First Official Loads DONE!

[JustinN]

I loaded up 10 .243 WIN shells yesterday. First time loading any actual shells. Haven't shot any yet, but they looks shiny and nice. Interested to see how they do. Ruined my first case trying to figure out if I wanted to crimp the rounds or not (decided not to, but ended up pushing the neck down into the case in messing with it).

I gotta say I learned a few things. First off my powder dump works much better full of powder than very low. I started out with very little powder, only loading ten shells, but the consistency of the throws left a bit to be desired, or at least me attempting to measure (when the powder dumps into the metal weighing pan, it tends to bounce around really bad) them. They tended to be off up to a grain or so, but at the same time that could have been the bounce of the powder.

I'm excited to shoot a couple (and loaded low enough that even if it threw a few extra grains, I'm not concerned). It'll be even better if I can catch a coyote or something out in a field to test one out. 87 Grain VMax zipping along around 3000+ fps should do a number on it....

[Bawanna]

Good for you Justin. Some of the extruded powders, the stuff that looks like broken pencil lead can be a bugger to measure. I find it is best to always have considerable powder in the measure.

Loading rifle I use a single stage press and will set the measure just a tad to the light side and then use a trickler to bring it up to exact weight. Especially with the extruded stuff.

For what your doing, minute of Prairie Dog at long range you want just as consistent in every aspect as you can possibly get.

[MW surveyor]

Congratulations on the first rounds. Now we need a positive report on their firing.

[downtownv]

Yeah!
I'll be testing some .223's with lead casted bullets thursday, myself.
Got the cost down to about $.20 a round. want to see the feed/fire/eject.....

[JustinN]

I figure that once I am ready to really work towards accuracy, on the .243 loads I will hand measure each load that gets dumped into the shell. This go was just to get some loaded to get that initial load made up and shot downrange to break me in.

[AIRret]

Congradulations JustinN and yes we definitely want a range report!

Just out of curiosity, do you plan to load some pistol rounds?

We've loaded about 5,000 rounds of 9mm, and we are set up to load 45 ACP but haven't found the time to complete the project.

[JustinN]

Oh yeah, I have bullets, powder, primers, and cases for 9mm.....just waiting on dies, and have been since around February. I'm patient though and I want my Nitride Hornady dies, so eventually they'll come in and I'll be good to go.

[otium]

I use the single stage press for the bolt guns and also tend to tweak the loads so much more. Extruded powder types has not proven very friendly for me to do this on the much quicker progressive press.

I try not to let the powder measure go below 50% for a little better consistency, but I still get bridging. The rcbs uniflow powder dump I use seems to do a little better with the addition of the optional metal baffle. Like Bawanna I too drop short and trickle up. At about round 20 I am thinking about why have I not yet bought the electronic powder scale and dispenser, but I seem to always talk myself out of that and repeat the process the next time.

Let see, future stuff to add to your list. Neck sizing die, trying different amounts of land jump, bullet types and weights and then different powders. You can easily spend several range sessions working up that perfect load for your rifle.

Just remember to take good notes and if you don't have one already, a chronograph is another data point when working up loads to check where your velocity is at rather than just guessing and wondering how close you are to the maximums.

Let the tweaking begin and have fun.

[JustinN]

I got all angsty thinking about it, plus I was going to need to seat the bullets a bit deeper anyway (bullet was pushing into the rifling) so I pulled all the bullets, and will use my trickler to get each round EXACT on the powder.

I've also found some places online that list the same setup I'm doing (Hornady 87 grain V-Max with Superformance powder) and have some good data as far as the "best" load goes.

Decided if I am going to do it, I need to make sure I do it 100% right. Now I just need a place to test out these puppies.

[Ikeo74]

I loaded up 10 .243 WIN shells yesterday. First time loading any actual shells. Haven't shot any yet, but they looks shiny and nice. Interested to see how they do. Ruined my first case trying to figure out if I wanted to crimp the rounds or not (decided not to, but ended up pushing the neck down into the case in messing with it).

I gotta say I learned a few things. First off my powder dump works much better full of powder than very low. I started out with very little powder, only loading ten shells, but the consistency of the throws left a bit to be desired, or at least me attempting to measure (when the powder dumps into the metal weighing pan, it tends to bounce around really bad) them. They tended to be off up to a grain or so, but at the same time that could have been the bounce of the powder.

I'm excited to shoot a couple (and loaded low enough that even if it threw a few extra grains, I'm not concerned). It'll be even better if I can catch a coyote or something out in a field to test one out. 87 Grain VMax zipping along around 3000+ fps should do a number on it....

As a reminder, never load rifle ammo below the starting load data in the load manual. The reason is that you can get a "detonation". Detonations are an explosion like a firecracker. They can ruin a gun and cause other problems. This happens on low charges in large cases. The min to max printed loads are safe.

[jocko]

Justin: I am assuming ur loading for that ultranice sage rifle u bought awhile b ack that we can't seem to find any where in the catalogs looking like that. Have u since done any further investiagation into how this rifle came to be in the configuration that you bought.

[JustinN]

You are correct. I do not know anything else about the rifle either. I posted on the Savage Shooters forum as well as Savage's facebook page and never got much of response on either. So I still really don't know what "configuration" the rifle truly is, other than it is super nice and I feel like I stole it....

[Bawanna]

You did steal it! I don't know how you sleep at night with that on your conscious. That's worth another picture when you find the time, maybe a Savage expert is lurking in our wings and we can use it for evidence perhaps later on too.

[jocko]

in a trial no less!! I think he got the Savage that was suposew to be presented to the presidentof Savage arms upon his 5th marriage.. , and it got shipped by mistake. Any GOOD AND DECENT owner would have sent it back to where it was originally meant to be. I know I cvertainly would have done that.

I once sentmy kel teks back 16 times but damn they would never keep um there and kept sending them back to me.

[jocko]

You are correct. I do not know anything else about the rifle either. I posted on the Savage Shooters forum as well as Savage's facebook page and never got much of response on either. So I still really don't know what "configuration" the rifle truly is, other than it is super nice and I feel like I stole it....

U DID:banplease:

[JustinN]

With the weather here I won't be able to get any good, new pics of the thing, but once I get my own shells loaded up I'll get some new fancy shots, maybe even an action shot of the thing....

Until then a reminder.

[Bawanna]

A nice soft wool blanket between it and that hard railing might have been nice!

I should seize it for rifle abuse.

[jocko]

that rifle just literally blows my mind. Incredible to say the least. Some wouold call that ol betsy, I would call it MONICA Just sayin.

[JustinN]

Finished my loads today - 10 rounds of 87 gr V-Max rounds backed by 43.1 grains of Superformance powder and ignited by Federal Rifle Primers.

Now to see how it prints on paper.

Also, I don't think the railing will do any harm to "Monica".....

[Ikeo74]

Finished my loads today - 10 rounds of 87 gr V-Max rounds backed by 43.1 grains of Superformance powder and ignited by Federal Rifle Primers.

Now to see how it prints on paper.

Also, I don't think the railing will do any harm to "Monica".....

Well, Monica is used to some "Hard Wood" and come out OK. :D Oh, wait, it did cause a stain or two.

[Tilos]

:madgrin:
All right he's hooked, a re-loader for life:nerd:
We told him he'd save money...and he believed us:eek:

So, I'll be back in about 6 months to ask you if you are a shooter who reloads...or a reloader who shoots:bump2:

[hogsnguns]

Reminds me of my first reloads (45 acp). I read the books, checked out the internet and loaded up some rounds. When I arrived at my shooting site in the hills I was the only one there and thought to myself, what if I did something wrong? I opened up my van door and with the pistol on one side, and I stood on the other side to fire the first round. All went well and I came out from behind the door and shot the rest of the rounds without a barricade. As I recall I even turned my head and closed my eyes. I wasn't aiming at a target that first round, I just wanted to see if I reloaded correctly.

[Bawanna]

I still do that sometimes even with factory loads. Sometimes after a while I shoot with my eyes open too.

Thinking of a major explosion in your hands sometimes makes ya nervous.

[JustinN]

Fired my loads FINALLY. Everything worked great. The 9mm out of my K9 was dead on and made perfect little circles in the target. No signs of over pressure at all.

The .243s out of my Savage did pretty good as well. Cold barrel it was grouping better than me (fighting a lung infection AND allergies makes it tough to get nice controlled shots) but all fired well. Only one looked a bit like maybe there was excessive pressure (the case looked barely swelled but hard to tell without measuring) and it may have been more just me being paranoid because that round must have been a tad longer...closing the bolt had more pressure than most of them (I assume it was pushing the bullet into the lands a tad). All in all great experience with my first loads, now I'm not afraid to load up 100 rounds or so!