Was a good weekend hitting local yard sales 😆

These were from several yard sales and fb marketplace sales.

Hi all, long time lurker. I’ve gathered so much useful information from this subreddit. I used a Lee Challenger III press, and hand measured all the powder using an RCBS digital scale. I just picked up a powder thrower to make things less tedious. I’m really enjoying the hobby so far. These are Blazer brass, Hornady 115 gr FMJ-RN bullets, Hodgdon CFE pistol powder, and CCI primers.

fit a 50 cal into a 50 AE with a bit of shaving. This is my first time reloading so don’t judge, just put it together as proof of concept with some old beat up casings. gut says if i were to fire this it would explode the casing. inspired by the 338 razorback and can’t find anything like it (outside of the 50 ARJ) but can’t imagine im the first person to do this. would be interesting to see with explosive 50 bmg rounds.

EdIt: Forgot about 510 whisper which is very similar just not as short

Not sure if this is the right pace to ask, but I thought I'd try. One of my students (college) is interested in a research project related to luminescent tracers in gunpowder, and he is thinking that he will have to make custom rounds for the project. Neither of us know anything about reloading, other than it should not be done by amateurs like us. Does anyone have any advice on where to start figuring out how to obtain the ammunition for his project? We're in southeast central PA. Thank you.

Hello everyone hope you’re all doing well!
I’m looking to get into reloading and I have no idea where to start. I’ve had several people tell me one thing then other people tell me the opposite and I figured if anybody knew the best advice it would be here so with that being said any info is greatly appreciated!!

I'm looking to get an original ballard rifle soon but unfortunately ones in 45-70 have proven extremely difficult to find and it seems that 38-55 will not stand up to my needs for long range BPCR shooting

Would 40-70 sharps straight or 444 marlin brass be good to convert or would there be any other cartridge cases that would do better?

I have a buddy that shoots a 277 Fury but doesn’t reload. I have a 260 Rem and do reload. Since the 277 Fury is a hybrid case based on 308 I thought about resizing the Fury case for 260 and trying my luck at high pressure loads similar to the Fury, NAS3 or Peak+. Has anyone else done this and what did you see for velocity increase vs standard brass 260? Thanks in advance.

I just got this seekins precision dmr in 223 wylde as my first ar15 and looking for bullet recommendations its a 1:8 twist and itll probably be used on prairie dogs a the occasional coyote, raccoon,opossum ect. Im looking for something accurate and turns stuff into a red mist

I reload rifle and pistol on a single stage. Not a ton of volume, but I am usually reloading something a couple times a month. I started with the Hornady lock and load kit doing 9mm and .38. I've added .357 (same dies), 10mm, and 6.5 Creedmoor. For pistol, I do batches of 50-100 in two loading blocks. I'll do big batches of brass prep up to seating primers so I have a big stash of prepped brass on hand. When I want to do a batch, I'll prime, setup in the loading blocks, and charge handheld right into the cases in the loading block with the powder measure that the kit came with. Its not super ergonomic, but its also not terrible. I have the pistol insert and i validate my charge weight every 20 or so rounds, and its usually pretty stable. I also visually inspect every charge before placing a bullet. From there I seat bullets and crimp. For pistol, I typically load a lot in the winter and stash it for spring and summer shooting.

For rifle, I swap to the rifle insert and use the stand to hold the powder measure, I set the charge a few tenths of a grain under my load and hand trickle on the scale, then dump powder and move on. This process for rifle is tedious, especially with stick powder and the little dime bag battery scale the kit came with. I've looked at automated tricklers, I'm not too interested in a DIY solution, and I'm not sure I even want an automated trickler, but I do want something that is better on the scale side of things, and the overall speed and consistency of the results. What is the best bang for the buck? Hornady, RCBS, Lyman, all have auto powder measure/dispensors, are there any diamonds in the rough? Should I get a better powder throw and scale? Something all together different? For rifle, I probably shoot 50 a month, but would do more if I could save some time. What should I do next?

Loaded this 25-06, would chamber but bolt won’t close and the extractor doesn’t even pull it. Had to stick a cleaning rod down my barrel to get it out

Is it just not sized properly? Rounds do fit in the internal mag.

I loaded some 6.5C tonight and was seeing CBTO variations of up to .010. Is that too much or typical? Most of the rounds were within .003 but a couple were short.

I really hate case trimming. I’ve got 50 shells I need to trim tomorrow and I’m dreading it.

please give me alternatives

I had bought a new scope for my Remy 700 Sendero in 300WM. Finally got around to getting it sighted in yesterday, using some Federal Gold Medal Match 190gr BTHP. Was about 13 rounds in, loading them into the chamber singley, and the bolt wouldn't close...opened it back up, tries again, still wouldn't close. Pulled the round out, and this is what it looked like. Normal on the left, the one that wouldn't chamber on the right. More than $60 for 20 rounds, and this is what you get. That being said, they did all chrono pretty good, average of 2923FPS...

Fired a few rounds of Greek HXP .303 Brit through my Lee Enfield, and was wondering if the brass is good to reload.

My current setup: tikka ctr 6.5prc 24 inch barrel, 1 in 8 twist. Its sitting in a cadex chassis with a MDT brake, all together easily over 13 pounds, recoils lighter than an sks.

52.9 grains of H4831SC, 147ELDM, Hornady brass and large rifle primer, overall length 2.955"

The first picture was a 15 shot group i shot yesterday. The first 9 landed nicely in a 1-1.1 moa group, with the first few shots very close to each other and the 7th shot was adjusted because i know i aimed low-left for that shot. The remaining 6 rounds all went left .5inch for some reason. The barrel was not hot as I fired 2-3 rounds every 2-3 minutes, so I have no idea what happened there. Does anyone have any idea?

The 2nd picture was also yesterday but with factory hornady 147eldm. Its an 8 round group that I didnt bother to measure as it was clearly over 1moa and probably 1.4-1.6 and I knew a tikka could do much better. This group also had a leftward trend although not as obvious.

The last picture was using the same load as the first picture, shot a few weeks ago but faster. 13 round group at 1.24moa. I aimed at a large center point which probably opened up the group a little. So if we discount the leftward shift as an accident, then the load is shooting at around 1.0-1.2 moa. This is not terrible, but I feel like a tikka can do better.

Should I ditch 147eldm all together and try something like 140bthp or 140eldm? Is there enough evidence to show that my gun doesnt like the 147s? Where should I proceed from here?

On a side note, Im too broke for a chronograph, I had to remount the scope without a torque wrench because some goober wanted to buy the scope so I took it out of the mount to ship it and then on the way to UPS he said he didnt want it anymore. After that the gun was dropped from shoulder height and the zero shifted downwards about 2mils but I think the scope still tracks fine. Its a burris xtr3 which should be durable enough.

My hornady powder measure, after spending about 15 years boxed up in garage is coated in heavy rust. I tried to oil and steel wool the bulk of it off, but there is lots. The arm will not bugde, is is totally locked up. I tried soaking in clp for a few days, but still locked up.. could a bath in vinegar eat away the rust? What could i use to loosen this up?

Does anyone have load data for a 44 special using n340 powder? I’m looking to replicate the Elmer Keith style load with n340 that would push a 240 SWC to 950-1000 fps. I plan on using the Missouri bullet company 240 SWC Elmer K coated bullet crimped in the crimp groove out of a 4 inch 44 magnum mountain gun. The max load that I can find is 7.1 grains but that only brings velocity to the low 800’s. The max load is low as it is meant to protect vintage revolvers but I have a modern N frame so I should be able to push the pressure past the SAAMI max of 15,500 psi safely. The fastest load I could find Dave Scovill’s article in Handloader #183 that was 7.7 grains which gave 1042 out of a 4 3/4 inch barrel. Has anyone tried this?

I'm new to reloading and my goal sub-MOA accuracy on a 6.5CM cartridge. Using new Lapua brass, on the first reload, I just set neck tension, chamfered, and loaded for a ladder test. My ladder test was 3 rounds at each step where I had some pretty mixed results on my ladder test. I selected my best groups/loads and ran a longer string.

Reloading my once-fired brass, I need to to figure out how far to bump the shoulder. I measured all the once-fired brass to the datum line and have this distribution:

I need some help selecting which length to index off of for bumping the shoulders back 0.002. I'm considering two options:

1. Index off of the longest cases (1.5390) which bump the shoulders back to 1.5370.
2. Index off of the size of the cases at the powder load I plan on using (1.5375) which will bump the shoulders back to 1.5355.

Which option is the right one?

I found this press at an estate auction but there are no identifying markers or anything stamped into the press anywhere that I can find it’s missing some parts and I would like to see if they are still available I would like to restore it and put it back into use.
My old lady tried ai and it said it was a Lyman ideal turret press but google turned up no results on that any help is greatly appreciated! TIA

Seems when i go above 42 grains, I’m getting the majority of blown primers. I’ve double-checked my crimp and charge. For example 180gr TGK, 42.6 varget, and br-2 (2.8 COAL) resulted in some blown primers using norma brass. This AR10 is running a high-back pressure suppressor with a high-pressure bolt+ gas-restricting tube. Trying cci34 to see if its a primer issue. Br-2 are known to be soft