And I'm still here. 
Better than that, I'm hooked. I've always had a love for doing things with my hands and shooting, so reloading is perfect for me. I'm using a Lee single stage press and taking it slow, looking at the manuals, googling any and all questions. I started with 9mm since I figured a straight-walled pistol case would be easier to learn on. I made 15 rounds using 147gr Berry's Plated Bullets and 4.5gr Power Pistol at minimum load, since I wanted a nice low-pressure, subsonic round. No +p+ for me yet!
After making those 15 9mm, it was too much fun to not run some rifle rounds. I wanted to reload some subsonic 300 BLK-- again a nice low-pressure round to start-- and I had two projectiles to try out: 208gr Hornady Amax and 203gr powder coated cast bullets from Palmetto Projectiles. I read about every thread on the Palmetto cast bullets and was expecting to have some trouble, but I had some Accurate 1680 I picked up from @Captain Spaulding which was reported as the most forgiving/optimal powder. I loaded 10.2gr at COL 1.95" for the Palmetto and 10.7gr at 2.12" for the Amax. I belled the cases for the cast bullets, and used a light crimp with a Lee FCD on all rounds.
I was off to the range Wednesday. All 15 rounds of 9mm cycled in a Glock 26 perfectly, so I guess I'll make a few more than 15 for my next batch! What a great feeling. I moved on to the 300 BLK, loading it into an AR pistol with 8.5" barrel and a H2 buffer. I started with the Amax, shot off a couple of rounds, and got an FTF: the round was stuck partially in the mag and jutting up at a high angle. So I cleared the bad round, shot another, and same thing. Overall I was able to shoot about half before I decided this load wasn't going to cut it. Looking at the cleared rounds, there was some scraping on both the case and the projectile, with the last round having the little plastic insert on the Amax tip broken off and the projectile.
So now I'm thinking "great, these fancy precision Hornady bullets wouldn't work, and now I'm going to shoot temperamental cast bullets. I'm an idiot." I load up the Palmetto rounds, and run the whole 15 mags with no failures, cycles fine, locks back on the empty mag. There was a ton of smoke, which I later learned is pretty normal for cast bullets, though these are powder coated so I'm not sure if there's any lube to burn off. Could be the powder coat too I suppose.
So overall, pretty good. I'm going to run more of the loads that worked, and keep tinkering on that Amax. I'd love some suggestions. I suspect the Amax at 10.7gr was not producing enough gas to properly cycle the action, causing short-stroking and FTFs. After a little more googling a lot of folks are using 11gr or 11.1gr, so maybe I need to bump up the powder a bit. Would you recommend a ladder this time? If so, go up by 1 or 2 grains each time? I don't have a chrono and I'm not to the point of accurizing my loads, just looking for function as I learn the ins and outs. Thanks for your help. Reloading is going to be addictive, I can tell already
.
Better than that, I'm hooked. I've always had a love for doing things with my hands and shooting, so reloading is perfect for me. I'm using a Lee single stage press and taking it slow, looking at the manuals, googling any and all questions. I started with 9mm since I figured a straight-walled pistol case would be easier to learn on. I made 15 rounds using 147gr Berry's Plated Bullets and 4.5gr Power Pistol at minimum load, since I wanted a nice low-pressure, subsonic round. No +p+ for me yet!
After making those 15 9mm, it was too much fun to not run some rifle rounds. I wanted to reload some subsonic 300 BLK-- again a nice low-pressure round to start-- and I had two projectiles to try out: 208gr Hornady Amax and 203gr powder coated cast bullets from Palmetto Projectiles. I read about every thread on the Palmetto cast bullets and was expecting to have some trouble, but I had some Accurate 1680 I picked up from @Captain Spaulding which was reported as the most forgiving/optimal powder. I loaded 10.2gr at COL 1.95" for the Palmetto and 10.7gr at 2.12" for the Amax. I belled the cases for the cast bullets, and used a light crimp with a Lee FCD on all rounds.
I was off to the range Wednesday. All 15 rounds of 9mm cycled in a Glock 26 perfectly, so I guess I'll make a few more than 15 for my next batch! What a great feeling. I moved on to the 300 BLK, loading it into an AR pistol with 8.5" barrel and a H2 buffer. I started with the Amax, shot off a couple of rounds, and got an FTF: the round was stuck partially in the mag and jutting up at a high angle. So I cleared the bad round, shot another, and same thing. Overall I was able to shoot about half before I decided this load wasn't going to cut it. Looking at the cleared rounds, there was some scraping on both the case and the projectile, with the last round having the little plastic insert on the Amax tip broken off and the projectile.
So now I'm thinking "great, these fancy precision Hornady bullets wouldn't work, and now I'm going to shoot temperamental cast bullets. I'm an idiot." I load up the Palmetto rounds, and run the whole 15 mags with no failures, cycles fine, locks back on the empty mag. There was a ton of smoke, which I later learned is pretty normal for cast bullets, though these are powder coated so I'm not sure if there's any lube to burn off. Could be the powder coat too I suppose.
So overall, pretty good. I'm going to run more of the loads that worked, and keep tinkering on that Amax. I'd love some suggestions. I suspect the Amax at 10.7gr was not producing enough gas to properly cycle the action, causing short-stroking and FTFs. After a little more googling a lot of folks are using 11gr or 11.1gr, so maybe I need to bump up the powder a bit. Would you recommend a ladder this time? If so, go up by 1 or 2 grains each time? I don't have a chrono and I'm not to the point of accurizing my loads, just looking for function as I learn the ins and outs. Thanks for your help. Reloading is going to be addictive, I can tell already
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I much prefer shooting pistol competitions right now, eyes aren't good enough to shoot rifles any more
