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Posted: 9/14/2009 5:37:05 AM EDT
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I have a large amount of .50 new brass primed NATO ..
I need to load alot of these I have some ideas on what to do. I have reloaded centerfire for 15 years but have only loaded 50 rounds of 50BMG on a Lee press in the past. I will be using pulled AP bullets. Any suggestions on a press, dies, crimping and anything else to make loading faster? this ammo will be shot in M2's and Barrets./ Thanks |
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If you want decent price for the money, get the Lee 50bmg kit. Buy an extra press
and you can have pretty decent throughput for complete reloading. There are a couple small companies making 50bmg progressive presses but I have no experience with them. Since you have primed brass then the Lee kit by itself will do you for now. The disadvantage is the dies cannot be used in other .50bmg presses. With 2 presses I can go from fired to reloaded at a little less than minute a round. When I am making match ammo the extra steps of tumbling, cleaning, trimming, and weighing charges bumps that up to 3-4 minutes per round. |
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There's a autoindexing press available now as well.... dies not included!
http://tenxammo.com/tx-50.html |
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I just started loading .50. The biggest difference I see is your press better be mounted to something solid. You are generating a lot of torque.
I have the RCBS ammomaster pack. I bought the wilson case gauge and the giruad compartor gauge and all ready had a giruad trimmer. I got the K&M primer pocket uniformer and flash hole deburrer. I am using imperial sizing wax. The hardest part so far has been uniforming the primer pockets. Very easy to get the cutter seized up. I also bought a bunch of Pats Reloading unsized API tips. I was resizing using a CH4D bullet sizer. I lubed up the first bullet and put it in. Stuck it bad. Sprayed some oil down in the sizing die and eventually got in through. After the 1st one they went through (some harder then others). My plan next time is to but some sizing wax all up in the die before pushing the 1st bullet through. Haven't loaded any of these yet, but soon. My loads were: Powder Charge Proj Vel (avg fps) H5010 210 gr 690 gr SA FMJ 2366 H5010 215 gr 690 gr SA FMJ 2485 H5010 210 gr 750 Barnes TAC Tangent 2403 H5010 215 gr 750 Barnes TAC Tangent 2500 These were all shot from a 32" barrel. Both the Barnes loads shot about 1 MOA (at 300 yds) The 210 load for the FMJ was definitely better than the 215. I am going to load some up at 220 gr and see what happens for the 690 gr. |
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FWIW, the Lee press mounted bullet sizer in .510 works just fine for those suspect AP projectiles. I've found that the Lee .50 press does not have the leverage and strength needed to resize some M2 brass. I now use my Walnut Hill press for sizing, and the Lee for most of the rest.
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Quoted:
Hey Ben, isn't that the Dillon press? No, that's the one made by Ten-X (in Ontario). I don't think Dillon's planning to start shipping theirs until the end of the year. The Walnut Hill press mentioned above is an excellent choice too. You can swage your own bullets with that thing too! |
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