New guy asks you to tell me the gotchas of reloading

Hi All, new guy here. I've browsed the forums and learned a lot already. I want to develop
some low power loads using cast bullets and
bullseye powder for 45 acp (for a new 1911)
and for a 30-06 Garand that will come from CMP. I have already gotten ahead of myself
by getting getting some Lee molds: The TL452-230-2R for the 45 acp and a C309-160-1R for the Garand, and of course the Bullseye.
I have read about the issue of reduced charges with slow powders possibly causing a secondary explosion. Lets say I start with loads well under the starting loads, which is about 4 grains in the 45, so say I start with 1 grain,
and of course there is no
published value for the 30-06 with bullseye, but say I start with 1 grain as well.

What dangers do I need to look out for, other
than making sure the bullet came out of the muzzle on each shot?

As I increase the powder charge, how can I tell
if pressure is becoming excessive in the Garand? Would you measure each casing before and after firing, and if so how? I have
some photographs of overpressure cases in
the Lee reloading manual, but they seem a
bit subjective to interpret.

Is there any chance I can develop a safe load
for the Garand with the bullseye and the 160 grain bullet that will cycle the action and not beat up the rifle?

If I gas check the 30 cal bullets, does that cause some special problems at low loads?

Sorry for the choppy layout.. I'm from the days
when people had to put in their own <CR> and <LF>, and we liked it!
Thanks for you help.

And I should add that I am ass-u-me-ing that Bullseye is a fast enough powder that I cannot get the secondary explosion problem.

BEYE will be great for your 1911, but I wouldn't even think about using it in a gas operated semi auto rifle. Your starting charge will not cycle the action, and I don't think it will be enough to push the boolit out of the barrel. In a Garand, you need to reach a pressure window wherein the proper peak pressure for cycling is reached just after the boolit passes the gas port and before it exits the barrel, or you risk damage to the operating rod (not an inexpensive part to replace and not a job for an amateur). Go over to Cast Boolits and search "Garand" for safe loads and appropriate powders. I do use Unique in .30cal bolt actions for some loads, and you might even find a load for BEYE that would be safe in a bolt or a single shot.

http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm has Bullseye loads for the 30-06.

And here are a few articles with data: http://p223.ezboard.com/fcurioandrel...icID=933.topic.

I think all fast pistol powders are tricky when you raise pressures so don't try making that Garand work if it doesn't want to.

For both calibers I would go from known data down to what's the minimum working your 1911, or a stuck bullet in the Garand (if that's what you want), in a time saving purpose ;).

Note that some shooters use lighter than spec recoil springs to accomodate very light loads; don't mix your loads and springs if you chose that option.
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/sto...l.aspx?p=16562

kg

Thanks all for your help and advice. I like versifiers poll choice, It's what I would have chosen myself.

;)

kg42, I see the 1911 springs at brownells go down to 7 lbs. Do you think that is still enough to chamber a round and close the action? I guess it must be if they sell them, but...

It's enough to cycle the action, but.... My choice would be a medium velocity load with a light or medium weight boolit. I would not want any springs in it but those for my carry load, and I would choose for a practice round a load with just a little more than the minimum to cycle with those springs. Still cheaper on powder and lead than full house loads, and a noticable reduction in recoil. (I would want an adjustable rear sight though, because your POI is going to be different.)

A 9mm top would be pretty good at saving on stress, powder and lead; you might even get away with the short 45 ejector.
Unfortunately these conversion units often have very poorly fitted barrels.
I used to have one in 9 luger with an old 45 recoil spring shortened until the slide stop worked. Getting back to 45 was very quick as I had an FLGR holding the parts together; and each slide was sighted for its ammo.

Like Versifier said, try to make light loads for the gun as it is, you might be surprised by it's flexibility; factory springs are often on the sweet side of the official specs too...

kg

kg42, what is a FLGR?
The 1911 I have is the S&W

http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/w...09&isFirearm=Y

I am a bit confused (OK, very) on the tradeoffs between bullet weight and powder to cycle the action of the 1911. I would think that if you multiplied the grains of powder weight * the grain of bullet weight that should be a constant for the minumum value to cycle the action.
Is that right or wrong? Thanks again for all y'alls help and advice. Sorry for any mis-spellings, I just got back from having an ingrown toenail worked on. No, you don't want to hear about it if you are planning to have supper.

Geeze man, that's already too much details! Now I have the image of a sore foot dancing on my screen....:mrgreen: And I AM having lunch!

FLGR = Full Length Guide Rod.

A recent government evaluation told me that I had the profile of a rocket (or plane) scientist, so I can safely tell you they are too many variables at hand to bother with equations for action cycling... And let Versifier deal with the question ;).

More seriously, you will have to deal with a dirty gun, variable components, extractor tension and ejector length, etc...

Still, I am interested in the loads you will develop vs springs weights. It is an interesting exercise to aim at the minimum nrj necessary to get the slide back in battery.

It just dawned on me that it might be your first bigbore handgun and that you might have difficulties with factory full power loads; is that the case? How do you feel with starting loads?

kg

I have never heard of a reliable way to determine on paper the minimum combinations to cycle a given action. That doesn't mean there aren't any, just that none of them have found me. Unless I am trying to get a newby used to progressively heavier recoil to work up to a hunting load, I don't usually bother with minimum loads, unless they happen to be really accurate. (I have a wadcutter load in .38spec with a very light charge of BEYE that my little snubby loves, but my carry load is with UNQ in the +P range.) Now bearing in mind that every firearm is different, I have usually found that in semiautos a mid-range charge produces the best accuracy. There are exceptions, and you will find some guns that like hot loads and some that want squib loads, and the only way to find out what any particular gun likes is to try many combinations in it and compare the targets. A "pet load" is often specific to the gun it was worked up in. Sometimes you just get lucky and hit on a good combination right away. [smilie=w: And sometimes you dont....:(

What are you going to use it for? Carry? Target? Hunting? Competition?

With most of my handguns, when I have found an acceptably accurate load for the given purpose, I tend to stick with it. That doesn't mean I won't try a new powder or boolit mould to see what they will do, but most of my load development these days is with rifles, usually milsurps, and cast boolits. I do some custom loading for hunters, too, but again mostly for rifles and usually jacketed bullets. Whenever I buy or trade for a new Contender barrel, though, I will jump into it until I find the right load. :-D

I don't mess with my carry guns, except to practice with the chosen carry loads. I've had each of them a long time and have practiced with them until they are a part of my hand when I draw them. I like to be very used to those chosen loads and able to shoot them as instinctively as possible, not to have my head cluttered with details like "now, the POI is going to be a little low and left" that will get me or someone I care about killed if and when it hits the fan.

Target pistols are a whole different mindset. With them, I don't care how fast the boolit is going, only that it is the most accurate combination of powder and boolit that I have found so far. For me, the features that make a great target pistol (long sight radius & large adjustable rear sight or decent scope) are usually diametrically opposite the features that make a good carry gun (big bore, short barrel, light weight, and snag free). I might be persuaded to put those lighter springs in a target pistol if that very light load was really accurate.

My Contender, depending on the barrel, I use for both target and hunting, but it is primarily a hunting weapon. My criteria for hunting loads are: enough velocity to provide enough expansion for a clean kill at reasonable ranges with the chosen boolit/bullet. I tend to go for the highest velocity that give acceptable accuracy. I am not looking for the smallest possible groups necessarily, a six inch 100yd group for a deer load is acceptable if it moves at a few hundred fps faster than the two inch accuracy load. But, if there's a powder that will give me both velocity and best accuracy, I am grateful for the gift from the loading gods and use it happily.

I don't shoot competitively, so advice along those lines is to listen to someone who does.

Hi All,
kg42, yes this is MY first handgun of any kind. I have gotten over my flinch borrowing a P220, and I wanted a heavier gun than the 220 plus I wanted a much shorter trigger travel so that's why I got an all steel 1911. Having done the calculation of ammo cost VS reloading, I decided to get into reloading ASAP. Of course, I have still to make my first bullet, but I think I have finally ordered every little gizmo and widget that I need.

So my motivation for reloading is mostly to save money, plus the more I learn about it reloading seem like a lot of fun, and opens up
a whole world of load possibilites I never realized existed.

versifier, I guess my main use for the gun is target practice. While I have a license to carry (here in MA) And have done so twice I do not yet have the mindset to do so on a regular basis. My favorite use for the gun is to plink at
skeet clays I lay on the bank, and for that I feel there is no point in a regular full load in terms of cost of powder, and wear and tear on the gun. I break the gun down completely (even the trigger group) after every range session, so I was thinking of putting in a light spring before going to the range and then a regular spring for "everything else", but as I type this I realize that my plan is not fully baked.
So at the moment I think I will try for reduced loads that give the best accuracy, and I suspect that finding that load will keep me busy for a while. I think I will get a real light spring just to try out the minimum loads needed to cycle the gun, to educate myself (a bit ;) ) on where the edges of the envelope are. I don't think I am going to ever use the FIRST bullet I make. That I'm gonna frame, with a little sign that says ( The XXX Dollar Bullet), because the cost of all the equipment divided by one bullet = the cost of all the equipment.

It's been a lot of fun so far, what with getting a box from midwayusa once a week, discovering that a #2 shell holder for a lee autoprime is not compatible with the lee press OR the lee case trimmer, then ordering a #2 shellholder for the press, and then discovering I have not got enough for the minimum order at midway, and getting a lee die set for 30 06 (cause it COMES with a #2 shell holder for the press) and a box of 30 cal gas checks to make minimum order. Plus of course a case trimmer set for 30 06. And then there is going to the goodwill store to get old cast iron pans to melt lead in, and bringing home 5 gal buckets full of wheel weights. I've gotten so I can pick one of those up and put it in the trunk, but then I need to rest 5 minutes before I pick up the next one. ;)

Now, when I start melting the wheel weights, will they make less smoke and smell if i wash them first? Or is there no real difference. I would seperate out the obvious paper and trash first. I will probably have to melt out back of the house, in a cast iron frying pan on one of those propane burners that are sold for turkey fryers, and I don't want to freak out the neighbors.

Is the smoke from the weights visibly noticable, as though something was on fire,
or is it mostly just invisible fumes you don't want to breathe?

Thanks again all y'all for all your help and advise.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the eastern half of the Peoples Republik of Mass is one of those places where carrying should be mandatory. That's why I moved north to NH 30 years ago from the greater Boston area. :-D You're right, though, if you don't have the mindset, a cell phone and a pair of Nike's might serve you better. I had to carry a knife in grade school if I wanted to eat lunch, and I had a high school friend that spent a year in jail for cleaning a caplock pistol on his front porch. Enough was enough.

Washing your wheel weights is only practical if you can get them completely dry before adding them to the melt. It doesn't matter for the first batch that you start cold, but after that as you are adding them to the liquid metal it sure does. Go next door to CB and search "Tinsel Fairy". Water (even very small amounts) causes explosions when added to molten metal.

I pick through the ww's to remove all the trash and to separate the tape weights (pure lead) and most importantly the zinc ones that will contaminate the melt and make the product useless for casting. Search "zinc" next door, too.

Any way you look at it, it's going to smoke. You can minimize visable smoke by removing all the trash, but there's always petroleum residues, oxidation, and road dirt on them that will burn off, and that does stink a bit. It's worst just after adding to the melt, and depending on what you use for flux (I use wax) that can smoke a bit, too. I guess it would depend on how thickly settled the area is. In the small amounts you'll be working on a turkey fryer, it doesn't really make a huge visible plume of smoke that looks like a house fire, but it might piss the neighbors off a bit if they were trying to BBQ downwind. :)

The smell is the big give away in urban area. it lingers around and is very offensive. That's the only complain I had when I lived in a block.
Smoke is quickly diluted and people would have to look at it at the right time.

I melt in the kitchen for discretion, with a draft going through the suite, and I can still smell it the next day. I wish I had a vent above the stove to blow everything through the chimney in a casual way.

versifier, I think the reason that the situation in the peoples democratic republic of meninostan is as bad as it is is because carry IS restricted. More guns, less crime (or less live criminals, anyway). I will search zinc next door, but if you have a way for me to identify the zinc weights I would love to hear it. I have noticed and identified the tape-on weights so I can use those to make a slug to press down a bore for the rifling diameter.

kg42, I have the ability to make a forced draft over the melt, (I have a weakness for collecting large fans and blowers), and I think I will set it up so the fumes get blown up to an altitude that goes over the nearby houses. Also if I get all this done in the winter then there are no windows open next-door to get the smell in.

As always, thanks all y'all for all your help and advice. If I can find a working camera and figure out how to upload a picture, maybe I can put up some wheel weight pics and y'all can help me figure out which ones are zinc.

I guess the answer to zinc wheel weights is
to keep the temp low enough so they don't melt!
lead: 621.43 °F
zinc: 787.15 °F
and yes I cheated and cut and pasted that degree symbol

I agree completely about the problems in the PRM. I still have family and many friends there and wish more of them would move north so I could avoid the state altogether, but that's where the decent jobs are.
There are pictures of many different varieties of zinc weights posted next door. Telltale signs are the steel clips are riveted on, the weights are covered with a hard plastic, or they say "Zn" on them. But just like in the kitchen: when in doubt, throw it out. And yes, keep your smelting temp low if you can. Once you see the steel clips floating on the melt, skim and trash anything that hasn't melted. Zinc weights will float on molten lead.

So I wonder which comes first: The decent jobs or the crime/graft/corruption. Seems like one should not be dependent on the other, but in DPRM they both exist... Do you think they are related to each other?

When you say "hard plastic" do you mean the weights that are painted silver, or is it something else?

Thanks for all you help and advice!

There has always been crime/graft/corruption. There have not always been decent jobs available. During and after WWII the employment situation brightened up considerably, before that times were pretty hard, to judge by the stories passed down in the family. But I never met a hog slopping out of the public trough that wasn't for sale. The more $ involved, the worse it gets. It's as bad up here often, but the scale is much smaller. Maybe it's much the same everywhere these days...

The zinc weights I was talking about are flat, stick-on and coated with a hard gray plastic, maybe about 1x5/8". I'm sure there are photos of them posted.

If you are a beginning loader you need to get a manual or two,preferably Lee"s latest edition(because there is a lot of good info on casting and cast loads).Read them and get some experience.When and if you get to the point you want to experiment then do so.If you want to get a little further up the line find a handloader to show you some things first hand or take a class(some of the bigger sporting goods stores offer them). Frankly,reading your post makes me wonder if you and your guns will make it out alive!

For recoil springs weights:

http://www.edbrown.com/cgi-bin/htmlo...21784311914599
http://www.m1911.org/technic1.htm