Reloading Part II

So you made it through Part I and have either been wonder what happened to Part II or thought that it was just a joke. Not a joke, I have just been spending some time in the woods getting some game for the freezer and the freezer of the kids. (Those of you who have kids understand that last part just like I do.) Anyway, I will give a quick recap of what is needed to reload and it is not all that difficult. There will be a couple of steps that are not shown here because I am not using the press for primer removal or insertion – but more on that in Part III. Again, I would like to stress that this is just going to be the highlights and you really do need to purchase a quality reloading manual.

Since you have been picking up your brass after you shoot you now have a collection that needs to be reloaded. You have the press, dies, lubes, scales, and powder measure and are eager to start. The first thing you need to do is inspect your brass – even if it is new or only once-fired. You are looking for any signs of weakening in the neck or deformed cases. If you have a small ding in the brass that has been once-fired it is probably the result of the brass hitting the receive when ejected and this is not a major problem. Also, small dents in the case mouth will be removed when you resize the case. If you have brass that has been shot multiple times, sooner or later, you will end up with splits in the neck. When I was really poor, which is a better thing to say than pretty dumb, I would reload the cases with split necks. Now I know that I am MUCH further ahead to just smash the top of the case so that it will never be used and put it in a jar that I have for brass to be recycled.

The brass that I am reloading has been fired quite a few times and problems are starting to show up in the brass. Like I said above, I would normally just crimp the neck and shoulder of the four pieces of brass on the right, but this is not my brass so I will be returning all of the brass that I was given – that includes the one piece of .223 (blue tape) that somehow got mixed in with the .222 brass. These four were the only cases out of 190 that had problems – the rest looked fine. By inspecting each piece you can avoid problems.

The dies that I am using are RCBS. There are several quality die companies on the market, but I got started with RCBS so many of my older dies were made by them. This is a three-die set and is make up of a full length resizing die, neck resizing die, and a seating die. A full-length resizing die will work the neck, shoulder, and case body. This die should be used when you are resizing brass for different gun or if it was not shot in the gun that you are reloading for this time. It will put the brass back closer to the original standards. The neck-sizing die only sizes the neck and does nothing to the shoulder or body of the case. This also does not “work” the brass as much and your brass will be able to be reloaded more times. Since my cousin has several .222 rifles, all of this brass will be full-length resized.

There are quite a few resizing lubricants on the market and I think I have tried many of them – including STP, which was recommended many years back. I have now pretty much settled on Imperial Sizing Die Wax, but had to try the new IOSSO product. It worked pretty well and you don’t have the wax that needs to be wiped off, so it might be worth considering if just getting started. I do have a couple of RCBS lubricating pads that are used by putting the lubricant on the pad, spreading it around, and then rolling the cases across to lubricate them. The works pretty well, but it doesn’t get any lube inside the neck and some is needed there. Personally, I use my fingers and the Imperial Wax. But even with that, you need to get some lube inside the neck. There are some small nylon brushes that you can get and use, or you can use this TIP from me and use the new modern wonder shown in the picture. It works fine.

Without putting some type of lube on your brass you will probably pull the head off of the case and end up with a case that is suck inside your die. This is not fun, but if you have a stuck case remover you will be able to destroy the brass case, get it out, and not mess up your die. I used to lube about every third or fourth case and then started working some .223 brass that came out of a sloppy chambered semi-automatic and became both good friends with the stuck case tool and then lube. You only want a thin coat of lube on the case because if you put too much on you will find little dimples in your case – usually in the shoulder. This is caused when the lube has no place to go and is being squeezed between the die wall and the brass. Since the brass can move “in” that is what happens. This will make for some bad looking brass, but after you fire it in a chamber it will be forced back to shape.

To start your reloading you put the resizing die into the top of the press, the proper shell holder into the ram, and place a piece of brass into the shell head. The resizing die also has a decapping pin that you can see at the bottom of the die. When the case is raised into the press the pin knocks out the spent primer, which usually falls into a container attached to the press. As I said earlier, I have dropped this and use a different means to get the spent primer out.

When the ram reaches the top, the brass has been fully resized. What also has happened is that the neck has been made smaller than is really needed so as the ram is lowered there is an expander ball on the rod in the center of the die that opens the neck back up. (This is part of the reason that the necks start to split, since each time it is fired it expands, is made smaller in the die, and then is enlarged to the proper size to hold the bullet that you will be using.) If you look at the picture above you can see a hole on the left-hand side of the press. This can be used to insert new primers into the case. Even when I did use this to put in the new primers I did it as a separate step since I wanted to clean out the primer pocket before inserting a new primer. So now you have a resized and primed piece of brass and are ready to move on.

The next two steps are to deburr the case mouth both inside and out. Where this is a “must” is if you have trimmed the case for squared up the mouth. I usually will lightly touch the inside of the mouth which will make the bullet seat a little easier. I do not take off much brass. You do not want to make the mouth wall become too thin. I only do the outside if I feel a lip. If in doubt, error on the side of leaving it alone.

The next thing that is needed is powder. There are many scales on the market – I started with an oil dampened balance scale and after many others have finally gone electronic. (I like it.) A scale will be used to weigh each charge unless you have a powder measure. Powder measures, like the one shown are helpful, but really not required. They will speed up the reloading process since once it is set up, it will throw a pretty reliable charge each time. (The thing that powder measures like is consistency. If you lightly lower the handle one time and then mash it down the next, there is a possibility that you will not get the same charge.

If you don’t have a powder measure with a drop tube that fits the top of the brass you are reloading you will need a funnel. And if you are filling the cases pretty much to the top and need to tap on the funnel to get all of the powder into the case, this is what can happen. The first three cases on the back row were given the same amount of powder, but as a new case was then tapped, small grains of powder popped out and are shown on the reloading block. While I would not worry about on particle of powder, and most coyotes would not notice the difference, there will be a change between the first case that has lost the most powder and the third case that is at the top of the neck. My reason for showing this is quite simple – watch what is happening. If I were going to be reloading cases that were this full I would put the powder in one case and then seat the bullet. Then go on to another case, seat the bullet and continue.

When you finish putting powder into the cases, look down on them to make sure that they all look the same. With this charge a double charge would have been spilling all over the loading block, but if for some reason there was a blockage in the powder measure, there could be a light charge. These all look fine.

The next step is to seat the bullet. The seating die is screwed into the press, the brass case (with powder) is placed into the shell head, the bullet placed on top, and away it goes. I normally hold the bullet as it starts into the die, but if I did that you would only see my hand.

The shell case with the bullet at the top is inserted all the way into the die which seats the bullet and in some cases, crimps the shell mouth.

Hopefully this short recap will give you an overview and help you decide if you really want to get started reloading or are more content to buy factory ammo. Keep your powder dry,