Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Adventures in reloading...

I had a bit of an oddity while reloading today. I've been working on loads for my M1 rifle and settled on 48 gr. 4064 with the 150 gr. Sierra Matchking. Since my old Lee Autoprime was getting a bit loose (the cover which would sometimes work loose) I thought I'd try a new one. The new Autoprime has a two stage system to separate the primers you are seating from those in the "magazine" and it takes out some of the feel. Also, in my load search I sought to compare to a widely known quantity, the Hornady 168 gr. AMAX load. All this came together today when I went to charge one of the Hornady cases as I picked up the primed case to pour in the powder charge I noticed that the primer was falling out! Although I had this happen once with a many times fired case about 30 years ago I have never had this happen with a once fired case. None of the other 39 cases had a loose primer pocket and I didn't notice this when removing the fired primers and I think, emphasis on think, that I didn't notice the lack of resistance when priming due to the built in multiple stages of the Autoprime.

About that new Autoprime... The primer "magazine" cover has come loose twice or rather it was pushed off by the first stage primer lifter catching the primer on the cover and pushing it off. There is some slop there and it bugs me. I guess Lee had to do something because somewhere, somehow, somebody managed to set off a primer while priming and thence the whole lot in the "magazine" yet this system doesn't thrill me. I'm thinking of buying an RCBS hand primer.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

What kind of press are you using? I prime on my presses. Hornady lnl single stage and Dillon 550b. Even with all the leverage a press provides it still provides plenty of "feel" for when a primer doesn't feel quite right