssafeman.

Pretty much this

Pay 50-100 bucks for a lee anniversary set and up grade from there.

Feels ok man... Pistol though, fuck that, visual check is fine...

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>Single shot without velocity data
Worthless...

What is velocity data going to add to the poorfag ladder test I described?

Revolvers are forgiving as shit.
Start with .38 or .44 special if you can, you can't really fuck it up.

i have some 7 and 8mm brass cleaned, need to anneal and resize

press
dies
scale
brass
primers
powder
bullets
a set of calipers really really helps
a file [to trim cases. poorfag setup]

>poorfag ladder test
Oh......... Never mind........ still wouldn't hurt to do at least three full strings to make sure you aren't just lucky... Then save your money for a magnetospeed...
>1100 yards 308 175gr smk, 44.0 varget, win brass, s&b lrp

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and yess depending on where you get your stuff and how much you shoot, you will save money on .308 and 7.92

>trimming cases with a file
Holy shit you must seriously hate yourself

Nice group

ive done it before. get this, when i turn .30-06 brass into 7mm, i grind the brass down on the bench grinder in batches of 5 or 6, and by the time its sized i only need to trim about 6 millimeters off the case with my trimmer
but before i had a trimmer i used a hacksaw and a file

That must have been so time consuming and nearly impossible to get everything down to the same size within .001" or .002", I seriously commend your effort though.

>get basic bitch
This. It's easy to get caught up. Keep it simple. Even simple handloads on basic equipment can be head and shoulders above factory loaded ammo if you take care. You don't need much space or equipment to get started.

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Just loaded up some .454 and .45 colt

.454’s are 300gn loaded up with H110 to 1716 FPS, .45 colts loaded same up to 1310 FPS. Hi tek coated hardcast bullets.

Gonna load up some 9mm and 10mm soon. Got a bunch of blue dot when Gander Mtn went out of business

>Just loaded up some .454 and .45 colt
Fuck yes, what are you shooting those out of? Are they loaded super hot, or standard plinking pressure?

Harbor freight chop saw is like $5 with coupon...

>world's finest trimmer 2 body is $70
>$25 for each chamber
>a chamber can do any cartridge in the cartridge family
Honestly I'm never going back to the stupid RCBS lathe style trimmer, this is the shit.

RCBS made the trim die in their sizing sets harder than a file for this reason.
Pretty fast to just file off the excess.

Back when I started reloading using the Lee and Lyman manuals, my Uncle (who has been reloading since the late 60's) told me to double check my powder in the cases with a flashlight every time and to ALWAYS pick the powder and bullet that was flagged as a "Compressed" load when starting out. He said that way, I couldn't unknowingly double charge even if I wanted to.
Now that I use QuickLoad, I still select powders with a "fill ratio" of at least 75% for that same reason.
I'm always scared when I load up a Unique gallery load and have enough space left over to charge it 3 or 4 more times.....

>I'm always scared when I load up a Unique gallery load and have enough space left over to charge it 3 or 4 more times.....
You should be scared, that is dangerous. Try to go online and find some gallery loads or powder puff loads for your caliber using a slower burning powder that fills more case capacity.

RCBS dies work fine. Stop being autistic over small things.

whether lee or rccbs the key is good case lube and not excess of it and clean dies

Not OP but curious.
What are the "Small Things" about RCBS dies that trigger the autistic folk?
I have mostly Lee, but I do have an old set of Redding and RCBS dies and both seem fine. I don't think I honestly notice that much of a difference in performance at any price point, hence why I mostly get Lee. I suppose if I was cranking out thousands of rounds a week, I would get dies that were a bit more Gucci

I'm not too familiar with the hand held reloader, what's the size limit on something like that?

Will handle most rifle cases.
Will not full length size bottleneck cases. Neck sizing or straight wall only. Even then longer straight wall can be a bit tough.

Jow Forumsaptbilly is just being a tripfag twat and trying to stir up brand vs brand shit.

I have both lee and RCBS.

never had a problem with rcbs dies. he's just a faggot.
lyman has shitty customer service and I'll never buy another one of their products again though.

I use a powder cop in one station which is basically a floating rod with a witness mark you set using a charged case. When the charged case is raised into the die the rod will move and hopefully it will only rise as far as the witness mark which means your charge is correct. The problem with a progressive press is when you are messing with the press to clear a malfunction or something and you don't do a full stroke the bae plate doesn't rotate and if your not paying attention you'll double charge as your lowering the handle.

>head and shoulders above factory loaded ammo if you take care.
Not on that handloader it can't. Enjoy your runout and shit.

You don't have to spend a fortune if you select your gear carefully, you can't buy crap.

>runout
wat

Assuming you're the guy who loads with a Lee hand too: Exactly.

>enjoy your runout
That has more to do with your dies than your press.
And yes, a Lee Hand press is still better than factory ammo.

Poor presses will create runout though. The hand press is a dumb gimick, you can reload on a fucking kitchen stool.

Mother fucker, if Lee can include a shell holder RCBS should be able to as well. ESPECIALLY on $200 custom dies. Fuck, CH4D does, and their dies are the best I've used so far.

Yes. I agree on poor presses. But in my experience it does not matter.
I got into reloading on a borrowed hand press. It was slow, tedious, and kinds of awkward to work with. Also resizing .308 brass got tiring.
The ammo however still gave me half the groups of factory ammo, and the small size the convenience of throwing all the stuff in a drawer and be done with it. At that Point I wasn't shooting benchrest match accuracy anyways, but slightly under 1 MOA from a Savage 10 was the norm, and that with some WW2-era powder.
The main draw of the Hand press is it's small size, and it works okay.

You don't have to spend a ton unless you are after that last 1% of accuracy and have the Shooting abilities to match it.
My loading Setup for .308 is as follows:
1. Necksize with Lee collet die and reprime with Classic Cast's priming arm
2. Throw powder from Lee Perfect Powder Measure with DIY cardboard powder baffle
3. Seat bullet with Hornady Custom-Grade seating die
4. Factory crimp when I feel like it

And this gives me 0.3 MOA out of my Tikka. No trimming of brass, deburring of Flash holes, Hand seating or any of that. I don't even clean my brass for the most part. This is good enough to hit the X if I do my Job and don't jerk the Trigger.
People Need to spend less time loading and more time Shooting.

Should I be water quenching my cast bullets? I made a few but let them air cool instead.

lil crow is my bro

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Is that the one that will chamfer and deburr while it trims? I have the "world's cheapest trimmer" which works on the same premise but I still have to do the other two steps with my drill after the fact. Flings brass all over the place though...

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yes, you want the Finest not Cheapest*

my nigga

It claims to debur if you turn the cartridge a bit after trimming, which I do, but I still use the little hand deburring tool to chamfer and debur after trimming.