I posted this one a month or so ago:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/408347_A_second_run_at_my_style__this_time_bottle_necks__written_mainly_for_newer_reloaders_.html

You may want to open it to read my normal prelude to those who feel compelled to “advise” me on my writing skills. I have none nor do I have any inclination to develop them.

I’ve been asked about compressed charges as I mentioned that if you see a (C) after the charge it means it’s compressed and a way to reduce the compression is to use a longer funnel. It seems thats another little tidbit that fell between the cracks of wet tumbling and whatever this weeks flavor of reloading is so....

Using a longer funnel creates momentum enabling the powder to pack tighter. This will allow more powder into the case with respect to weight and volume thus reducing your compression when inserting the bullet. This really is a method I use only in slow burning powders (large flakes or tubes). As an after thought, I figured why not do another FYI posting.

My creation of sometime in the past:



Years ago (insert the “years ago” placard here, maybe a flashback seen), I picked up a Lee universal charging die. No reason. It was on a clearance rack and was only a couple bucks. It’s been in the trash barrel on more than one occasion but I kept pulling it out and setting it aside. The funnel is a Forster Blue Ribbon. I was going to make a wooden support for the charging funnel as it’s kind of a hassle to hold funnels but I thought why not build it to fit into one of the presses so I combined the two (a For-Lee, or possibly Bubba-Gump product name?)  and I can let the weight of the lever arm do all the holding for me (that plus I’m inherently lazy, not really, no really).



The guide tube is tapered on the inside so I had cut off about an inch or so to get a nice fit around the funnel. The front is nice and tight due to the remaining taper but the rear was loose so I fit an O-ring into it. I wanted the tubes weight in the funnel tip to hold it tight against the master fitting. The  funnel itself screws on to the funnel tube so that’s an easy disassembly. The brass parts are for varying calibers but the one back most (the master) needs to be used all the time. The one drawback to the blue ribbon is it has a plastic funnel (metal tube) and it creates a slight static cling to smaller powders. I get around the attraction using some home made anti fog though I don’t use it for small flake powders (as there is no need to) so that’s a non-issue.

A couple of side notes:

1) Anti-fog is for your glasses. In the summer around here, my glasses can fog up fairly fast in the heat and humidity. As a really good deterrent to that I make my own anti-fog with 4 parts Johnsons baby shampoo to 6 parts water. Just combine the two in a small spray bottle, shake and spray your glasses then wipe dry. One application gets me through a day at the range with no problems.

2) On the plastic parts (throwers, funnels, etc.) when using powders, I wash them in soapy water or use the above but I don’t rinse, just dry them off as is. The film helps cut down on the static cling.

Back to it then. I’m using a 30-06 shell and filled it to the top with Varget and using a standard funnel:



Heres the weight poured out onto the scale:



Next, I placed the shell into the press and lowered the lever, poured the charge through the long funnel and got this out:



As for how much more by weight I can fit into the 30-06 using the longer drop:


Almost an extra grain and a half.

If you were one of the ones that suffered through the other post and are wondering where the green man is, he’s on vacation, mountain climbing.



Peace.

T.

We can't see the Pics, can you?

It seems I'm popular and my bandwidth has been used up. From Photobucket:

"What does it mean, and how do I get my photos back?
Don't panic, and don't delete anything! Please, let us explain.

Bandwidth is the total amount of data transferred from your Photobucket account to the sites you post photos and videos on. It's kind of like the data plan on your phone. If you have a free account, you can use up to 10GB of bandwidth per month.

Imagine you have a photo that is 1MB in size, and you post it on your blog. Whenever a friend sees your blog, 1MB of data is transferred from your Photobucket account. That counts toward your 10GB per month limit (10GB = 10,000MB, and most photos are much smaller than 1MB).

Now, imagine your blog has a lot of photos on it, and their total size is 5MB. That would mean that 2,000 blog views would max out the bandwidth on your free Photobucket account. If you're linking multiple photos in multiple places, or you post photos on a popular site, your bandwidth can add up pretty fast!"

It looks like the want me to either pay them to upgrade or wait until I get cycled again. Sorry guys, its effecting all my postings. When I get cycled I'll bump the post. The long and short of it is you can get more powder into your cases or get more room to seat the bullet with less compression by using a long tube funnel.

I understand that, similar to just tapping the bottom of the case on the bench and trickling more in, but this keeps things flowing, thanks for posting.

I said I'd bump it when my images went live again so bumpity bump.

Nice photos and nice post. Keep at it.
The perspective of the beginner gets lost on some that have been at it longer than most of the posters have been alive...
Your perspective is valuable since you understand what it took to learn this material more recently. Good to mix it up and stay in the dialogue.
Well done.

I am intrigued by your loading bench.  Where did you get that?

I built it.

Very nice.  You have some skillz.  

Long drop tubes don't work based on momentum.

Thread got off to a bad start; should have saved that for General Discussion.  AeroE