Quote:
Originally Posted by Deacon_Man
Thank you for the positive input. And yes, I have read the Lyman manual. Today I took some old rounds and decaped, resized and put in new primers. I have some of the dies setup.
My original question was powder charge. My book says for reddot use min. of 4 grains to a max. of 5.3 . I thought I would start with 4.5 grains because my 1911 likes a little hotter round to help with ejecting. Do you think this is a good idea? I am going to tackle the charging and bullet insertion tomorrow.
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I always start at the min charge, and work up. It's good practice to always do that. When you start venturing out to other powders that are fast burning you won't have a large range between the min - max. A good example is my favorite lead load for 45acp: 230gr LRN/ 4.1gr of WST/ OAL= 1.250". Data shows the min charge at 4.0 gr of WST with a max of 4.3gr. That's only .3gr to work with.
Before you start priming and charging cases please build yourself a couple dummy rnds. I have a dummy rnd or two for every bullet type I use in each caliber I load. You can use the dummy rnd to check for function and use for your plunk test with the barrel removed. Start with your OAL long at 1.255"-1.260" and slowly work down til your case head spaces correctly off the case mouth and the rnd passes the plunk test with a nice crisp "Plunk". If your lead bullets have a rim around them like my MBC lead bullets you will find they may have to be seated at 1.245"-1.250". This will depend on your camber and barrel. Once you get the OAL where it passes the plunk test check for fit in your mags. Make sure the nose doesn't hit the mag housing when they are loaded (OAL too long). Also make sure you don't crimp those lead bullets too much. If you do, you can damage the bullet which can cause presure issues, and leading. Measure your bullet diameter and the wall thickness. Ex: .452" BD + .10" +.10" for case thickness on each side of bullet= .472". In this case you should set your OAL to .472".