In 1999 I started loading for 300 Win Mag. In fact, I had the gun built with the specific intention of shooting a particular bullet which I planned to handload. The bullet was the Berger 210 grain VLD Target. At that time the BC was listed as 0.640. Then in 2007 I was looking at their website and discovered they had changed the BC to 0.631. It still didn’t fully explain the results I was getting but it was closer. Today I discovered they have changed the BC again. It is now listed as 0.621. That fully explains the results I was seeing. Whoops on their part.

I haven’t reloaded any of these bullets since 2000. It was time consuming. I would clean the primer pockets, trim the length, and individually weight each powder charge. I found that I got better accuracy at short ranges (less than 300 yards) and decent results at longer ranges with Black Hills Match (190 grain Sierra Match Kings with a BC of 0.533). And, most importantly, it saved me a lot of time.

I still have the powder and primers for the Berger bullets and figured it was time to load it up. I now have a much better tool for prepping the brass which speeds up the prep by about a factor of four.

Last night I was preparing some 300 Win Mag brass for reloading. I noticed that some of the brass I had used for the Berger loads had primers which were mushroomed:

Not good.

I checked my notes:

1999 Hodgdon manual/website says:
200 gr. Nosler Partition bullet, max 79.0C gr. -> 2883 fps
This is with a 24″ barrel.

Older Hodgdon data (1997, 1998) says:
200 gr. bullet, max 80.0 gr -> 2984 fps.
220->225 gr. bullet, max 77.0 gr -> 2881 fps.
This is with a 26″ barrel.

…

Starting loads are 90% of max.  My guess is that max should be about
80 gr. with the 210 grain bullet.  The Nosler Partition is a straight
shank bullet without a boat tail.  This gives it more bearing surface
and friction (especially without the moly) than the Berger will have.

Initial loadings:
6/2/99 16 rounds Berger 210 grain moly coated VLD:
One round each of 72.0, 72.5, 73.0, 73.5, 74.0, 74.5, 75.0, 75.5, 76.0,
76.5, 77.0, 77.5, 78.0, 78.5, 79.0, 79.5

I settled on a load of 78.7 grains of H1000 after firing charges up to 79.5 grains. I measured the base of the case for expansion as my indicator of high pressure and didn’t find expansion greater than with the light loads. It seemed good but the gunsmith who built the rifle told me an interior ballistics program he used said my load was unwise. I continued to use that charge with the few rounds (423) that I actually loaded.

Last night I checked the Hodgdon rifle reloading website and found they list a 208 grain bullet with a maximum load of 78.0 grains of H1000. And for one 200 grain bullet the maximum load is 77.0 grains! The max load for 220 grain Sierra Match Kings is 78.0 grains.

Whoops!

That explains my mushroomed primers and validates my gunsmith’s concern. I need to redevelop my load and disassemble the existing ammo with the previous loadings.

I reloaded 3,300 rounds of .40 S&W last month. 3,206 of those rounds were 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges. 94 rounds were 180 grain Hornady Action Pistol (HAP) bullets. The HAPs were those I ordered last May in response to the President of Hornady Manufacturing Company saying they would not knowingly allow their ammunition to be sold to the Government of the State of NY or any NY agencies.

Yesterday I tested the HAP rounds and found they were nearly identical in the mean standard deviation of the velocity for the same powder charge as what I get with the Montana Gold JHP. The accuracy appears to be better. Here is a 20 round group at 30 feet (1.75” of which some of the error was surely mine):

The price isn’t quite as good as the Montana Gold bullets but I think I will switch over to the HAP bullets when I finish up the Montana Gold bullets because of Hornaday refusing to do business with New York.

This is by far the most number of rounds I have reloaded in a single month all year. And taking into consideration that I used a lot of my “reloading time” to install and get a new reloading press set up I’m very pleased. I also spent a fair amount of time individually checking the length of about 2,300 cartridges which had the potential to have a double charge which blew up my STI DVC Limited. No double charges found so far but I have about another 2000 rounds to go.

I purchased the Dillon XL650 mostly because of the powder check stage. This gives a buzzer warning if there is no powder or a double charge in a case. This should prevent another blown up gun. A bonus is that the new press with the automatic case feeder gives me almost double the production rate of the Dillon 550B press. This is why I was able to get so many rounds out this month.

Also, if you are a reloader, get the LED lights for your press. They give you a much better view of what you are doing:

The picture above is of both presses with only the press lights on. With room lights on as well the reloading area is exceptionally well lit which makes it easier to see if something is a little off.

This brings the rounds year to date to 12,228. With the new press it should be pretty easily to meet my goal of getting to 16K by the end of the year. I may even exceed my previous best year of 23,356.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 90,393 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 121,201  rounds

The Gun Feed linked to my post about the double charge with the link text of “Reloading Kaboom: All costs savings is lost when your gun blows up…”

At first thought you might agree. But it depends on how many rounds you reloaded before you lose a gun and the cost of replacement or repair of the gun. Assuming my gun is a total loss, I doubt this is true but lets go for worst case, I will have to have saved about $3200 to break even.

My worst case reloading cost (buying once fired brass) of .40 S&W is practice ammo. This is $0.24 per round. The ammo I use for matches is $0.19 per rounds. If I reuse my own fired brass then the cost drops to $0.19 and $0.14 per rounds. Let’s go with worst case reloading costs…

Getting the cheapest brand I recognize from Midway USA in one case (1000 rounds) lots results in $0.329 per round after shipping.

Hence by reloading I’m saving, at least, $0.089 per round. In order to pay for a new gun I would have to reload $3200/$0.089 rounds. This works out to about 36,000 rounds.

I have actually reloaded and fired about 84,000 rounds in .40 S&W. So by reloading, even if I have to buy a new gun, I still have saved nearly $4,500.

Plus, having learned the lesson of how a can get a double charge with this load I can either change loads to completely avoid this or modify my quality control procedures to reduce the chances.

This was using the worst case cost for reloaded ammo. It also doesn’t take into account that my reloads are lower recoil than factory loads and result in less wear on the gun. My actual savings is quite a bit greater than the calculations above indicate. Hence, in this case, the headline writer for The Gun Feed is wrong.

I reloaded 797 rounds of .40 S&W this month. It was all 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges. This was not nearly as much as I had hoped for. Things have been very busy on a variety of fronts and I just didn’t have the time to reload as much as I wanted. I did most of my practice with a .22 pistol instead of the .40.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 83,504 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 114,312 rounds

A little over three years ago I reported that I found a Winchester primer without a anvil. I found another one today. The primer on the left is normal. The one on the right is missing the anvil:

I searched through my log files for all the rounds I have reloaded with WSP (Winchester Small Pistol) primers. I have reloaded 62,719 of them and found two missing anvils. While rare it does seem like a more frequent event that I would have expected.

In May I didn’t start reloading until the 15th. Boomershoot recovery contributed to the late start. As did another trip to Idaho to replace some Wi-Fi equipment at the Boomershoot shooting line, Boomershoot inventory, and cleaning up things at Mecca.

My supply of practice .40 S&W ammo got to emergency levels with as little as 200 rounds at one point. I reloaded 1499 rounds in May and even with using the .22 for much of my practice I still consider my practice .40 S&W ammo to be at critical levels. I’m hoping to catch up soon.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 82,507 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 113,315 rounds.

The only caliber I reloaded this month was .223. I reloaded 418 rounds.

It was slow going with a lot of case prep on the used brass. I also loaded up a few test rounds of some new bullets. These were Berger 75 and 80 grain VLDs, and the Berger 82 grain Long Range BT. With my target AR I get good results with factory ammo with 77 grain Sierra Match Kings but the Berger’s have higher ballistic coefficients and if I get as good as accuracy from them as the factory ammo and the expected velocities then I will have more wind resistant ammo than the factory loadings. The problem with the two heavier bullets is they take up so much space that if you load them to max over all length you can’t get as much powder in the case as you can if you load them to significantly over the max overall length. But if you load them over length then you have to feed them into the chamber one at a time by hand because they won’t fit in the magazine.

I decided to load my test round to spec with reduced charges and see what I end up with. I’m expecting it will be disappointing. I’m more excited about the 75 grain VLDs. They have a G1 BC of .421 compared to the 77 grain Sierra Match King’s .362. That’s significant. And with a slightly lighter bullet I might be able to get a little higher velocity as well.

I haven’t fired any of them yet. I’m going to wait until I go to Idaho again so I can do some accuracy testing at the same time as the chronograph tests at about 200 yards.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 3,138 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 80,258 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 109,391 rounds.