BigK

  When my AB wants a treat, she'll come to me and whine, sit, lay down, rollover, offer a shake, and every other trick we've asked her to do. I think that's pretty smart to be proactive like that.   I'd be a mess without her.

I love seeing how much everyone loves their dogs. People who have never known that kind of love, have something missing inside and they don't even realize it. Here's my babies Lucy (American Bulldog), Barkley (Old English Bulldog), and Layla (Pit mix?):

Walnut has sharper edges, so I think it works much better. Both "can" get down in the primer pockets, if you deprime first, which I no longer do. Since I switched from corn cob to walnut, I don't see any down in the flash hole either.

I just tumble mine in crushed walnut bedding for pets with a little auto body polish added. I let them tumble til they shine, cause that's how I roll.

Best news I've heard all week!

  That's not hard to believe at all. These ammo companies will do anything to save a penny per box of ammo lately. What do they care if their brass sucks so bad that we can't use it for reloads.   Of the major brands, Remington seems to be the thinnest I've dealt with. S&B and Pvri seem like they're much thicker than most of the others.

  I've never loaded what you'd call a "hot" round...ever. So, I'm with you on the light loads = longer brass life thing. Plus, I put the barest minimum flare on the case mouth that I can get away with and still stand a bullet up. I assume this works the brass less and leads to less cracks/splits.    Like you, I save time on trimming too. In fact, I can honestly say I've NEVER trimmed a pistol case for the purpose of keeping it in spec. I have trimmed a mm off of 100 or so 9mm luger case to create some 9mm Makarov cases, though.   I'm glad you brought up primer pockets. I cleaned my primer pockets like it was a religion for a long time. Someone I trust finally told me the same thing you said basically. The primer pocket gets before the brass wears out and/or too much crud builds up. In fact, I think the extra layers of crud keep the primer pocket from being too loose, too soon LOL.

I’ve been reading a lot of reloading threads here on TGO and other sites recently.   One of the things I’m most curious about is your cleaning regiment. I hear some claim they don’t clean theirs at all. I can’t skip that part…just can’t do it. Putting my reloading OCD aside, I feel clean cases mean cleaner dies and less scratches in them. Also, I find it MUCH easier to see cracks/splits/bulges if my brass is clean. Anyone disagree strongly enough to help convince me to quit wasting time?   Another thing is longevity. When I first started reloading, several folks that had been doing it for years told me 3-5 or 7-8 or whatever uses was all I should expect out of brass and that I should toss it after several reloads for safety’s sake. I like to test boundaries, so I marked a couple dozen or so cases with blue marker and kept track of how many times I’d reloaded them. When I got to 5, I just kept going, only throwing them out of they were damaged. I was surprised to find that most of the 25 stayed in my rotation for way past 30 reloads. I finally ended up running out of other ammo at a match once and used them up without recovering my brass. Otherwise, who knows how long they’d have lasted.   I’ll stop there and look forward to seeing where this thread goes or if anyone is even interested in discussing it.

  I don't know anyone who didn't get into reloading to save money, only to find out they're shooting more and breaking even. That's not a bad thing, though.   How do you put a price on NOT having to drive to Walmart, hoping they have some ammo in stock?  What's it worth to be able to customize loads for shooting steel vs punching holes in paper? Who doesn't find value in being able to thumb their nose at politicians when they make new ammo laws that don't cover reloads?   To me the most valuable part of reloading my own ammo is the sense of independence and pride of using something I make myself.

I see mullet/skoal can folks act just as bad or worse, but there seems to be a lot of empty beer cans around when they do.

That was FANTASTIC! If the Crocodile Hunter were still alive, he could narrate. I'm guessing she's mad for getting kicked out of the swap meet? She betta back on up!

I'm beginning to have doubts. He's gonna have to reign in his vision to finish. BTW...I can't believe you used your Glamour Shots photo as your screen pic. You don't look that good in real life.

If you're truly on the fence, consider a turret press. Best of both worlds...remove the auto-index rod and you have a single-stage press with all your dies already mounted in the turret. It's never gonna be as fast as a progressive, but it'll be MUCH cheaper.

  I bet the closest he's come to a gun was playing Duck Hunt on Nintendo.

I started out with Lee carbide dies too. They definitely work well and are priced the best. You can't go wrong with Lee, for the money.   However, I recently bought a set of Hornady New Dimension dies in .45 ACP and 9mm and can definitely appreciate the upgrade.    Handle pulls are smoother/lighter, locking down the dies is much easier, making adjustments is more precise, and it doesn't feel like they get hung coming out of the sizing die like they did with the Lee dies.      

My 3 favorite Raylan quotes: Season 1 - whacks Dewey in the mouth w/ the shotgun and tells him "Oulaw life's hard ain't it? You should've stuck to something safe, like poaching gators." Season 3 - he throws the bullet onto Duffy's chest and says "The next one's coming faster." Season 4 - The fugitve in the vehicle with the revolver and it ain't the first time he's had a gun pointed at him, Raylan says "No, but it could be your last." They're priceless!! Art has some good ones too, though. But, Boyd is the best written character on the show. You never know what's he'll do.

Here's some ranges:   Grains/round = rounds/pound 2.5 = 2800 3.0 = 2333 3.5 = 2000 4.0 = 1750 4.5 = 1556 5.0 = 1400 5.5 = 1273 6.0 = 1167 6.5 = 1077 7.0 = 1000

One pound = 7000 grains   Using Bullseye powder and a decent 9mm plinking load of 4.2 grains, means you could reload 1,666 rounds. I've seen recipes for BE as low as 2.8 gr for .38 spl, which would yield 2,500 rounds.   That assumes zero loss due to leaking/spilling. Also, Bullseye uses far less powder than a lot of other brands.   If another powder requires 5.3 gr for a load, that would mean you could reload 1,320 rounds.   I hope that helps give you some perspective.

I'm so tired of these idiots and their ignorant mentality about "ammo magazine clips". With minimal practice, an average person can learn to perform a mag change in 1 to 3 seconds, depending on the firearm. Their idea that 10 or fewer rounds in a magazine will change anything is ridiculous. The bad guys will simply carry more magazines.

Whether we agree/disagree with the video's content is irrelevant. He is preaching to the choir, not the congregation. The ignorants and zealots on the anti-gun bandwagon are never going to see this kind of video. They don't want facts or statistics or truth of any kind, because it contradicts their knee-jerk emotional belief that military-style weapons are evil. They get all their evidence that ARs and AKs are evil from Hollywood, where they're all fully auto, seldom miss, and everything they shoot explodes.

Put a little extra elbow grease into each chamber if you shoot many .38 Specials through your .357. If you don't, a ring will build up in the chamber that will prevent you from being able to put the longer .357 shells in over time.

  Thanks a lot, man! I DID get that image out of my head, but not anymore.   I don't know what was worse seeing Boyd like that or the way Tig was acting toward him.

Awesome start to the season! Seeing Raylan picking up bail jumpers on duty seems out of character to me. More skeletons in Arlo's closet is no surprise. The new church could get interesting.

BTW...try FX's website. They may have full episodes, who knows?

This isn't the kind of show where you *MUST* watch all previous episodes to enjoy it. There is some history, especially with Raylan's dad and the Crowders & Bennetts, but nothing you can't pick up on. My advice would be to watch the new ones while you can (it'll be a year before they're on Netflix/DVD). If you're like me, you'll be so hooked, you'll be watching 4 or 5 episodes between each new episode and be caught up in no time.