I love shooting my Berdan II, but parent brass is fairly difficult/expensive to find. I went to check the dimensions and 45-70 is very close. The 3 issues were: shorter length, base dia, and rim dia. The length doesnt matter too much, you just loose a but of neck with plenty left to hold the bullet securely. 45-70 has a slightly smaller base dia and would sit off center in the chamber only fireforming on one side. Normally I use a small o ring to keep cases centered but I had none on hand so wrapping masking tape until they chambered snugly sufficed. The biggest issue was rim diameter for extraction. I quickly modeled up and 3D printed some small plastic rings with a lip on them that slide over the top of the case and get stopped by the rim. They are just friction fit and not glued. Cases were formed with 45-70, 41 swiss, and 44 mag dies. Went through the whole box with no extraction issues, even with a few sticky cases. Since I’ve got a proof of concept I just modeled up some more for .43 Beaumont, 11.4 Brazilian Comblain, and 50-70 all using 32ga brass.

Bi-Mart got me again. $49.99 per 1k brick for the CCI 550 primers and $37.77 per pound for the 296.

If you have a Bi-Mart nearby, it’s always worth checking out their primers and powder. They can order powder too, and it’s usually cheaper than anywhere online as it comes in on their regular orders.

Been dabbling in .357 Magnum and realizing a pound of H110/296 goes pretty fast. Sure is fun lighting them off though.

My 10 prototypes all good to go!
Ran a mag full and then another mag full in a 2 and 3 at a time rapid fire. Everything checked out so now I’m planning to run these in this weekends local fun IDPA/gpa style carbine match!
200gr round nose coated cast lead at .311 diameter- CFKBLK - CCI Primers - mix brass - COAL 2.15 - just enough crimp to remove the very light bell - 16” Arsenal AK47 - Canik Void 7.62

If you would like to know the charge , feel free to DM me.

Had a nice score from a FB Marketplace post. Hornady LNL AP is in fantastic condition for age (almost new) indexes perfectly with additional supplies/parts. I was about to haggle on price to go lower, but when I showed up seller also had about 4-4.5lbs of powder and almost 2K primers. When I asked if those were also included and the answer was "yes" I simply said here is the money. Cheers to our elders, and those who came before. Be nice, be reasonable. Not pictured is a bunch of brass as well. Seller was an elder getting out of the game and helping a young(ish) buck along the way! $400 out the door.

Picked this up at a garage sale for 40 bucks I’ve found the exact same one online for a pretty decent penny

What more should I need / need to upgrade

Or what are some good YouTube videos to really dumb everything down for me to get just a good understanding of what everything does to where I can then learn more technical things later down the road

Looking to mainly reload
308
556/223
9mm

Having problem reloading everytime I put it in my pistol and chamber it jam any idea what im doing wrong if your curious what brand im using a Hornady press with cff 5.6 and 9mm.356

I'm looking into getting a Ballard rifle in 40-70/40-63 ballard and most of the cases that I have looked into are either impossible to find or are formed from other cartridges like 30-40 krag

I photo 3 you can see a 30-40 krag case that has been expanded to 40-70 sharps straight but how can I expand it to 40 cal?

Was a good weekend hitting local yard sales 😆

These were from several yard sales and fb marketplace sales.

Just inherited a Ponsness Warren 800 Convertible shotshell press. Any tips on cleaning and lubing this thing up? CLP work ok, or other lubes better?

Hi all, long time lurker. I’ve gathered so much useful information from this subreddit. I used a Lee Challenger III press, and hand measured all the powder using an RCBS digital scale. I just picked up a powder thrower to make things less tedious. I’m really enjoying the hobby so far. These are Blazer brass, Hornady 115 gr FMJ-RN bullets, Hodgdon CFE pistol powder, and CCI primers.

Does anyone reload for an integrally suppressed 9mm? If so what can you share about the experience- powders that work, powder charge range (closer to max I’m assuming?), etc.

My dad is having his AP5SD converted into a true SD (with a RCM ported barrel and a HTA can).

I’m also thinking of getting a BRT upper and an adapter as an upgrade to my current cmmg set up.

My thinking is if I do get an upper for myself, I can reduce my 9mm bullet selections down from 5 different bullet types (124 FMJs, 124 HPs, 135 HPs, 147 FMJs & HPs) down to two (124 FMJ and HPs) across the board. While I do have a can for my G19, I don’t shoot it much and could down load some 124s to subsonic velocities. That will bring my total 9mm loads.

I’ve googled some but haven’t found many posts.

Thanks in advance!

Using Google it gave me the AI lookup which is usually inaccurate at best

By any chance would anyone here know the exact case dimensions?

I think that it may be a good parent case for 40-70 ballard

fit a 50 cal into a 50 AE with a bit of shaving. This is my first time reloading so don’t judge, just put it together as proof of concept with some old beat up casings. gut says if i were to fire this it would explode the casing. inspired by the 338 razorback and can’t find anything like it (outside of the 50 ARJ) but can’t imagine im the first person to do this. would be interesting to see with explosive 50 bmg rounds.

EdIt: Forgot about 510 whisper which is very similar just not as short

Hello everyone hope you’re all doing well!
I’m looking to get into reloading and I have no idea where to start. I’ve had several people tell me one thing then other people tell me the opposite and I figured if anybody knew the best advice it would be here so with that being said any info is greatly appreciated!!

Not sure if this is the right pace to ask, but I thought I'd try. One of my students (college) is interested in a research project related to luminescent tracers in gunpowder, and he is thinking that he will have to make custom rounds for the project. Neither of us know anything about reloading, other than it should not be done by amateurs like us. Does anyone have any advice on where to start figuring out how to obtain the ammunition for his project? We're in southeast central PA. Thank you.

I just got this seekins precision dmr in 223 wylde as my first ar15 and looking for bullet recommendations its a 1:8 twist and itll probably be used on prairie dogs a the occasional coyote, raccoon,opossum ect. Im looking for something accurate and turns stuff into a red mist

I'm looking to get an original ballard rifle soon but unfortunately ones in 45-70 have proven extremely difficult to find and it seems that 38-55 will not stand up to my needs for long range BPCR shooting

Would 40-70 sharps straight or 444 marlin brass be good to convert or would there be any other cartridge cases that would do better?

I have a buddy that shoots a 277 Fury but doesn’t reload. I have a 260 Rem and do reload. Since the 277 Fury is a hybrid case based on 308 I thought about resizing the Fury case for 260 and trying my luck at high pressure loads similar to the Fury, NAS3 or Peak+. Has anyone else done this and what did you see for velocity increase vs standard brass 260? Thanks in advance.

I reload rifle and pistol on a single stage. Not a ton of volume, but I am usually reloading something a couple times a month. I started with the Hornady lock and load kit doing 9mm and .38. I've added .357 (same dies), 10mm, and 6.5 Creedmoor. For pistol, I do batches of 50-100 in two loading blocks. I'll do big batches of brass prep up to seating primers so I have a big stash of prepped brass on hand. When I want to do a batch, I'll prime, setup in the loading blocks, and charge handheld right into the cases in the loading block with the powder measure that the kit came with. Its not super ergonomic, but its also not terrible. I have the pistol insert and i validate my charge weight every 20 or so rounds, and its usually pretty stable. I also visually inspect every charge before placing a bullet. From there I seat bullets and crimp. For pistol, I typically load a lot in the winter and stash it for spring and summer shooting.

For rifle, I swap to the rifle insert and use the stand to hold the powder measure, I set the charge a few tenths of a grain under my load and hand trickle on the scale, then dump powder and move on. This process for rifle is tedious, especially with stick powder and the little dime bag battery scale the kit came with. I've looked at automated tricklers, I'm not too interested in a DIY solution, and I'm not sure I even want an automated trickler, but I do want something that is better on the scale side of things, and the overall speed and consistency of the results. What is the best bang for the buck? Hornady, RCBS, Lyman, all have auto powder measure/dispensors, are there any diamonds in the rough? Should I get a better powder throw and scale? Something all together different? For rifle, I probably shoot 50 a month, but would do more if I could save some time. What should I do next?

Loaded this 25-06, would chamber but bolt won’t close and the extractor doesn’t even pull it. Had to stick a cleaning rod down my barrel to get it out

Is it just not sized properly? Rounds do fit in the internal mag.

I loaded some 6.5C tonight and was seeing CBTO variations of up to .010. Is that too much or typical? Most of the rounds were within .003 but a couple were short.

I really hate case trimming. I’ve got 50 shells I need to trim tomorrow and I’m dreading it.

please give me alternatives