I ran across a good deal on an RCBS Rock Chucker press, scale, trickler, some dies, and some other miscellaneous reloading equipment, including bullets, primed cases, etc. I've always wanted to tinker with this, and I used to do shotgun shells. I understand the processes and how it's done and I plan on picking up a reloading manual. But is there a particular powder you would recommend?

I've got dies for 243, 357, 44mag, and I've got a 100 rounds of primed 7mm rem mag brass (for some reason, it didn't come with a 7mm die, so I'll hvae to get one). I kind of want to stick to one powder for rifle and a second for pistol. Is there something that will work with that latitude, but still have enough volume to reduce the chance of an accidental double charge?

There's a reason there's a bunch of powders. It's going to be difficult to find one powder that is the best choice for multiple guns, calibers, and bullets. Often, the bigger the caliber and heavier the bullet; the slower the powder burns. They may have some new powder blends that fix that by now. Most likely, in order to use one powder for everything from 243 to 7mm Mag, you're going to have to use one that will do instead of using the best for each gun.

For pistols, it should be simpler. I used Blue Dot for all of them but it burns fast and hot. It's easy to go over the limit with it.

It is a fine line to walke between the best powder and just one that will do. Find a powder that is listed for both of them and try it if you get good results stick with it. I shoot the same powder(H4350) in a 270, 280, and a 300 wby, it works well in all of them, and it is the first powder I ever used. And it is nice to not have to have all kinds of powder laying arround, but having different ones isnt all that bad either. I have four kinds, 2 for 45 colt, HS 6 for cowboy action and IMR4227 for hunting loads, Benchmark for 223, and H4350 for everythiung else.

matt

Do yourself a favor and go find a caliber specific reloading manual for the guns you want to shoot a lot of. You can find them on line at Midway, or in Lewisville at Sportsmans Warehouse. You will find a compendium of loading info for say just your 7RMg that lists pages out of every bullet mfg realoading manual, than every powder mfg for various bullets by the different bullet mfg's. At Sportsmans Warehouse they cost $7.99 + tax. You can also order these "OneBook/OneCaliber" books thru the publisher on line at a full list price of about $10 I think it is at www.loadbooks.com and get anything they print that way as no retailer carries all the selections....but with the 243/7RMg & 357/44mg's you have I'd be willing to bet that the pistols will be easier to come up with a single powder for.
OBTW I have never found a single relaoding manual I was satisfied with.
You can also go online and look up Alliant, Hodgedon & IMR, and some other powder mfg's websites that will give you some ideas of where to start.
Go look at the www.accuratereloading.com website. when the homepage opens scroll down past the Forums and open the tool bar that sez Reloading and see what you find. Lemme know if you need website addresses if you can't find them off Google.

I would pick just one rifle and just one pistol to start with JMHO and learn from there.
Ron

Here is the latest site that has more listing than you will ever need. There are more manuals online from powder manufactures. goggles them
http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

Depending on bullet weight and velocity, 4350 and 4831 are 2 great powder that work well for both .243 WCF and 7mm RM.




And here is a great place to spend some time learning in depth reloading and ballistics all free.
http://www.exteriorballistics.com/reloadbasics/index.cfm

But as suggested alway buy, read, and reference several manuals when working up loads. Keep good records and have fun. James

Thanks for the info guys. One of the boxes I got have about 75 clean and primed 7 mag rounds in it ready to be loaded. The label on it lists 43 grains of IMR 4350 with Nosler balistic tip 150 grains and I have another box of about 50 150 grain balistic tip bullets. So after I check the reloading manual, I'll probably give the 4350 a shot.

I also remembered that my father-in-law and another friend of mine reload 7 mag. I'm not particularly close with either, but they'll probably share their recipes with me.

My dad also shoots 7 mag, he sounds ready to give up factory ammo. I think he's more excited though about all of the 158 grain semi-jacket 357 hollow points that came with the kit. I think we can make some formitable deer loads out of it.

Don't be surprised if the 7RMg hulls that are already primed don't work real well.
You don't know 1. what brand or heat range primer is in the hull, 2. how old the primers are and how they were stored, 3. if they primers have been compromised with oil, soot or "dirt" since they are not covered with a bullet, and you don't know if the flash hole is clean and completely open.

As far as shooting someone else's reloads, as a rule of thumb I will not, almost under any circumstances shoot someone elses reloads....unless I know and trust the guy implicitly with my life since there is no recourse or factory insurance against his mistakes in your gun.

I was recently given about 150 rounds of reloads in 270 and 300Wmg from a very close friend, and will still break down the components, and deprime the hulls to start over with fresh primers and powder after I resize and trim to spec all the hulls that were fired in HIS guns, and not mine...as there are slight differences in each guns chamber that will affect the safety and accuracy of the reloaded round. In looking at the current manauls my friends reloads look too close to max to take a chance on...and I already know he had some primer failure to fire issues with a brand primer I had the same problems with and will not ever use again.

Factory ammo is sized slightly smaller than spec so it will fit into any SAMMI spec chambers ...and even then occasionally I run across a bullet style or run of factory ammo that is out of spec and difficult to chamber smoothly. JMHO but then I've been reloading for 40 years too....with only one serious problem so far that was my fault...and why I do not trust a drop tube powder measure and weigh each and every load on a scale as a safety and accuracy issue.

Primers are the cheapest aspect of the 4 componenets in a reloaded hull, and yet can control a large part of the safety and accuracy of a loaded round. Like the old saying goes..."THIMK AHEAD"...and eliminate the easy mistakes.
Ron

I talked about that with the guy I got them from. Since they're just primed brass, I'm going to take them out in the garage and snap some off to see if they pop like they are supposed to, if not, then I'll reprime the whole lot.

I don't want to sound anal about it but there's more to a primer than 'pop'. There are different heat ranges of primers that burn, of coure, at different temps. The burn rate of the primer affects the pressures upon ignition of the powder. Probably not enough to make it dangerous but if you don't know what primers are in them, how are you going to replicate a good load? Aside from being fun and giving some degree of satisfaction, handloading/reloading is all about repeatability; round after round after round.

Personally, I would soak those cases in WD-40 overnight to make them safe and throw them in the trash. Using cases that have an unknown history primed with unknown primers pretty much flies in the face of what loading is all about. Please don't take this personally because I don't know you but carelessness like this can leave you with 20 vision if you're not careful.

I don't doubt that they pop when you pull the trigger...just what are they brand and heat range wise ...and are they the same primers that the recipe calls for?

Years ago when I was getting started reloading in about 1967 or '68 and really really broke, and stumbled into a box of used reloading stuff at a pawn shop for next to nothing - some of the stuff I still have in use like my Lyman Ohaus scale! Anyway at the bottom of the box I found a couple trays of Federal Large Rifle Primers still in the sleeve, and since I was starting to load for a 30'06 remmy 742 for the first time I knew that the LR primers was what was called for. So I proceeded to load up a bunch starting at the bottom of the powder charge list with the particular bullet I was using and in 3/10th grain increments built 5 rounds each all the way to max. That next Saturday I zeroed the scope using the last of the factory store bought stuff where I wanted it, swabbed the barrel out again and began to shoot for groups from the lightest powder charge up. The first loads hit about 3-4"s under my zero and the gun's muzzle report sounded flat and soft. A nearby old timer sez you got loads that are too slow looking at my targets. So I finished off the batch with even the max loads hitting several inch's under where they should have, but grouping really well "for me". Next week I did the same thing only I started from the middle of the recipe and exceeded the max load by more than just several grains thinking I would stop shooting if I saw a problem developing...and as expected when I placed my old targets from the previous week over the new target saw I was getting about the same results with the raised starter loads...and as it got dark when the Range Master called last shots I decided to run the last 9 rounds and wound up getting one of the best strings I have ever shot at about 3/8ths wide and consistent controlled verticle stringing as the barrel heated up...until I blew the plastic dust shroud off the back of the bolt about 30 feet away and split the Zytel bolt stop inside the back of the receiver with the next to last round.

When I got home I called a buddy who worked at the gunshop I hung out in, told him what happened and he sez "You are trying to get Killed!...throw them ancient cheapazzed primers away and I'll GIVE you some new ones if you are THAT x&^%$ cheap". The early over riding clue about the weak primers was the dirty barrel on the reloads when the factory stuff wiped out "normally" with no heavy soot or unburnt powder grains on the swab, the 2nd and most important clue though was when I ignored the obvious weakened primer performance when the bullets would not maintain close to the zeroed point of aim hitting well under the POI. By the time I got enough powder in the rounds to create a problem I discovered later that I was "I ain't gonna tell you how bad I was" over 5 grains too high over the Max Max book loads for the bullet/powder combo I was using....and lucky not to have blown the gun up running off 9 rounds of severe overloads in less than 3-4 minutes.

Fixed the gun, used the new primers called for by the recipe and everything was as it was supposed to be on the next trip to the range...but I've never forgotten that learning experience.

So I have no doubt the primers will pop...that ain't too hard...just how strong is the pop supposed to be is the question...and like I used to tell my hard headed sons ..."the best lessons in life are the ones you learn for your self ...and surviving the mistakes".
JMHO but YMMV.
Ron

I understand the primers have different strengths, and if you get a weak primer, it's going to cause poor combustion. I don't see any reason to throw the cases away though. If I don't trust the primers, then I'll just snap them all and start over. In my neighborhood between the police helicopter and the 15 rounds of 9mm that you hear report in the distance, no one is going to notice.

And why is it that everyone I know who reloads pushes for that max safe load?

I had a buddy who loaded his 41 mag so hot, he couldn't hold on to it. He said they were max loads. WTH good did it do him, other than he was lucky not to have hurt himself?

Trust me, I DO NOT want to blow myself up, I get enough of that stuff working at the airport.

Quote:

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And why is it that everyone I know who reloads pushes for that max safe load?

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1. Young
2. Young & Dumb
3. Old & Dumb
4. Dumb
5. Over-compensating for something else
6. Too much testesterone; too little grey matter (see #4)

Smart loaders are looking for the most accurate, repeatable, safe, and highest performing load. It has to be all 4. Take any one of those out of the equation and your just trying to find your niche in the list above.

I was rambling thru another forum and ran across one where a guy posted he damaged his glock 3 different times due to reloading and the factory wouldn't fix it under warranty so he traded it,he couldn't understand why it wouldn't take very hot loads.

I have never suggested that you throw the brass away, only that you not reload these already primed hulls as you do not know for dead solid and certain anything about the condition of the primers that are already in place. I also suggested that you resize and check the trim length of the brass to avoid any other possible problems.

Doing these things will bring the used primed brass back to a normal starting point so that you are in total control of the reloading cycle and not dependent on someones elses work to be acceptable and safe.

I Like Primitive Hunters list...well said and unfortunatly usually part of the reloading leanring curve. I went thru the "Mo Powah Mo Speed phase" too but as picky as I am about saving money and getting the most bang for my seemingly always limited budget's buck in accuracy and performance I learned what I was really trying to accomplish was accuracy, matching a bullet for the targeted specie properly and at a reduced cost....and simply HotRodding a caliber as its called does not usually enhance accuracy and accomplish anything except burning more powder and making more noise...and possibly creating a dangerous incident. Blowing up stuff is easy...making a gun shoot accurately is not...making a gun shoot more accurately than it is commonly accepted in that weapon and caliber is the acheivement with the goal of delivering the bullet as precisely as possible on the chosen target, paper, feathers or fur makes no difference. The more you shoot & the more you reload ...the more you will learn how to do exactly that. JMHO but YMMV
Ron

Quote:

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The label on it lists 43 grains of IMR 4350 with Nosler balistic tip 150 grains

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You may have made a typo. BUT THIS LOAD AS STATED IS DANGEROUS
Check your manuals on above load. It is way below starting minimum!
With slow burning powder you have a danger of:

SEE: Abbreviation for Secondary Explosive Effect. SEE is a condition which can occur when slow-burning powders are used at greatly reduced charge weights (poor loading density). Rather than burning in a normal fashion, the powder detonates, as though it were a severe overload. Also known as a “pressure excursion.”

Below recommended load is off of IMR web page:
Bullet Weight (Gr.) Order BW Powder Bullet Diam. C.O.L. Grs. Vel. (ft/s) Pressure Grs. Vel. (ft/s) Pressure
150 GR. NOS PART 150 IMR 4350 .284" 3.270" 57.0 2786 52,400 PSI 60.8 2931 59,400 PSI

James

I probably ought to Google this before I reply but I'm trying to watch Survivor. If I remember, IMR4350 is DuPont powder and H4350 is Hodgen powder. Danger, danger, danger!

It was a typo. It says 63 grains.

I'll check that one in the book. Like I said, I just want something that works in 7mm and 243. Since we know it works in 7mm, then we can check how much to use in 243 and see how it works.