My ongoing journey into reloading for pistol calibre lever actions

[Surgeonwithagun]

I have 2 progressives. It’s been ten years since I used one. These days, I use my Rockchucker. I prep and prime all my brass, then load and seat 50 at a time. It may take a little longer but there are a lot less headaches.

I do it virtually the same but I do a bit quicker practice rounds on a turret once the brass is primed. I ruin very few components this way. Small batches of 50 or less.

John

 

[Scrumbag]

Well, loaded up some 44 mag on the turret with the Lee Auto drum at lunch. And even with Unique I thought pretty consistent. I also did some trial loads with 24.7gr of Ramshot X-terminator and that was really very conistent. Rarely any variation beyond .2 of a grain.

I feel an order for the rifle charging die kit coming for .223 Rem and I think 257 Roberts and Ramshot Hunter...

Scrummy

 

[RegionRat]

I feel an order for the rifle charging die kit coming for .223 Rem and I think 257 Roberts and Ramshot Hunter...

To gain experience with a small bottleneck cartridge design like the 223 in any turret or progressive, it is less stress to begin with powders that flow.

These give you a chance to iron out the rest of your skills and task organization without the added challenges of extruded stick powders going through powder throwers and small diameter necks.

I am not trying to say you can take your eye off the ball and ignore the powder flow or safety check habits with ball powders either, but you will have fewer learning curve hang-ups with fine grain powders so you can focus on one batch of skills at a time. Later on, you can add extruded stick powders to see how they trade-off for you.

An extreme variation of +/- 0.25 grains isn't uncommon with powder drops in progressive loaders when using extruded powders, but with a little work that can be reduced to the point where the loads perform well enough for their purpose.

The friction and variation in powder drops is just mother nature's way of keeping us on our toes and is to be expected. Be on guard for powder bridging or work flow interruptions and or missed steps that can cause the bigger issues. Looking forward to hearing more progress. Good Luck!

 

[Scrumbag]

Oh yes, I like ball powders for this application. Certainly TAC and H110 do well through my Lee Perfect drum measure so with good operator technique I can't see why the auto drum wouldn't do well.

I must admit for given my experiences with the Lee Perfect and stick powders I think I will avoid them for turret applications (Hunter for the .257 Roberts is a ball powder as well so that helps).

Scrummy