TPM - Intro to Precision Rifle Reloading - Breaking Down the Steps to To Reloading Accurate Ammo 

You bet! Thanks for watching.

Welcome! Plenty more good stuff to come.

Thats a good shot for sure out of a 16" AR-10! Well done sir! I agree, Area 419's products are top notch. Thanks for watching!

Welcome! The Forrester Co Ax Press is an exceptional unit. I know several people who use those and make very accurate, consistent ammo. You are 100% right, no one knows everything, but we all know something. If you are not only willing to share, but have an open mind to receive knowledge as well, you will be better off. Let me know if you have any questions, happy to help. -TPM

Howdy neighbor! Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate that very much. This has been a lot of fun. 😁

Thank you, I appreciate that. Some of this stuff is a little technical if you are new to the sport, so I try and break it down the best I can. I’ll keep the content coming. Thanks for watching!

Indeed. Thank you!

You make a great point. I run all saami spec chambers with the only unique changes being the free bore length to accommodate longer bullets. I can honestly say, in the 10’s of thousands of rounds I’ve loaded with new, quality brass, I’ve never ran into headspace issues. As long as your chamber is within spec and headspace passes the go / no-go gage test, you should be good. if by chance there is a case out of tolerance which is absolutely possible, you will feel that in the bolt when you’re chambering. If it doesn’t feel right, I’ll set it aside and inspect it later. For the unique chamberings with non-saami spec chambers, wild cats, and tight necks, you definitely have to pay more attention to what you’re doing. When you trim case necks using the shoulder on new brass, your’e still going to have consistent neck length which is where we gain consistent neck tension. Your overall length from the case head to mouth of the neck may vary on new brass, but that will correct itself after the first firing as you pointed out. I recently had a box of ADG brass that was all over the place as far as case lengths. The first few I measured were long so I started running them through the Giraud case trimmer after I neck sized, and about half were undersized and half were oversized. Usually I have them all one way but not both. Great points you brought up. Having different perspectives on this stuff is incredibly helpful. -TPM

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc A lot of people use case trimmers that hold and go off the base. But in your case I agree, with the Giraud trimmer it wouldn't matter or any trimmer that uses the shoulder to space off of.

Very true.

Welcome aboard Steve, with new brass you will definitely see quite a bit of variance in the lengths depending on the brand of brass. I trim all of my brass to SAAMI spec so what I will do with new, once, or twice fired brass is run it through my Giraud Case Trimmer that I set to that spec. Most of the time, the cases are long enough to at least get an inside chamfer. For the cases that don't get trimmed because they're too short, I'll set them aside and manually chamfer the inside, then load and shoot. Even the shortest cases will usually stretch after one or two firings and be long enough to get a full trim on the Giraud, but until that happens, I'll just ignore it. Just make sure you have in inside chamfer so you don't scar the bullet upon seating. Thanks, and great question. -Shawn

Fantastic idea! I get something out this week on that topic and maybe touch on a few different budgets. Thanks for watching! I’m open to any suggestions for future content so keep ‘em coming!

Interesting. I just watched that part and I think it’s the angle of the camera that makes it look that way. Everything on that press is as straight and square as you can get. Back to your question, I would absolutely think that would effect the concentricity of the loaded round if the expander was entering the case mouth at an angle. Nice pick up, that’s a great point to bring up.

I have and there is absolutely zero difference over the chronograph or on target with Lapua, Peterson, ADG or Alpha brass. I got started doing that when I was loading a bunch of Federal Gold Medal 308 Win brass for match ammo., and I did see a difference in ES / SD with that brass. I was getting the brass at the range for free so I would shoot a match with it and leave it on the ground. I just kind of continued the primer pocket prep stuff because of that, and honestly, it probably satisfies my reloading OCD more than anything. 😂

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for pointing that out! My mistake, I will correct that.

I have a little container of Imperial's dry neck lube that I played with for a while, but I never found a good way to apply it evenly. I switched the the wax and its pretty slick. What do you use to apply the dry products to the inside of the neck?

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc I use the Imperial Dry Lube, and I simply dip the case neck into the container.

I’ll revisit that. Awesome.

@@robertflemings7630 I do the same Robert. Seems to work well.

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc it comes with a mica medium for application

Yessir. That is an add-on for the Area 419 Zero Press, you can check it out at this link: www.area419.com/product/bullet-seating-plate-for-the-zero/

Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a shot. I need to make another reloading video. I've discovered a few new tricks in the last few months.

Yessir, good point.

I completely remove that whole assembly and de cap separately.

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc thanks. I thought so

Yes, but the benefit depends on the brass. High quality brass like Lapua, Alpha, etc. has drilled flash holes. Generally these are consistent, correct, and have little to no burr on the inside so I don't mess with cleaning the the flash holes from the inside. On the other hand, bulk brass like Winchester, Hornady, and the majority of other manufacturers punch their flash holes with usually leaves a slight burr on the inside, since they are punched from the outside. If I'm using this brass, I will use a tool that addresses this burr and uniforms the flash hole at the same time. Hope that helps!

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc it helps a lot! Great info, thank you!

You're welcome.

Good question. Call it a personal quirk I picked up several years ago from someone and never stopped. What I have noticed, is cases where I have the full length sizing die set for minimal shoulder bump, it helps reduce the diameter of the lower portion of the case near the web and gives slightly more consistent an easier chambering. The brass down there is never annealed so it can get pretty springy. This seems to help and I haven't noticed any degradation of accuracy so I continue to do it. Hope that makes sense.

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc why do you use that flat plate when seating the bullet instead of a shell holder?

It's precision ground to be perfectly perpendicular to the loading press ram, which gives you less chance of runout when seating the bullet. Shell holders are decent, but they aren't a precision machined piece so you could have the chance of inducing some runout in your loaded round. Whether or not this would show up on target kind of depends on how far you shoot. I've never been able to shoot well enough to see a difference at 100 yards, and for the long distance stuff we try and control any variable we can, this is a simple way to theoretically have less chance of bullet runout during the seating process. Hope that answers it. Thanks! Shawn

I just checked Peterson's site, if you locate the brass you want and click on the "buy" button, it takes you to Graf & Sons to complete the purchase. Doesn't look like Peterson is selling direct.

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc 10 4…appreciate the feedback…I know a lazzaroni warbird has to be on yer radar..I hope I can get into that class of cartridge someday..6.5-300 be fun to test too..

The Lazzaroni is on my radar along with a couple other overbore wildcats I will be experimenting with here in the near future.

You bet! kmshooting.com/product/custom-standard-expand-mandrels/

If you use a full length bushing die do you leave the ball/primer pin in it and just madrel size again or do you take it out and just size the outside on the first step ?

It really depends on what brass I'm using. Lapua takes very little if any prep to the primer pocket / flash hole. Hornady takes a little more.

If your dies are set up correctly and you are only shoulder bumping .001" to .002", then running new brass through a full-length bushing die does nothing to the body or shoulder of the fresh brass. I do this to correct the dents and dings in case necks and ensure they are undersized so when I run the expanding mandrel through the case neck, I can expand them up to .002" neck tension or whatever I am running. For me, its not a waste of time, especially when it only takes a few minutes to run 100 cases through. In regards to work hardening and spring-back, I think were both trying to get at the same thing but saying or conceptualizing it different. I spent 15 years doing aerospace tool and die work and learned more than I ever wanted to about spring back in relation to temper. The company I worked for specialized in precision sheet metal forming done through stretch forming, drop-hammer forming and traditional die forming. For many sheetmetal parts we produced, we round run the part through a die for an initial form, anneal the metal (usually Inconel or Ti.), then run the part through the die again due to the spring-back. How this pertains to metallic cartridge reloading - As we fire our brass, the brass work hardens. You mentioned elasticity in your post. Elastic deformation (the bending of a material) refers to the amount the material can be moved, or sized in this case, to where when it comes out of the sizing die, it will "spring-back" to its original dimension without any change. This changes with each material and temper. After you bend or size the brass through the elastic zone, you reach what is called the yield point. Any sizing or bending past the yield point will result in plastic deformation which is permanent. ***However, when you are forming a material or sizing your brass and you take it past the yield point to achieve plastic deformation (neck tension), and the pressure from the die is removed from the material, it will still spring back slightly the amount of elastic deformation. As you can see, we can never completely get rid of some spring-back, we can only reduce it. We reduce spring-back by annealing. This brings the brass back to a soft, ductile state and reduces the elastic deformation zone. If you've ever heard the term "dead soft brass", this is referring to brass in a fully annealed, soft state. If you bend it, it will stay in that position minus a very slight amount of spring back. If this same brass work hardens, it will be harder, less ductile, more brittle, and have a higher elastic deformation zone (AKA spring-back). If you were to take a brand new piece of brass, neck size it to have exactly .002" of neck tension, fired that cartridge, then reloaded it using the exact same neck sizing die or bushing, and continued this process over and over again without annealing, you would reach a point where the brass was so work hardened that the elastic deformation zone exceeded the constriction by your neck bushing. Basically, there would be enough spring back that you would not be able to achieve the same neck tension as you had with new brass because the brass is work hardened. Soft, annealed brass = smaller elastic deformation zone / less constriction (sizing) needed to get to the required level. Work hardened brass + larger elastic deformation zone / more constriction through a smaller diameter neck bushing to achieve desired neck tension due to increased spring-back. That was very long winded but something I did professionally in one of the most critical and precise industries known to man. A lot of what I did back then as a tool and die maker has a direct correlation to precision rifle shooting and I enjoy both. There are some great metallurgy references out there that probably do a much better job of explaining this stuff, but I think I touched on the bulk of it. Thanks for bringing that stuff up. Great points and always great to hear other people opinion's and method's. -Shawn

I use magnum primers in the large case capacity magnums - pretty much anything over 60 grains of powder. The magnum primers have a hotter flame for igniting the larger, heavier powder columns more reliably for better consistency.

@@triggeredprecisionmachinellc Also the harder cups on the magnum primers to resist higher pressures is another reason to use them.

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