I finally reloaded (on my own) my first ammo!

I say on my own because truly the first reloads I did were when Karl was teaching me. But today I reloaded my first rounds on my own equipment. Insert a little James Brown “I Feel Good” right here. 🙂

Until now all I’ve been doing on my reloading equipment is resizing and decapping 9mm brass. I figure since all I have is a single-stage press I might as well do some things in bulk, so I’ve been going through all my 9mm brass. I haven’t finished because I’ve got a lot of brass, but the kids seem to enjoy helping with that effort so it’s all good. But I was getting tired of just resizing and decapping, I wanted to produce something. So a goal for this weekend was to produce something and shoot it.

Powder Throw

First I needed some way to mount the powder throw. I don’t know how exodus set up the throw for himself, but I didn’t want to mount the throw on the bench as I wasn’t sure how my workflow would go. Plus I know I’m going to buy a progressive press and that must be mounted to the bench so I wanted to avoid bench-mounted clutter. I had some plywood lying around the garage and opted to fashion a small base onto which I could mount the throw. That way I could have a stable mount and I could relocate the powder throw anywhere I needed to.

It’s nothing sexy, but it works. I did that last night, so I could do the actual reloading today.

The Reloading

I decided to only reload 20 rounds of 9mm Luger. Twenty rounds would give me something substantial to work with, but not too many in case of a problem that I couldn’t undo things. Plus I don’t see any reason to reload en masse until the recipe is known good. I used the RCBS’s press to bell and prime (instead of the hand-priming tool). Learning the feel for the priming wasn’t bad… just use firm but gentle pressure and listen to the tactile feedback you get. I do think I belled the cases a little too much, but no big deal… I’ll fine tune that next time.

I looked up the recipe in my reloading manual, weighed the powder and really took my time to weigh, re-weigh, and triple-check that everything was coming out right. Then I seated the bullet and gave it a taper crimp. Lots of using the calipers to ensure dimensions were where they should be. Eventually I had 20 rounds of 9mm Luger.

Here’s my recipe:

Bullet: 115 grain Berry’s TMJ RN

Powder: 6.3 grains Alliant Power Pistol

Primer: Winchester WSP standard small pistol

Cases: used Speer brass

C.O.L.: 1.135″

This was based upon what was listed in my Speer reloading manual.

Trying It Out

I figured if there was any gun I wouldn’t cry that much over if it went kaboom, it’d be my Springfield XD-9 subcompact (3″ barrel). Note that my goal is not to have some awesome load, it’s merely to have a load that functions in the gun, goes bang, no malfunctions. Just work.

Went over to the local indoor range, and as expected since it’s a Saturday, lots of people were on the range that I had no desire to be around. So my goal was to get in, shoot, leave. Sure I paid for an hour of range time and only used 10 minutes, but I’m OK with that.

I started by shooting some of the reloads I did at Karl’s. Worked fine in the gun. Then I loaded up one of my reloads. Worked fine. WHOO-HOO!! Eventually I shot through all 19 of my rounds. Yes, only 19. Before I left the house I ran all 20 rounds through the XD-9 SC just to see how they would feed. After I ran the rounds I remeasured the C.O.L. and one round had significant setback. I don’t know why, but I opted to pull that bullet and reuse that case at another time.

While shooting, I noticed significant muzzle flash; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much muzzle flash in my life. I don’t know if that’s due to the powder or due to the 3″ barrel or due to something else or some combination of things. Something for me to jot in my notebook. But again, today was not to find some awesome load, just to load.

After shooting my reloads I shot another 10 of the ones I did at Karl’s, then packed up and left.

Success!

I’m pleased with how things went. Nothing blew up, everything functioned. Since the main pistol powder I have is the Power Pistol, I am going to play around with it some more. For instance, reload the same recipe then try it out of my XD-9 Tactical with the 5″ barrel and see how muzzle flash is. Then just continue to tinker with the load from there. (6.7 grains is the max, according to the book). I also have some TiteGroup, which according to this chart burn faster than the Power Pistol. I may play with that too to see how it compares in the 3″ barrel. Hrm. Maybe my next effort will be to load 20 rounds with the Power Pistol, 20 rounds with the TiteGroup, then take all 40 rounds with both my 3″ and 5″ XD and see how things compare.

It’s also sorely evident that if I really want to reload, I must get a progressive press. Certainly I’ll keep the single stage press for things I want the utmost precision on, like making hunting loads. But for bulk practice handgun ammo, a progressive press will be my friend. I am pretty much settled on the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP. Somehow I doubt Santa will bring me one, but I can dream. 😉  Getting a chronograph is probably also a good thing, eventually.

Goal accomplished. Good day.