RichardS

I'm in Maryville and would be willing to sell a pound of Alliant Unique or Hodgdon Longshot at my cost to get you started.  Both have .45 ACP load data for their powders on their web sites.  If you have not found primers yet I could help you out there as well.  PM me if you want to discuss.   Also as stated above David is an active member here and will likely be at the Knoxville gun show Aug 17-18.

I was surprised to see primers in stock at Stars and Stripes in Maryville.  After I grabbed a box each of small and large pistol there were a few boxes (1000 ct) of Federal small pistol and CCI large pistol along with a couple other brands/types left.  Prices were not great but cheaper than I've seen in several months, under $40 per 1000.     Hoping that posting here will get them in the hands of some shooters instead of scalpers.

Tough call, I've wondered recently if I've stepped over the line into hoarding.  I plan to shoot all of it but in some cases have more than a year's supply.  I'm out of small and large pistol primers so will probably overbuy once I find a reasonable deal.  Unfortunately that adds to the problem, honest folks are overbuying right now because nobody knows when they might find said ammo or components again in the future.

Yeah I have same issue, been diagnosed in the past with tennis elbow, not from tennis but from swinging a heavy hammer.  The press seems to irritate the same elbow components and I just have to spread out my reloading.  Changing position/grip every few minutes helps a little but there are not a whole lot of possible positions with reloading presses and hammers :-)  Doc says I can either deal with it or try surgery, I've decided to deal with it and not risk the surgery.

  Following up on my previous post, I have now experienced several failures to fire with the CCI 400s fired from 2 different XDms.  All did fire on the second try so I'm assuming they were light strikes.  Never had any such failures in the past so there is a good possibility that the 400s have a harder cup and the XDm striker is just not strong enough to always set them off.  I'll have to wait to verify until I can get my hands on some CCI 500s again and shoot a bunch of them.  The pistols seem OK mechanically and I even tried stronger striker springs which helped some but I am still getting 1 or 2 failures per 100.  Not sure what changed, could striker pin wear, warmer temperatures, or maybe I was just lucky with the first few hundred.   For now the ammo I have loaded with 400s is for range use so I'll just accept the 1 or 2 in 100 that fail to fire and chalk it up as practice on clearing failures.  But wanted to post this correction and recommend folks with striker fired pistols fire several hundred before considering them for competition or defensive use.

Mine arrived today as well.  Looks identical (bullet design, head stamp) to some Wolf Match Target I bought last year, at that time someone said was made by SK so that makes sense.  The Wolf Match Target shoots really well out of my rifles, hope this SK is as good.

I'm going to start working up some loads and looking for feedback on powders.   Looking at the burn rates here http://www.reloadbench.com/burn.html I see the following:   39. Alliant Power Pistol 47. Winchester WSF 53. Accurate No. 7 54. Hodgdon Longshot 56. Ramshot True Blue   I've seen all of those except WSF recommended by various sources for 460 Rowland. I included WSF because I have that and cannot find any of the others for sale anywhere.  And it conveniently is in the same burn rate range as the other 4.  Anyone see reasons for not giving WSF a try, starting at published .45 ACP levels and working up from there?

Thanks golfnfish, just ordered some.  Have been using Wolf match target which I paid about the same for last yer, interested to see how this compares.

I've used CCI 400 small rifle in my 9mm loads and they work fine in my Springfield XDm's.  I've shot a few hundred of them so far and no issues with light strikes and I see no evidence of gas leaking past primers.  Over my chrono the 400 small rifle primers produced slightly higher velocities than the same bullet/powder combo using 500 small pistol primers.  I backed off 0.1 grain of powder when using 400's after those measurements and velocities are now approximately the same as with the 500's.   That said, I'll buy the 500's again when I can.  Last time I was looking I could not find them but got a deal on a bunch of 400's.

Yes, I already had the tumbler from some kids' rock polishing projects. Bought the large drum for the tumbler and the SS media and am very happy with the results. Going on memory here but I believe I get 3-400 9mm or 150-200 .223 in the tumbler at a time. I basically fill it a bit above halfway with brass and media, then a tablespoon or so of lemi-shine (cheap from walmart) and about two tablespoons of dawn and fill 3/4 with water. Tumble for a few hours and brass is very clean. I personally prefer depriming before tumbling and thus the primer pockets get cleaned as well. When done there is virtually no evidence of any powder or primer residue inside or out. I would say there is more effort involved than dry tumbling since the brass comes out wet and needs to be rinsed and dried. But on the plus side it is quick to tumble and the media is near endlessly reusable. To dry I spread the brass out on plastic trays similar to cookie sheets and point a box fan at them to keep the air moving.

Another vote for the prochrono, mine has served me well. I recently took it apart and used some cat5 cable to move the display and controls into a remote control box I can keep on the bench. That is _very_ handy if there is anyone else at the range, remote means you do not have to wait for cold range to review your data or switch to new strings. I would guess based on price that it is not as accurate as the more expensive models, and the data posted above agrees with that. However, I have had many 10-15 round strings with SD below 10fps and for me that is plenty of accuracy for determining whether or not my loads are safe. I can see where greater accuracy might be a benefit in preparing loads for competition, but I do not do that so will let those who do comment on price vs results for the more expensive setups.

This is just a guess but it is very possible that the bullets are not shaped exactly the same (slightly different ogives) and your bullet seater meets them in slightly different places. If you seater is like mine it does not push on the tip of the bullet but rather somewhere further down and where it hits depends on the shape of the bullet. I also use a Hornady LnL and a Lee 4 die set for 9mm. I get a few thousandths difference in OAL within a batch so my results are similar to yours. I've not kept good enough records to know if certain brands/types of bullets are more consistent than others, but I do remember they all varied by a few thousandths. I've used Hornady 115g XTP, Remington 124g Golden Saber, Berry's plated 124g HP, Missouri 125g RN and CN, Dardas 122g RNFP, and Dardas 124g and 125g RN. nysos has a good point above, I do get dies loosening once in a while. The LnL bushings can turn a bit as well so keep and eye on them, I use a wrench to snug them down. I've seen posts on other forums saying that Hornady will send you a shim that is supposed to keep the LnL busings in place better. So if you have this problem you could give them a call. The marker idea is great, I am going to start doing that to get a visual when something loosens. Check the large allen head bold that holds the shellplate to the press, mine loosens once in a while. This probably would not affect OAL but will affect primer seating depth and how the completed rounds eject. I also noticed the fit between my ram and subplate was not perfect and the subplate could tilt a few thou. I put some shim stock in between them and reassembled and it seems rock solid now. Again, I heard Hornady will send you a shim if you call them, I had some shim stock available so did not call. This slight tilt could affect OAL because the subplate is what the base of the shell is sitting. Last though is to keep a small brush (old toothbrush works for me) handy and wipe off any powder that spills and gets on/under the shellplate. While very small, I'm sure a bit of squashed powder could throw things off by a thou or two.

Good point, I think a lot of guys do not. I deprime first then wet tumble with stainless media. Takes more time than dry tumbling since you have to deal with rinsing and drying the brass but gets the primer pockets real clean. Then I inspect them all and run the brass with crimped primer pockets through the swager. At that point I call it done for 9mm, I do not bother measuring case length or trimming or flash hole deburring.

I bought mine at the Knoxville gun show a few months ago, it is labeled WC. I believe it was from DLM's table/booth.

What kind of volume are you thinking about? If you are going to make 500 or more at a time then I recommend getting a progressive or at least a turret press. I use a Hornady Lock N Load for 9mm and it once I have the brass cleaned I can load a few hundred per hour. That press has 5 stations, you insert a case and it goes through multiple dies/stations and comes out a completed round. Using a press with a single station is going to be significantly slower as you have to handle each case multiple times, picking it up once to size/deprime, prime, drop powder, seat bullet, and then crimp. If you are doing a hundred or two at a time this might be fine but if your volume is greater than that IMO buying a progressive or turret is worth the extra cost. It is a lot more money up front but allows you to be a lot more efficient reloading large volumes. If you are wondering what the difference looks like then check out youtube, I have seen videos for the Lee breech loader and the various progressive presses, seeing them in action may help you make a decision on cost versus speed. If you are primarily looking to save then you should also take the time to pick up spent brass whenever you can. 9mm seems to be left on the ground a lot and if you pick some up every time you go to the range you may never have to buy any brass. The guys here can help you out with casting your own bullets which can be a lot cheaper than buying. I've not tried that yet but have shot lead from Missouri and Dardas as well as copper plated from Berry's. All of those shoot fine and cost less than jacketed bullets. Check your range rules first though to see if they require you to use jacketed bullets. The two that I frequent are outdoors and lead or copper plated are fine.