Smoke And Noise

The day started bright and early at the range, manufacturing .45 ACP brass out of perfectly good ammo.

Range Partner and I met up with a couple of his friends at the range and a good time was had by all. Afterwards I picked up the reloading supplies I had left at his place, along with a donated brass tumbler and 476 pieces of empty small-primered brass.

A quick trip by the toy store and I was the proud owner of a box of small primers, a pound of Alliant Power Pistol powder, two 100 round cartridge boxes and one 50 round box. Along with the box of 250 Nosler 230 grain jacketed hollow point bullets, this gave me all I needed to make more ammo.

When I got home I went off to the lumber store to get some 1x6 for a bench backstop and I was also planning to get a plain kitchen cabinet to hang above my reloading bench to store all of my reloading supplies.  What I didn't expect was the price, almost 100 clams for a simple 24" cabinet.

Instead of buying a ready made cabinet I got some 1x10 and a piece of 24x24 plywood and built my own 2 shelf open front cabinet. If I want to put doors on it later on I certainly can, but for now the open front is just fine. With the completion of the cabinet my benchwork is now complete.

I ended up the day by reloading the first 50 rounds with 7.0 grains of Power Pistol powder, 0.1 grains shy of the suggested initial load for that propellant on the chart that came with the dies. Online data charts suggest anywhere from 6.5 to 7.4 grains for initial loads but Range Partner loads light at 5.5 grains.

I know how Range Partner's loads do, so I'll load another 50 rounds each with 6.5 grains and 6.0 grains and see how they perform at the range. That should give me a good idea of what I want to use for my regular loads.

All in all a very satisfying day.