Darrell

I thought I had a bunch of 7.62 x 39 cases. I don't reload this caliber, so after identifying one case I just visually put a bunch in the same pile. Wrong answer! Almost all the cases are physically smaller than the 7.62 x 39, but the head stamp doesn't identify caliber, only the LC mark. What do I have here? Thanks!

I recently bought a lot of mixed brass from one of the TGO members, and among it are a few calibers that I don't shoot. Free if you want it. I live in Hebbertsburg, but go to Crossville and Lake Tansi frequently. I'll drop it in the mail, too, on your dime. 150-ish- 40 S&W wet-tumbled. 88-ish 7.62x39 wet-tumbled 80-ish 300 Blackout cases (see below) likely formed from 5.56 Lake City Brass, wet tumbled. 39- 44-40, unprocessed but pretty clean 20- 44 SPL unprocessed but pretty clean 15- 32 Win wet-tumbled. I don't remember this ever happening before, but it would seem I have made an.... error... I identified those 7.62 x 39 cases visually, just looking at the head stamp on a couple. I guess I just got unlucky in looking at those couple, as there were only four or so cases. The others look similar at a glance, but they are different. I don't see a caliber marking on the cases. Can any of you very knowledgeable folks identify them. They're shorter than the 7.62 x 39, and have as slightly narrower mouth. SORRY!

This is Katy. She showed up uninvited about six weeks ago, skinny and afraid to be touched. She's proven to be a sweet, gentle, but worthless hound, and I guess she's adopted us and has moved in permanently. She doesn't like to pose for photos, though.

Right you are. But like you, I saw a few typhoons while I was in the Corps. Semper Fi!

I'm a bit of a fatalist, I guess. The area where I live has some very old barns that have been standing for 100 years or so, even though they've been rickety for the past 30. I look at those and reckon the chances of a tornado hitting me are pretty small. And I live in a log home that's pretty darned stout. The roof might come off, but I think the walls are likely to remain. I have a large closet and a bathroom with no external walls, and if that doesn't work, well, sayonara.

Jeez, Louise! For $100 I guess I have to buy them. PM to you.

You might consider posting jpg files. I can convert an heic, but it's a hassle, and jpg seems to be the standard here. I'd love to have the pistol, but a bit to rich for me, I'm afraid. Good luck with your sale!

Actually, I kinda like that idea. I have about 1000' of frontage on a public road, and every other week I pick up a dozen or so empty beer cans and often an empty liquor bottle. There's a LOT of drinking and driving going on. I spent 25 years as a volunteer fireman / EMT, and the vast majority of the auto accidents that I responded to were alcohol related. Hear hear!

I'm finding powder here and there at something around $35 a pound. And I just bought 1000 Berry's 30-carbine bullets for $100. The last primers I saw for sale at a retail store were insanely priced. Premium bullets continue to fetch premium prices, but plinkers are available. I check Hodgdon and Powder Valley just about every day looking for some Retumbo or H1000, but no luck so far. When a powder comes available you'd better be ready to push the "buy now" button, as it won't be available for long. I've seen Varget at suggested retail price twice in the past couple of months, and it's gone within an hour. I cast bullets for quite a few of my handguns and a couple of rifles. I have a fair bit of lead on hand, so I should be able to continue with that for a few years. But finding tin to mix in has become more and more difficult. My local thrift shops probably think I collect pewter pieces, but it gets cut down and tossed in the pot.

Seems a couple of folks were looking for this earlier.

PM sent

That Colt in 38 Super is on my list, too. What do you think of it?

In that case it may be that the one bullet that stuck just didn't get fully seated. Perhaps you didn't cycle the press fully. If you have other cartridges from that batch of reloads, and all of them will cycle correctly with no marks on the bullet, then my guess is that you had a one-off failure to seat fully. That would also account for a lighter crimp. It's always best to be critical of reload failures and figure out the cause. Sounds like you have it under control.

And he was also the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, which is what those opposing the statue were most opposed to. I think we could "cancel" just about every one of our past "heroes". George Washington owned slaves, Jefferson had children with at least one of his slaves (Sally Hemming was also his wife's half-sister) and kept those children in slavery, Lincoln suggested that blacks should be sent to Liberia after the war, Tennessee's own Andrew Jackson slaughtered Indians, Woodrow Wilson has a reputation as a racist. All those were men of their times. Virtually everyone was a racist in Washington's time. Better to acknowledge the faults of America's past leaders and to consider their accomplishments in context with times in which they lived.

And did you then cycle the cartridge successfully? The only reason the bullet would remain behind is that it was pushed into the lands, and the tension of the lands was great enough to overcome the tension of the mouth of the case. The rule I follow is that the OAL of the cartridge should be no greater than the bullet just touching the lands, and usually a couple of thousands less. You can test this pretty easily by loading a dummy round (no powder or primer and no crimp) and "painting" a bullet with a felt pen. Leave it a bit long, chamber it into your rifle so that the bullet is pushed into the case. If the bullet is left behind then the case will have marked the deepest penetration of the bullet by scratching the felt pen marking you made. If the bullet comes out with the cartridge then you can measure directly. You just need to seat a couple thou deeper into the case and maybe crimp a little tighter. And case necks do become thinner over the course of many reloads. The hotter the load, the more the case may stretch. But it's been my experience that the neck will split when it becomes brittle from over-work. I don't think you'd ever reach a point where the neck became too thin to hold the bullet, more likely the brass would split at the neck first.

Was it a reload? If the OAL is a bit long the bolt can push the bullet into the lands hard enough to leave the bullet behind. Not common, but certainly not unheard of. If you've got reloads, then you probably didn't get the bullet seated quite deeply enough and perhaps had too little crimp. If they are factory loads, they you might consider complaining to the manufacturer.

44 Mag dies for sale on this forum here:

So can we assume that right now you have no reloading gear at all? The place to begin is to purchase a good reloading manual. They all include instructions on reloading, and will give you a good idea of what you need to start. You don't need to invest a whole lot of money to begin, but be warned, you can spend a butt-load of money if you're so inclined. Right now is a tough time to begin reloading, as components are harder to get than they have been in the past. But components are out there. I live about an hour from Oliver Springs, but if you want to come this far I can give you a demo of loading both 45-70 and 44 Mag.

As a recent transplant from the Pacific Northwest, I can tell "yall" that one hits the nail on the head.

I'll take the brass dryer. PM sent

PM coming

https://ammunitionstore.com/?mc_cid=5cd0a64354&mc_eid=0a36fe4b37 I don't think I've ever ordered from these folks, but they send me e-mail solicitations pretty regularly. It looks like they're offering some okay deals on common ammo, including 380 which seems to be tough to find these days. I was at my local Rural King this afternoon and they had quite a bit of various ammo in-stock, including .22, 223, 380, and 9mm. I reload almost all my ammo, so the prices didn't tempt me at all, but it was nice to see ammo on the shelves again. I've had some luck finding bullets and powder, but primers are still unobtainable for the price I'm willing to pay. I am encouraged, though, and hope that ammo and components are slowly making their way back to the shelves.

From a CNN news article: "Travis McMichael was found guilty of malice murder while the other defendants, Gregory McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan Jr., were convicted on four and three of the counts of felony murder, respectively." I wonder how one is found guilty of FOUR counts of murder, when only one murder was committed. I've been trying to find some explanation, but so far am coming up empty. While I believe that the jury came to the correct conclusion, I just don't see how the murderers were convicted of more than one count each. Anyone have an explanation?

I disagree with you on that one, and think the 15-minute rule is a good thing. Do you ever bid on eBay auctions? There's a phenomenon called "sniping" when people will submit a bid at the very last instant, giving other interested parties no opportunity to respond. That 15-minute rule eliminates sniping. Higher sales prices are good for the site and good for the seller, and no one is forced to bid more than they're willing to pay. Just my two cents.

True enough, but who is going to decipher which calls get a cop and which get a mental health specialist? 911 dispatchers have a tough-enough job, but it's been my experience (25 years as a volunteer fireman / EMT) that most of them don't have the education to make that kind of call. It was also my experience that a significant proportion of the calls to which I was dispatched were not exactly as described by the dispatcher. For example, one call was for a gas station fire and it turned out that a semi-truck had a smoking brake. Remember that the dispatcher is just relaying information given to him over the telephone, the dispatcher hasn't had a chance to personally evaluate the situation. Whenever I was dispatched to any kind of potentially violent situation the police were dispatched at the same time. Believe me, if I was going into a domestic violence situation, or to one where someone was threatening or had attempted suicide, I wanted the cops there with me. Ideally there would be a way to know when a police response is required and when some other response would be better. But idealism has to take a backseat to realism in most situations that require a 911 response. It's nice to sit in your armchair and think of ways to improve the system, it's a lot tougher to implement those ideas in system that requires immediate responses to dangerous situations.