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Tom wrote:RKirby,

It appears that you are doing fine, if not better than fine.

Trying to keep all of your OAL's within some small range will take way too much of your time
and for no really good reason.......

That's what I was thinking.....being to critical again.

Thank You, Sir!

phddan wrote:Have you figured out your cost per bullet yet?Dan

Nope...and I don't even want to know. I bought new brass to start with in order to eliminate one of the variables. It turns out I could have bought new Monarch ammo at Academy for less than the cost of the brass.

Once I get everything up and running consistently I'll look at my cost per round.

fenster wrote:I just bought that same press 2 weeks ago....

some things it does repeatably every time like clockwork, and other things not so much. my powder charges - every time I spot check them they are right on the money. every time. I was pretty paranoid about that so I measured it almost every round on my first batch of 50. now I just spot-check the first round, then the 10th, then crank out all I'm gonna do for the session. but my OAL is all over the place. trying for 1.200 (45acp) mine vary +/- .015. I tightened the locknuts on my final 2 dies and try to use consistant pressure but they still vary.

I logged the OAL on every round of my first 100. turns out I couldnt tell any difference while shooting. none at all.

Sounds like the same experience I had.

I also was suspicious of the powder measure. I can't say for sure how accurate it is since I don't have a lot of confidence in the beam scale that came with the kit, but it is very consistent. I'm definitely going to upgrade to a digital scale at some point.

I also noticed the variation in overall length. I was aiming for 1.125 and had variations up to 1.128. I can't figure out the cause of this either unless my son was short stroking the press. Or maybe that is within tolerances. Maybe one of the experts will chime in on that point (hint...hint);-)

At any rate, they all went bang.

After much research I finally decided on a Lee Turret press kit instead of the single stage press I was originally considering. It arrived about two weeks ago and I got it set up last weekend.

The instruction sheets that came with the press and dies leave a lot to be desired in my opinion..... or maybe I'm just dense. I guess maybe I should have bought the Lee manual, too. Oh well......

It took forever to finally get a round with the right OAL, flare and crimp. Let's just say that I'm now very proficient with the bullet puller that I almost didn't buy, thinking I could put it off till later.

After I got it set up correctly my son muscled me out of the way and proceeded to load 50 rounds of 9mm. He couldn't understand what all the trouble I was having was all about.

We went to the range today and I fired the 50 rounds that we loaded and much to my astonishment, they all functioned perfectly in my Springfield XD's. I couldn't tell any difference between the hand loads and the Blazer that I also had with me.

On top of that, we both came home with just as many appendages and a lot more brass than we left home with. No exploding rounds or squib loads.

Needless to say, I'm happy with the Lee press kit. A Dillon it's not, but it got the job done at a very good price.

All's good at the little house on the prairie tonight!

Except.......I did manage to leave one of my Kel-Tec mags at the range.

The saga begins........