Experiences of a new reloader

PeteQuad · June 3, 2007, 02:04 PM

So after quite a lot of help here, I got started reloading and have done 5 batches (different "recipes") of 50-100 rounds in 2 different calibers. I thought I would leave my experiences here in case someone else new comes along and also to see if anyone can comment on anything I could improve on.

I bought the Less Classic Turret kit from kempfgunshop along with the Pro AutoDisk and a bunch of other upgrades. I am reloading .38 special and .44 special to start.

I had a few problems with getting set up with the Lee Classic Turret (people online helped with this stuff a lot - this forum was invaluable):
1. The primer trigger in the small safety prime had its spring slip out of the keeper hole. I fixed this by taking the trigger apart and reseating the spring firmly. It took a couple tries but it seems ok now. I sent an email to Lee about this worried that it might happen again and they sent me a couple new springs (I was really hoping for a new trigger, but I seem ok for now).
2. The large primer arm had a hole that was not perfectly round, as if it had been slightly bent. I could not fit a primer in it. I used a dremel to narrow the wall where it was bent and am now able to prime with it. I sent an email to Lee about this and they showed me where I could order all parts

.
3. I had some trouble getting primers to feed and realized all I had to do was make sure the tube that hangs down and holds the trigger was firmly attached to the plastic case (just push it in).
4. The turret stopped indexing properly. From reading posts I found that the extra little plastic square the Classic Turret comes with is for just this purpose. I took out the indexing rod, removed the plastic square I had messed up (by manually indexing when the ram was down) and put the new plastic square on it. I've had no problems since.

Except for number 2 above, these were pretty much caused by operator error because I hadn't seen one of these things operate in person. I was forcing stuff too much and didn't understand how it all worked the first time around. I don't want to give excuses for Lee (things did break afterall), but once I understood everything it has all worked like a charm. Actually, all the mechanisms were pretty simple and with a little logic applied could be figured out by anyone (also I like that I now understand everything so well that I can fix it myself).

My first batch of both .38 special and .44 special had 1 squib each in them. This was a little scary at first, but now that I know how to deal with them (buy a couple brass rods) it's not that big of a deal. However, I resolved to never have that happen again and so far so good.

The squib in the .44 special was caused by a round with no powder. While reloading I had turned my powerder measure to the off position, and then realized this about 8 rounds later. I pulled (what I thought was) all of those rounds and turned it back on, but I must have missed one.
This impressed upon me the need to really pay attention to everything while reloading, and I always err on the side of being over cautious now.

I'm not positive what happened with the squib in the .38spl. The loads were so light, and the bullets seated so shallow (and the crimps were nearly nonexistent), that it is possible a slight variation made the charge just a little too low. The bullet was stuck at just the tip of the barrel.

In general, there is not a lot of documentation on where to seat bullets. There's max OAL and min OAL, but often those numbers are a good bit apart. I have slowly seated them a little deeper each time I've loaded until they look good, are over the minimum, and I like how they are shooting. Off the top of my head, I think my .38 specials are at 1.506 OAL and my .44 specials are at 1.540 OAL (using 158gr and 240gr Rainier FPs respectively). Any comments on this would be helpful.

I've also tightened up my crimps a lot from where I started. I am currently only shooting revolvers and have found that I prefer the peace of mind that the bullet is securely in there.

That's it for now. Things are proceeding along nicely and I am still doing minor tinkering with my loads. I am also gearing up to start reloading .32 S&W long and .44 magnum. For the latter I will probably go looking for a different brand of bullet since Rainier is not ideal for magnums.

benedict1 · June 3, 2007, 07:33 PM

Quote:

2. The large primer arm had a hole that was not perfectly round, as if it had been slightly bent. I could not fit a primer in it. I used a dremel to narrow the wall where it was bent and am now able to prime with it. I sent an email to Lee about this and they showed me where I could order all parts .

That doesn't sound right--somebody misread your intent in the email. All you have to do is call them and ask for either Dave or Pat and tell them that the hole is eccentric in the lever arm and they'll send a new one. You don't have to
pay for that!

AS to the springs--the new ones should work properly--they should be a little longer than the one which was in your trigger. They had a few short ones get into production. I know because I had one and they took care of it pronto.

Remember you press is guaranteed unconditionally for two years--all parts included.

gandog56 · June 3, 2007, 11:43 PM

Yeah, I've had them ask me to send them the old bad part in, but they never charged me for a replacement before. Isn't there a two year complete replacement warranty on Lee stuff?

OK, I cheated and looked.

Quote:

Every Lee product is unconditionally guaranteed for a full two years and a conditional lifetime guarantee.
You may get a full refund within 30 days if you are not 100% satisfied, from all participating dealers.
Lee dies are guaranteed to produce ammunition with less bullet run-out than any other brand. Ammunition loaded with Lee collet dies are guaranteed to shoot the smallest groups, even when matched against custom bench rest equipment! Not so daring as they have already broken one world record.

PeteQuad · June 4, 2007, 08:43 AM

It doesn't really bother me since I have it working now, but I did send a picture of the primer arm to Pat. It wasn't that long ago though so who knows what may arrive in the mail. I suppose it is possible I wasn't clear though.

I didn't know about the springs - thanks. I will use them if I have any further issue.

All in all, everything is working nicely now so I'm happy I saved several hundred dollars

Jim Watson · June 4, 2007, 09:02 AM

Powderless loads (I refuse to call them "squibs.") are intolerable.
Put a strong light behind or beside your press and LOOK in EVERY shell as you reach for it with a bullet to be seated.

Walkalong · June 4, 2007, 09:26 AM

I bored a two diameter hole in my Projector between the third and fourth station and put a light in it. I used to use a solitaire maglight, but now use an LED light. It shines straight down into the case.

Jim is right. It is not normally a squid that gets people, it's a powderless round.

PeteQuad · June 4, 2007, 11:34 AM

I have pretty good lighting, but as I'm using a turret (not reaching for shells to seat bullets in them) and was doing starting loads of .44 special with HP38 (very low in the case) it was very difficult to see in them. That said, I am actually sometimes pulling the shell out of the turret to look into it (and of course occasionally weighing).

It wasn't really that big of a deal though. I wasn't rapid firing or anything, and was actually putting one shell in at a time during most of the shooting since it was my first batch. Everyone makes mistakes, I'm the first to admit.

benedict1 · June 4, 2007, 11:41 AM

Make certain that the expander die is set deep enough to force the auto disk out over the drop hole in your powder measure. Sometimes guys set it too light because they don't want to flare the case mouth too much because it 'exercise' the brass and it will fail sooner. That may be, but if the disk doesn't get out there, some of the powder, or all of it, won't drop.

Check that and get back to us, please!

PeteQuad · June 4, 2007, 11:47 AM

That could have been; I made a bunch of adjustments after the first batch. But I'm happy to report that subsequent batches have been problem free. I actually just went and shot some today and think I have loads that I am going to stick with

My .38special loads are super accurate (I think I have to play a bit with the target sights on my 629, they seem to be off a bit).

Now to start working on .32 long and .44mag loads.

Edit: I should add that I seated the .38specials from the first batch a little deeper and crimped them a little tighter and I was able to shoot the rest of that batch with no further issues.

TEDDY · June 4, 2007, 02:33 PM

I took the rod out of my press and use it as single stage.I use loading blocks and do one stage at a time.when powder loading I use block and pen light.only takes moment to look in all cases.also if you stop you dont have to wonder were you left off.
loading 45 acp I leave bullet 1/32 out of case(swc) and crimp at that point bullet seats on rifling case pushes back on breech.

June 3, 2007, 02:04 PM	#1
PeteQuad Senior Member Join Date: March 9, 2007 Posts: 198	Experiences of a new reloader So after quite a lot of help here, I got started reloading and have done 5 batches (different "recipes") of 50-100 rounds in 2 different calibers. I thought I would leave my experiences here in case someone else new comes along and also to see if anyone can comment on anything I could improve on. I bought the Less Classic Turret kit from kempfgunshop along with the Pro AutoDisk and a bunch of other upgrades. I am reloading .38 special and .44 special to start. I had a few problems with getting set up with the Lee Classic Turret (people online helped with this stuff a lot - this forum was invaluable): 1. The primer trigger in the small safety prime had its spring slip out of the keeper hole. I fixed this by taking the trigger apart and reseating the spring firmly. It took a couple tries but it seems ok now. I sent an email to Lee about this worried that it might happen again and they sent me a couple new springs (I was really hoping for a new trigger, but I seem ok for now). 2. The large primer arm had a hole that was not perfectly round, as if it had been slightly bent. I could not fit a primer in it. I used a dremel to narrow the wall where it was bent and am now able to prime with it. I sent an email to Lee about this and they showed me where I could order all parts . 3. I had some trouble getting primers to feed and realized all I had to do was make sure the tube that hangs down and holds the trigger was firmly attached to the plastic case (just push it in). 4. The turret stopped indexing properly. From reading posts I found that the extra little plastic square the Classic Turret comes with is for just this purpose. I took out the indexing rod, removed the plastic square I had messed up (by manually indexing when the ram was down) and put the new plastic square on it. I've had no problems since. Except for number 2 above, these were pretty much caused by operator error because I hadn't seen one of these things operate in person. I was forcing stuff too much and didn't understand how it all worked the first time around. I don't want to give excuses for Lee (things did break afterall), but once I understood everything it has all worked like a charm. Actually, all the mechanisms were pretty simple and with a little logic applied could be figured out by anyone (also I like that I now understand everything so well that I can fix it myself). My first batch of both .38 special and .44 special had 1 squib each in them. This was a little scary at first, but now that I know how to deal with them (buy a couple brass rods) it's not that big of a deal. However, I resolved to never have that happen again and so far so good. The squib in the .44 special was caused by a round with no powder. While reloading I had turned my powerder measure to the off position, and then realized this about 8 rounds later. I pulled (what I thought was) all of those rounds and turned it back on, but I must have missed one. This impressed upon me the need to really pay attention to everything while reloading, and I always err on the side of being over cautious now. I'm not positive what happened with the squib in the .38spl. The loads were so light, and the bullets seated so shallow (and the crimps were nearly nonexistent), that it is possible a slight variation made the charge just a little too low. The bullet was stuck at just the tip of the barrel. In general, there is not a lot of documentation on where to seat bullets. There's max OAL and min OAL, but often those numbers are a good bit apart. I have slowly seated them a little deeper each time I've loaded until they look good, are over the minimum, and I like how they are shooting. Off the top of my head, I think my .38 specials are at 1.506 OAL and my .44 specials are at 1.540 OAL (using 158gr and 240gr Rainier FPs respectively). Any comments on this would be helpful. I've also tightened up my crimps a lot from where I started. I am currently only shooting revolvers and have found that I prefer the peace of mind that the bullet is securely in there. That's it for now. Things are proceeding along nicely and I am still doing minor tinkering with my loads. I am also gearing up to start reloading .32 S&W long and .44 magnum. For the latter I will probably go looking for a different brand of bullet since Rainier is not ideal for magnums.

June 4, 2007, 02:33 PM	#10
TEDDY Junior member Join Date: December 10, 2006 Location: MANNING SC Posts: 837	Lee Turret I took the rod out of my press and use it as single stage.I use loading blocks and do one stage at a time.when powder loading I use block and pen light.only takes moment to look in all cases.also if you stop you dont have to wonder were you left off. loading 45 acp I leave bullet 1/32 out of case(swc) and crimp at that point bullet seats on rifling case pushes back on breech.

June 4, 2007, 08:43 AM	#4
PeteQuad Senior Member Join Date: March 9, 2007 Posts: 198	It doesn't really bother me since I have it working now, but I did send a picture of the primer arm to Pat. It wasn't that long ago though so who knows what may arrive in the mail. I suppose it is possible I wasn't clear though. I didn't know about the springs - thanks. I will use them if I have any further issue. All in all, everything is working nicely now so I'm happy I saved several hundred dollars

June 4, 2007, 09:02 AM	#5
Jim Watson Senior Member Join Date: October 25, 2001 Location: Alabama Posts: 18,539	Powderless loads (I refuse to call them "squibs.") are intolerable. Put a strong light behind or beside your press and LOOK in EVERY shell as you reach for it with a bullet to be seated.

June 4, 2007, 09:26 AM	#6
Walkalong Senior Member Join Date: May 30, 2007 Location: Al. Posts: 196	I bored a two diameter hole in my Projector between the third and fourth station and put a light in it. I used to use a solitaire maglight, but now use an LED light. It shines straight down into the case. Jim is right. It is not normally a squid that gets people, it's a powderless round.

June 4, 2007, 11:34 AM	#7
PeteQuad Senior Member Join Date: March 9, 2007 Posts: 198	I have pretty good lighting, but as I'm using a turret (not reaching for shells to seat bullets in them) and was doing starting loads of .44 special with HP38 (very low in the case) it was very difficult to see in them. That said, I am actually sometimes pulling the shell out of the turret to look into it (and of course occasionally weighing). It wasn't really that big of a deal though. I wasn't rapid firing or anything, and was actually putting one shell in at a time during most of the shooting since it was my first batch. Everyone makes mistakes, I'm the first to admit.

June 4, 2007, 11:41 AM	#8
benedict1 Senior Member Join Date: July 26, 2006 Location: Southern California Posts: 245	Make certain that the expander die is set deep enough to force the auto disk out over the drop hole in your powder measure. Sometimes guys set it too light because they don't want to flare the case mouth too much because it 'exercise' the brass and it will fail sooner. That may be, but if the disk doesn't get out there, some of the powder, or all of it, won't drop. Check that and get back to us, please!

June 4, 2007, 11:47 AM	#9
PeteQuad Senior Member Join Date: March 9, 2007 Posts: 198	That could have been; I made a bunch of adjustments after the first batch. But I'm happy to report that subsequent batches have been problem free. I actually just went and shot some today and think I have loads that I am going to stick with My .38special loads are super accurate (I think I have to play a bit with the target sights on my 629, they seem to be off a bit). Now to start working on .32 long and .44mag loads. Edit: I should add that I seated the .38specials from the first batch a little deeper and crimped them a little tighter and I was able to shoot the rest of that batch with no further issues.