Pistol Reloading for Beginners

Pistol Reloading for Beginners
The relatively cheap and simple method
Are there advantages to loading your own ammo?
Well, it really depends on what you need in your pistol
ammo.
Your choices, without reloading your own, are usually
factory ammo or club reloads.
Factory ammo is manufactured specifically to operate
safely in any pistol of that calibre. Therefore it is
usually loaded to the maximum safe pressures allowed.
This is to ensure all pistols of that calibre will operate
reliably.
As most pistols today are semi-automatic and rely on
recoil or gas pressure to cycle the action, it is critical
that factory ammo is loaded with high enough pressure
to suit a wide variety of pistol brands.
Typical Factory Ammo, about $40 for a box of 50
rounds
Club reloads on the other hand are intended to be
much cheaper than factory loads and are loaded to the
minimum pressure it takes to operate most club
handguns. By keeping pressures relatively low the
brass cases can be re-used many times, greatly
reducing the cost of ammunition as the brass case is
the most expensive component.
The most obvious benefit is the reduced cost, and it’s
very worthwhile one as reloading your own can be
around one quarter the cost of factory ammo.
Club Reloads, no fancy box and re-used brass,
about $20 for 50
But there’s another less obvious benefit, it allows you
to tailor your loads to what gives best accuracy, and/or
minimum recoil, in your firearm. For competition
shooters this is just as important as the cost. Being
able to tailor your loads to what works best in your gun
can make quite a difference in your scores.
Reloading your own requires a small amount of
equipment, a small area set aside in which to operate,
a reference library of reloading info and most
importantly a good attention to detail and accuracy.
If you think this applies to you, read on.
Reloading presses are often available as a complete kit
with everything to get you started, such as this Lee
Classic Turret Kit (refer to the text)
Pistol Reloading 2.docx
PWD 26Jun13

So how much do you need to invest to get setup for
reloading? That depends on how much ammo you
need. If you’re short on time and need hundreds of
rounds each week, then you need to go straight to a
high end reloading press, like those made by Dillon.
A Dillon XL650 (a very popular reloading press with
action shooters, for example) can pump out over
600 rounds per hour, but your investment can be
well over a $2000 by the time it’s fully equipped.
Many of us don’t need anywhere that many rounds
per hour and our reloading equipment budget is
also much smaller. What follows is a proven and
simple method of how to get accurate ammo, for a
minimum outlay.
Reloading presses with auto indexing (they
progressively move to the next round or next
station with each pull of the handle) are good value
for pistol reloaders, however the faster and more
complicated presses tend to have 4 or 5 operations
happening simultaneously, with each pull of the
handle.
Presses come in many shapes and sizes, from left to
right – Dillon XL650, Lee Loadmaster, Hornady Lockn-Load
AP and RCBS Pro 2000 – all are 5 station
progressive presses. Fast, but complex and costly.
When you’re new to reloading this makes it very
difficult to keep track of your quality control
because you can easily develop a problem, or run
out of one ingredient (powder, primers or cases)
before you notice and end up creating some dud
loads.
So if you’d like to have more control over what’s
happening (only one thing happening at a time) and
you’re happy with making around 100 to 200
rounds per hour, here is a simple way to get into
reloading.
Shown at right is a 4 stage Lee Turret Press fitted
with a Lee Pro Auto-Disk powder measure (red
cylinder at the top) and an RCBS primer system
(long, thin, almost vertical aluminium tube). It is
progressive in that the turret (with the dies) rotates
90 degrees each time the handle is pulled.
Only one case is in the press at a time, so it takes 4
pulls of the handle to complete each round, but it
allows you to see each and every operation so you
have greater control over the quality of your
reloads.
Lee Turret press about 20 years old and has done
tens of thousands of rounds. Not as fast as full
progressive presses, but easy to setup, simple to
maintain and accurate.
Pistol Reloading 2.docx
PWD 26Jun13

RELOADING STEPS
First step in reloading is to clean your fired brass. This
prevents undue wear on your dies and pistol barrel
chamber. A tumbler, like this Lyman brand, using crushed
corn cob or walnut shell media, will give nice clean, shiny
brass after a couple of hours of gentle vibration.
After you’ve set up your press and dies using the
instructions that come with them; load a clean case into
the shell holder. Position the de-capping and resizing die
above the case. Raising the press ram will now force the
case into the die which will resize it and also push out the
used primer.
While press ram is up, the priming lever (“T” shape on this
press) is moved away from the press to grab a fresh primer
from the dispenser. Pushing the priming lever back toward
the press positions it inside a slot in the ram, directly
underneath the newly resized case. Photo shows new
primer about to go into the ram slot. A downstroke of the
press ram will now insert the primer into the case. Each
downstroke of the press ram rotates the die head 90
degrees to line up the next die in sequence.
The next upstroke of the press ram will flare the case
mouth to allow the new bullet to be easily inserted and
drop the required amount of power into the case.
What you DON’T
want to see – no
powder in case!
Lower the ram, visually check there is powder in the case
(a small desk lamp alongside your press is essential for
this). If you run out of powder or if a problem develops
you will see it before you create dud rounds.
If powder is present, insert the new bullet by hand. The
next upstroke will seat the bullet to the required depth
and remove the flare from the case.
The fourth and last upstroke of the press ram runs the new
round through the Lee Factory Crimp die, which again
resizes the case to remove any bumps and lumps caused
when inserting the bullet, and will also apply a crimp if
required. Heavy loads in revolver or lever action rifle are
usually crimped, where rounds for most semi-auto pistols
are not.
Check the loaded overall length of your newly reloaded
round. This is a check on your die settings. Correct overall
length is important for the pistol to load and function
correctly.
Pistol Reloading 2.docx
PWD 26Jun13

RELOADING AREA & EQUIPMENT
Your reloading bench need not take up a lot of
room.
This reloading bench is just 900mm by 450mm and
it has containers for cleaned brass in 2 calibres
(9mm and 38 Super here), projectiles of different
weights (115, 125 and 135 grains) plus a spare head
with dies and some tools for checking and
adjusting.
Changing calibres is very easy with this type of
press. Here is another turret head already fitted
with the 4 dies adjusted and ready to go, for 9mm
Luger in this case.
The black disk is a powder measure disk for the Lee
Pro Auto-disk powder dispenser, which is just
transferred from one turret to another. Changing
the turret head, powder dispenser and disk takes
about 1 minute.
You will also need a powder measuring scale so you
can check your powder loads (and projectiles),
when setting up new dies, or for just checking your
quality control each time you make changes or
reload a new batch.
Checking the powder
measure setting.
Three loads of 4.9-5.0
grains being checked
on an electronic scale
Beam balance or electronic scales both work well.
You will also need a set of calipers for checking
loaded round overall length, when setting up new
dies, or for just checking your quality control each
time you reload a batch.
Dial or electronic Calipers both work well.
Finally you should use some proper ammo boxes in
which to store your newly reloaded ammo. These
are good for protection during transport and are an
easy way to keep track of your rounds count.
How much all up? The Lee Classic Turret Press Kit
shown on page 1 (for example) has everything you
need, except the dies (about $60 per set) calipers
(about $40) and some ammo boxes ($6-$10 each),
and will set you back about $350. Add a tumbler
and you could be reloading good quality ammo for
around $600.
And the cost of 50 pistol rounds
reloaded with your labour, using new
primers, powder and projectiles, and
used brass cases? – around $11.
Pistol Reloading 2.docx
PWD 26Jun13