Thanks. Could be. It was green and very slick. Just dabbing the tip of my finger on the surface of it was enough lube for two sizings. I like experimenting.

Completely agree.

Regarding powder. This is just a learning exercise at this point. I'm looking at data from the 2023 Hodgdon manual, the only one I have so far.

I started with three lists of powders.

List 1: Hogdgon '23, page 76, 55 GR. HDY V-MAX (7 powders)
List 2: Hogdgon '23, page 77, 77 GR. HDY V-MAX (11 powders)
List 3: @dryflash3 (6 powders)

I'm using the 55 grain data for the 53 grain V-Max bullets I want to develop a load for.
I'm using the 77 grain data for the 77 grain Sierra Match King bullets I want to develop a load for.

Comparing the three lists, I see two powders that are on all three lists: TAC and A-2230.

I'm not ready to buy powder yet; this is just an exercise in me trying to think like a reloader. I know I will want to look at more than just one manual when I'm doing this for real.

If I were buying powder now, and I could only buy one, and I only had the one manual to use, and I couldn't get any expert help, I'd go looking for TAC and A2230. I'm not going to do that but is my thinking heading in the right direction?

Thanks!

TAC and AA2230 are nice powders. TAC is one of my favorites, especially with the 55 VMax

Thanks for the feedback!

You would not have a tin of (and I would bet that you got more than one) Imperial around to use if you did not know it was way more gooder (than the home spray stuff) at a LOT of different things than sizing EASY 5.56 brass. :)

Also noticed that mentioned was the green flavor of the Imperial wax.

You bought that stuff and keep it around for good reasons... :)

Depends on what you mean by 'one'.

One single 1lb can or one single 8lb can?  

You made a good call. My brain was so full when I left your place, I was worried about toppling over when I walked.

Experimenting with smokeless powder without using reloading data from a manual sounds extraordinarily dangerous to me. That sounds like seriously advanced reloading stuff that would be way down the road for me, if ever. It's hard for me to imagine my shooting needs ever getting to the point where I'd need to do that.

In looking through the 2023 Hodgdon's manual you gave me, TAC looks like it will also work well in 6.5mm Grendel. Not so much for .300 BO or 30-30. I noticed that TAC disappears from the loading data once bullet weight gets up to around 125 grains. I'm guessing this means it develops too much pressure getting the heavier bullets moving?

One powder.

Seriously, though, I doubt I'll buy any more than one pound of any particular powder until I know how it runs in our guns.

My shotgun project is going nowhere fast, so I'm putting it on hold and moving $400 to the reloading fund. I'm thinking the next thing I should purchase are manuals. They're the one thing I can use now, while I'm putting together the rest of my tools. After that, dies, press, powder measure, and scale.

I ordered a Hornady Microjust bullet-seating stem. I plan to buy one every time I buy a set of dies. With my bad eyes and average shooting skills, I need all the help I can get. Precision repeatability seems to be a good part of a strategy for getting reliability, consitency, and accuracy.

I've got a couple of the legacy Hornady micro seating/adjust stems. They are cheap and work well, however they are difficult to read and tend to rust quickly. Hornady recently came out with a really nice click adjust seating stem that looks REALLY good, but it kinda pricey.

TAC is a great performer in lots of cartridges, 223, 6.5G & 308 are where it shines. The fact that it's cheap and always available is icing on the cake.

-ZA

Great info, thanks.

Is $32 a decent price for Lyman 51, please?

Speer manual next, right?

Thanks. I'll keep my adjusting stems clean and lightly oiled; maybe I'll be able to avoid the rust. Thanks for the heads-up.

TAC sounds like a good place to start.

Lyman 51 ordered, thanks!

Good point. I like their 110-grain Vmax in .300 BO too. Hornady next. I also have 77 grain Sierra Match King 5.56 ammo for larger varmints and loading those bullets will be my second reloading project. So I'm thinking I'll pick up both. More data points is better, right?

I’d also add that you can download the Western Powders load guide for free. It has all of the Western & Accurate brand powders in it with most of the popular bullets.

Great free resource if using TAC or AA2230

Instead of the above, try an RCBS crimp reamer. It indexes/stops on the face of the case head instead of the bottom of the primer pocket. I used the Hornady crimp remover before discovering the RCBS. This tool can't cut too deep by design.

https://www.bushnell.com/made-in-america/trim-mate-military-crimp-remover-2/855.html

Thanks. I like the sound of that. Do you use it with the RCBS Trim Mate Case Prep Center or do you chuck it up in a drill?

@Cascade-Dude
   I went with the Hornady reloading App, it's an annual subscription, but when they publish a new hard copy they send you one as well.

   Also if you are a veteran (looking at the inverted S-3 and making a guess) RCBS offers veteran pricing if you purchase directly from them. They don't want you to talk specifics in public. Let's just say I normally order RCBS items direct from RCBS.

Link for Western guide

Western Reloading Guide v 8.0

Check 6!
Bandit

Copy all, Bandit, Tally-Ho! Break right, break right, break right!

I'm looking for a used press under $100 but I'll keep that in mind for the other products I'm planning to get from RCBS. Good for them!

Thanks!

There are a couple of reviews there that say they wear out fast. One said 500, if I'm remembering it right, and another 1500. What's your experience been, please?

Thanks!

Thank you, Sir! dryflash3 showed me his dry tumbler setup. He uses finely-ground corn cob and it gets the inside of the primer pockets nice and clean. He also showed me the lemi-shine/dish-soap method. I had never heard of the stuff but I was picking up some dishwasher detergent a few days ago and saw it on the shelf and grabbed some.

Cascade Dude, be advised, NO reloader in their right mind will ever be  "experimenting with smokeless powder without using reloading data from a manual", no matter how advanced they are.  They all have different burn rates.

Now, the only rifle I reload is .224/5.56, but I'm extremely happy with H335, or close second BLC-2, for all loads from 77gr to 55gr.

Just for economy's sake, I do tend to stay with one powder type for rifle, and one for pistol.  Also makes it easier when you run out, you're just reaching for the next jug, refilling the hopper, and keep on keeping on, instead of readjusting things, etc.

But I hear Tac is excellent too.

Thanks! Great advice. My reloading vision, as it stands now, sort of looks like this: Near-term, develop two 5.56 loads, small varmint and large varmint, then reload them into the brass from my bulk range ammo purchases. Once I'm there, I have three projects I'd like to undertake and I haven't prioritized them. One will be a couple of game loads for my 22" barrel 6.5mm Grendel, likely starting with Hornady 123 grain SST, similar to the factory ammo in my ammo locker. The other will be will be a defense round for .300 BO with a 10.5" barrel, likely starting with 110g grain V-Max, again, like the bulk factory ammo I have. The last will be a dream of mine for almost 50 years: Loading ballistic bullets for my bolt-action, box magazine 30-30 Savage "plain" rifle. Later on, .38 special and .357 magnum.

I have so much work to do. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Thanks for the clarification!

The wife came up to me yesterday and says, "You know, it's not really fair that you have to pay for lighting out of your reloading budget, so get what you need."

So I did. I now have two 10,000 lumen LED fixtures. Installed one of them just now. Wow, what a difference. And why wouldn't it be? I'm replacing one 14-watt LED bulb with two four-tube fixtures.

I love my wife.

I have 223 dies, shell holders, a Lyman manual, a Hornady manual, and bushings for mounting the powder dispenser on order. Will all be here by the 9th. Used Redding powder dispenser and RCBS scale from redflash3. That will leave me about $120 for the press.

When I get my January budget of $200, that should cover case prep/primer tools, gauges, and so on. On February 1, I'll have $200 for primers, powders and bullets. Tumbler on March 1.

Plenty of time to sort brass, then clean it in a plastic box with Lemi-shine and dish soap. And find a press.

Whoops, sorry about that.

That was his callsign when he flew an X-wing in the Rebellion.

Reading it right now. Thanks. My Lyman manual gets here today.

I downloaded the PDF and ordered the free printed manual. Thanks!

Good morning Cascade, all.

Just a note on data available for free on the inter-web:

Nosler. A bullet and other compoent manufacturer.

Speer. Bullet manufacturer.

Barnes. Bullet manufacturer.

Vihtavuori: Smokeless powder manufacurer based in Finlanf.

Alliant: Powder suplier with a large data-base and deep history in smokeless powder.

Hodgdon. Maybe the largest powder supplier in the world with a huge selection of brands. It's on-line data is extensive to say the least.

Western Powder. Wester Powder has it's own data manuals available for free download and I personally like Western's Vol 8. Western is now a part of the Hodgdon family.

Really nice to see your enjoyment in this reloading endevor.

Good morning! Thanks for the information and the encouragement!

That all sounds great to me. I'll bring my notebook and plan to go into "sponge" mode again so I can soak up as much as possible. Thanks!

Case forming for .300 BO ... are you talking about making .300 cases from .223 cases? That would be cool. I have about 500 rounds of factory ammo in new, not converted, .300 brass. I'd love to have more but the stuff is expensive. So being able to make .300 cases out of my (relatively) inexpensive range ammo would be a big benefit.

I love .357. My S&W Model 19 is my go-to self-defense pistol. It's also my concealed carry in bear country. Apart from the limits of revolver capacity, it is, in my humble opinion, the best pistol caliber of all time, largely due to it's versatility. I've sent more .38/.357 bullets down-range out of K-frame Smith & Wesson's than all the other bullets from all the other firearms I've ever fired. For three years in the '80's, I was firing a Combat Masterpiece four times a week, 50-100 rounds per session. For self-defense, I favor light, fast-moving frangible bullets. For bear, big, heavy, sharp-cornered, gas-checked hard-cast. I bought a thousand rounds of .357 factory ammo (Remington) not too long ago, so I'll have plenty of brass. All my .38 brass is aluminum, though. When I bought it, reloading wasn't on my radar yet.

One of the things I really like about being trained by you is your emphasis on practical safety. You'll never see me wanting to compromise safety to cut corners. Tweaks that ignore the institutional paranoia of corporate lawyers are fine with me. Making lawyers happy is no part of my safety attitude. I spent a lot of years in flight test, including more than a hundred flights of aircraft that had never flown a single time before we got into it and took it into the sky. Many of the them had the word "experimental" painted on the side. Safety was everything and it permeated everything we did at a molecular level. It's how we stayed alive. My approach to and attitude about firearm safety in general and reloading safety in particular, comes from that background. I will always be happy to learn safety best practices so I can incorporate them into everything I do. And I will always be grateful for being pulled up short if/when I do something unsafe.

Experts like you and others here know which corners can be cut safely and by how much, and which can't. Newbies like me can't do that and shouldn't try. We should probably get smacked upside the head if we do try to do that.

The Lyman manual arrived at my mailbox late yesterday and I'm going to pick it up when they open at 8:00.

Cool stuff! Thanks. Well-done!

Roger propane torch. I have a lot of metal cutting options but most are way too large and brutal for cutting down brass; chop saw, angle grinder, etc. Hmm, though I do have a tubing cutter for fabricating brake and fuel lines for cars.

I like the idea of annealing. Get the molecules moving so they break apart the bonds they've settled into so it takes the new shape better and more easily. It seems like a much gentler way to do it than just cramming it in a cold die. I'm guessing it means stronger cases, fewer cracks, and possibly more reloads?