Post by Big Joe on Nov 4, 2016 10:59:34 GMT -5
Ok, try once more.....
Z, we do things the same way every time, I am to anal to vary much. At the range we keep all our known brass in its container. Wont lose any that way. Well ok, the 223 and 300Blk is just dumped in 30cal ammo cans but they run through that like water off a ducks back.
If/when we get any RPU (range pick up) brass it gets sorted while the known brass is being prepped.
Our method starts with the depriming with the Lee universal depriming die. That is for all brass but known goes first.
After depriming we clean it. Some known brass gets the buzz buckets, while some and all the RPU gets the wet pins.
We only clean the stuff we are not keeping, cant see sending anyone dirty stuff.
After cleaning known brass stays with its paperwork, we have that for everything we reload. Its really just for the prepping but it does carry over to the reloading book. Things like number of times fired and other little things like that.
For RPU we are going to actually keep and use it gets the first time treatment : first it gets prep papers then it’s trimmed, de-burred, flash-hole reamed. If its known brass those steps have been done...
Next is lube and size. We try to do all of any caliber we start, with the exception of the AR stuff that we do as we get time, we never get caught up. We have plastic tags that lay in the buckets to tell us what stage they are at.
After sizing we bell the necks on the known cast brass.
As far as setting the dies, all of my dies have a dot of paint on them, it tells us with press it is set for. And once we have set a particular die we rarely change it. Shoot we are still using dies set for the way old RCBS Jr, still works great so we just keep on using it. And we have dang near every color made. Some are just eye candy hanging on the walls but who knows someday they may come down for service.
The kids like using the LNL presses so most of the newer dies are set for them. Not all are locked in to the bushings. All of the specialty dies are locked in its bushings because its easier to just swap them for the kids.
The Lee universal die is locked in the little cheap Lee press, all it does is de-prime...
The big rifles are still done on rock chucker while other stuff is scattered.
All of our stuff is mounted on homemade quick change plates I modified from the Lee setup.
Back to your question, we follow dies manufactures instructions for the basics, we do tweak things as we truly get things set up.
We do use the Lee FCD on most of the handguns and a few rifles. Some like no crimp others like the FCD. It falls back on the old statement let the weapon tell you what it likes.
Ok, there is our way of doing things other may vary but that is why we all talk amongst ourselves to find out what could work better for us. At one time I did everything on single stage presses and thought it all had to be long range quality. Now most of it is set on MOD (minute of deer) have some we still chase bench accuracy on but most are just shooters.
Ok now we can hash this one out , I'm sure there are things we don't do or do that others don't. I was taught long ago to talk about and learn from everyone. Then keep the things that work for you. So lets get to sharing.
Will try this:
Brass Prep Labels.pdf (19.1 KB) Hope it works.