Recommend me some powders

[Morne]

Your 223- is it AR blasting rounds or accurate long distance?

ARs only, no bolt guns.

If I want to get out a bolt gun and settle in for long range stuff I have a lefty .30-06 bolt gun for that purpose. I do not intend to reload .30-06 any time soon, though.

Just bought all my dies online.

[evan price]

Your 223- is it AR blasting rounds or accurate long distance?

ARs only, no bolt guns.

If I want to get out a bolt gun and settle in for long range stuff I have a lefty .30-06 bolt gun for that purpose. I do not intend to reload .30-06 any time soon, though.

Just bought all my dies online.

Why not? You'll get happiness with your own load tailored to your rifle.

[Morne]

Your 223- is it AR blasting rounds or accurate long distance?

ARs only, no bolt guns.

If I want to get out a bolt gun and settle in for long range stuff I have a lefty .30-06 bolt gun for that purpose. I do not intend to reload .30-06 any time soon, though.

Just bought all my dies online.

Why not? You'll get happiness with your own load tailored to your rifle.

Because I don't shoot enough .30-06 to justify reloading it.

[SMMAssociates]

Because I don't shoot enough .30-06 to justify reloading it.

Morne:

Easily cured, my friend....

Shoot more .30-06....



Joe's been reloading for a long time. We kicked it around a few years back, and decided that having him reload for me was going to save me $1 to $2 for 50 rounds of .45ACP. Barely worth the hassle, and I couldn't justify the investment in my own gear. But the prices started creeping up, and things started to look interesting. Something like 45 years ago, a couple buddies and I were going to get into it, and had bought just about everything (single stage press) for .38S&W Special. Then somebody's wife or mother objected to gunpowder in her basement....

Mid-October 2012, I'd scraped the money up, and headed to Mastercast to pick up the press & such. Figured I'd get it downstairs before Sherri got home from work. I got home, and guess who's car was in the drive. Sherri had fallen down at work, and while she wasn't seriously hurt (she needed some repairs), she wanted to tell me all about it before I could bring the press inside. SO, there I am, with the car wide open, after talking about it for more than 40 years....

Finally did get it in, and over the next couple days, set up and tested. No real problems other than some of the assembly instructions seemed to presume you'd already built a dozen of them. Then Zero got re-elected, and what was a $20-ish box of .45's pretty much doubled. It's going to take a long time to pay off the press, but I'm saving a pile per 50 rounds....

Mastercast will ship anywhere, btw, but you could almost drive over for an afternoon if you wanted to do things that way. 'Course, you've probably got good sources over your way, too. Mike's on PA 51 just inside the PA line (where OH 14 turns into PA 51). 'Bout a half-hour from me in good weather.

Short answer: It's fun, not rocket science, and a way to cook up custom loads if that's your intent. A progressive is more for bulk loading, like a day's worth of .45's for the range (or a month's worth ), but "precision" loading is possible if you disable a few things.

Overall, the fun part is in cooking up loads that work best for you. Paper-punching improvement. For me, it just saves a few bucks each range session.

Your son should almost be old enough to pull the handle, too .... Back in the late 60's, a buddy used to run a progressive for his own use, and let his daughter load up .38's for sale. She was old enough to not screw it up, and got to keep a chunk of the money. I had (I finally shot them off) 50 or so of those from 1969 around here someplace. No problems....

Regards,

[Morne]

In .45 Auto, I've been using Universal. I don't think it's all too popular a powder to use in .45 Auto, but it's worked for me. W231 is probably the most popular powder for .45 over the last 10-20 years, and Bullseye was likely the most popular .45 Auto powder in the hundred years leading up to W231's reign.

Does this change any if one were to keep open the option to load .45 Super?

[BobK]

In .45 Auto, I've been using Universal. I don't think it's all too popular a powder to use in .45 Auto, but it's worked for me. W231 is probably the most popular powder for .45 over the last 10-20 years, and Bullseye was likely the most popular .45 Auto powder in the hundred years leading up to W231's reign.

Does this change any if one were to keep open the option to load .45 Super?

If I was adding another cartridge, I would simply add another powder.

[Sevens]

According to the most excellent Hodgdon web resource...
Universal does a fine job when used in .45 Super. I would perhaps make the argument that given Universal is a mid-range powder and that .45 Auto is a larger volume and relatively low pressure case... that Universal is BETTER suited to .45 Super than it is to .45 Auto, actually. I do believe that.

I make .460 Rowland also, but that calls for more nuts.

[Morne]

According to the most excellent Hodgdon web resource...
Universal does a fine job when used in .45 Super. I would perhaps make the argument that given Universal is a mid-range powder and that .45 Auto is a larger volume and relatively low pressure case... that Universal is BETTER suited to .45 Super than it is to .45 Auto, actually. I do believe that.

I make .460 Rowland also, but that calls for more nuts.

W231 still useful for .45 Super?

[Morne]

Just bought 3500 bullets. This really DOESN'T save any money...

[JustaShooter]

Just bought 3500 bullets. This really DOESN'T save any money...

Only in the same sense that your wife "saved money" by going to a sale and buying all that stuff she didn't really need...

[shooterwolf]

I'll say it, Unique for your handgun loads, H or I 4895 for .223 loads and 30:06 down the road. These 2 powders will serve you well until you get enough experience to know what you want in other powders and performance.
Jack of all trades and master of none, but they will do what you need.

I've never loaded .300 Blackout, so good luck on that one.


S.W.

[curmudgeon3]

Have thought about and discarded reloading for 250/300 .223 target rounds per week, prorating the cost of the equipment and supplies, how much money per hour would I be saving/paying myself for the manual labor time?
I don't shoot enough .45, .38, .357, 9mm self-defense practice ammo to justify the reloading time and equipment investment.
Between cleaning guns and spending time on the internet and driving around looking for reasonably priced ammo (I assume I'd have to do the same for reloading components), this hobby is beginning to occupy too much of my free time.

[Sevens]

W231 still useful for .45 Super?

Hodgdon says "Yup."

[SMMAssociates]

Just bought 3500 bullets. This really DOESN'T save any money...

Morne:

Reminds me of the guy who started buying modifications for his car. This widget saved 10% on fuel, that one, another 20%, etc.

After a mound of money, he drove a couple miles down the road and the gas tank overflowed....

There really is a savings, but it can take a while to show up - particularly if you scatter your purchases among different calibers, primers, powders, cases, etc. I've been doing nothing but .45ACP, for example, and since Nov. 2012 watched my costs at least remain stable, while my trusty "you bought what?" reloads about doubled. OK, I had to play with some different powders, which, bless the guy who wrote the labels, did work after a little working-up, and some bullets that probably didn't want to be in a .45ACP case, but that's part of the fun.

To be brutally "don't tell the wife" honest ( ), paying for that Dillon 650 is going to take a long time, but if you consider that an "impulse buy", like a new Colt (or whatever), the economics work a lot better .... Most of us don't need the Dillon 650, either. One of those Lee presses (or RCBS or Hornady) should do the job for all but the most serious of us. My buddy Joe tends to get carried away, and I let him talk me into the Dillon. No regrets....

Regards,

[Sevens]

The economics are extremely simple.

Four parts to a handloaded round. Cartridge case, primer, powder, bullet. The bullet tends to be (by far!) the most expensive part, especially if you can re-use the cartridge case many times. The primer is a very predictable cost and the powder obviously varies depending on whether we're loading .25 ACP or .338 Lapua, but in handgun rounds, the cost of powder is a pittance compared to the bullet.

Like anything in the world, but perhaps far more so than other stuff, you can bring down your per-unit costs by purchasing in bulk. This even more obvious in handloading, because we may also have to deal with hazmat handling and simply the shipping rates for having HEAVY stuff brought to us.

If you go in to a small town gun shop and buy a box of 100 Hornady XTP component slugs, you spend $25 on a single pound of powder, and simply buy a brick of a thousand primers for $40... then reloading isn't going to save you a heap of money, depending on the caliber we're talking about. (some factory ammo is so high in price that you can still beat it handily even if you don't shop in a manner that brings your costs in check)

So, as a handloader, if you want to bring your costs DOWN and bring your "savings" up ever higher, it's all about the bulk buys. Which obviously means you are laying out large sums of cash when the opportunity presents itself in order to lock in a good unit price.

That means you don't buy a box of 100 bullets. You buy 3,500 bullets.
Don't pay $25 for the one-pounder of powder. Spend $140 and get the eight-pounder!
Don't spend $4.50 for 100 primers or even $40 for a thousand... find some buddies and do a group buy and get 'em for $35/1000, and buy 10,000 of them.

There are many times when I spend "gun" money, and many, many more times when I spend "half a gun" money on a bullet buy. When you find the right deal, you spring in to action.

This is extremely difficult for a brand new handloader because he doesn't know which bullets are worth having 3,500 of in most cases. And if he buys eight pounds of IMR-800X and he's stuck with it, THAT was a costly mistake 'cause it'll take him -YEARS- to get rid of that stuff. Plus, new handloaders have some idea that this new hobby is supposed to "save" them money, but to do that takes multiple expenditures of HUNDREDS of dollars.

Handloaders end up shooting much, much more, but they don't "save" any money. On a per-shot basis, they are slaughtering factory ammo, but it takes a lot of money, work, time, and car to do that.