Went ahead and loaded

/ hsoi

After writing the previous entry about the reload recipe primer change, I figured what the heck…. went ahead and made that my 100 rounds for today.

Just got back in from loading them. A few observations:

  • I’m still having bad luck with the Berry’s bullets. I had 4 of 20 get “squished/shaved” during the seating stage. I’m truly suspecting that I got a couple of bad lots, that this is not indicative of Berry’s quality in general. But it’s still frustrating.
  • Using the Remington primers as a “standard”, I found that on the whole the Federal primers were very easy to seat and the Wolf were generally harder to seat. Winchester about the same (maybe a hair harder to seat, but not as much as Wolf).
  • A powder cop die is a wonderful thing. This is the second time it’s saved me… I missed seeing a tiny twig in the case when I first put the case in. The powder cop die registered way high and lo, there was the little twig. It’s very easy to get lulled into ignoring the powder cop because 999 out of 1000 it registers just fine.

Plus, Daughter came out to help me. She helped me clean and sort a bunch of brass. Helps me inspect each round after it’s completed. She pulled the bullets on those failed Berry’s loads. And she likes to pull the press lever, but it’s still difficult for her to seat the primers. 🙂   She’s been coming out the past some mornings to help me or just hang out, and I really love that time together.

I hope to get to the range soon to try these out.

2 thoughts on “Went ahead and loaded”

    • Yeah, that might work. But I’m not sure that would really solve things.

      Most Berry’s load without incident. It’s just been a few in particular boxes that got really bad. Some boxes I load all 250 from the box and it wasn’t a problem (or maybe 1 might be bad). But the past couple boxes of Berry’s were just pretty ugly with this. I suspect the ones messing up are just a hair on the bigger side, tho there’s no way I can really confirm this unless I put a pair of calipers to each bullet before I seat it and I just don’t have the time nor desire for that. And I can’t truly measure the bullet after it’s been shaved.

      As well, I have never had a problem with not-Berry’s. I’ve been through over 1000 Precision Delta with no problem. I’ve loaded 100 Hornady, 100 Speer as well. No problems, and no changes in the press setup.

      Given how the Berry’s have gone through (the ones that botch, the ones that have seated fine), and all other things, I honestly believe the problems are a bad lot of Berry’s. But it’s not a huge issue to me… I’m unlikely to use Berry’s in the future, mainly because I can get the Precision Delta bullets MUCH cheaper.

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