Monday, June 10, 2013

The Learning Curve

I finally got that turret press bolted to the bench and I'm trying to get it adjusted and calibrated.  I spent an hour today setting up the dies for .45 ACP, then I ran off twenty rounds of ammo.  The learning curve has me a bit perplexed, but I've solved all the problems so far.  For the past two decades, I've been making ammo by batch processing it.  Deprime all the brass, re-prime all the brass.  Flare all the brass, add powder, seat all the bullets, crimp all the bullets.

This turret press is linear, so the learning curve means that I've got to think about what I'm doing every step of the way.  I can see that it's going to make good ammo, and for cranking out pistol ammo, it should be the cat's meow.  I"m not fast enough yet that I have a good idea on how long it will take to make 100 rounds of ammunition, but I can see that it's going to be an improvement.

I need to find some lead and cast a bunch of bullets.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

Fun AND productive times :-)

BobF said...

Just remember, when right hand pulls down, left fingers must be clear. It's not a matter of if, rather, a matter of when. And they can say what they want about "cheap" Lee, mine works like a charm. Been about a year since I used it -- maybe it and I should get reaquainted.

g said...

It took me a couple days to set mine up for .30 Carbine. Then I had to start scrounging brass and casting bullets. As soon as I got all supplied again, I had 5K rounds and decided I needed to learn to make .38 Spec. Now I have so much of that it's silly. I have a loverly lil' Destroyer Carbine in 9mm Largo. That'll be fun once I get a few thousand cases and a few thousand bullets. Lee is a wonderful company, equipment cheap enough to afford and good enough to use. I love 'em.

Gerry N.

BobM said...

When I had mine I batch processed with it. It was convenient having a set of adjusted dies mounted in the turret. I'd resize and reprime50 cases, then turn the turret and charge, etc.