...namely, how in the hell do you guys crank out thousands at a time?
I had a bit of extra cash, and decided it was about time I started rolling my own. I picked up a Lee (DON'T start!) Anniversary Kit, a carbide die set for 9mm, 100 Speer FMJ 115gr bullets, 100 CCI primers, and a pound of Bullseye.
Got home, and the first thing I did was... *read the instructions!* Canyableevit?
Oh, what's this little note? "Speer advises that Speer bullets not be used with certain dies." Great. Friggin' great. WHICH dies? Oh, well... I figure I'll forge ahead and see what happens.
Oh... I'm supposed to drill holes in my bench in order to mount the press. Groovy. I don't have a drill bit for my Dremel. Time for some elbow grease.
Press relatively securely mounted, I install the deprime/flare die. First case: done. Second case: crunch. Guess it wasn't seated correctly in the shell holder. Deprimed and cleaned the rest of the cases without incident.
Now the hand primer... cool! This is a neat little gadget, and it actually works! This was probably the best part of the whole ordeal.
Charging. Ye gods and little fishes, what sadistic bastard came up with this? Set the scale, OK, done, now... hey, what's that in the box? A powder dropper! Cool!
45 minutes of calibration later, including one time when the dropper... dropped. Right out of the press. Powder all over the floor. Crap.
Refill the dropper, make sure it's still calibrated (and for a miracle, it is). Crank the case up, pull it back down... and it's stuck. [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color]? Oh, it's *supposed* to stick, to make sure the powder drops correctly. Cool. Yank. The bench shakes, and the glass of water I had sitting on the little table on the bench topples. Directly into the dropper.
Crap. Again.
Another cleanup session, and I'm back to throwing charges. Only four cases flew out of the shell holder, too! I must be getting better at this.
Finally. All cases charged, all weighed, all within .1gr of each other, and 10% below max. Righteous. Now for the bullets.
Y'know, it would've been nice of Lee to include a calibration mark on the seating die adjusting screw. Or are bullets supposed to be set with 1/4" of them sticking out?
OK, 1 loaded cartridge that no sane person would dare fire. Eyeball the adjusting screw, seat another, and it's dead on 1.12". Great. Let's back it out just another .01 inch... 3rd time's the charm.
So, 3.5 hours and one unbelievable tension headache later, I have 49 reloaded rounds of 9mm. They all cycle fine, but I can't test them until this weekend. Hopefully I'll still have all my hands left so I can type up a range report.
Now where did I put that Tylenol...
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"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay, 1872