- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
- Messages
- 460
- Reaction score
- 887
Just finished building a reloading and arrow building bench, getting it set up beside my fly tying desk, and moving all of my hunting and reloading stuff into what Tina (wife) calls "The Troll Hole"! Feels really good to have most of my toys unpacked, or at least readily available. The troll hole still needs lots of work - setting up steel gun cabinets, building a closet for hunting and fishing clothes, building stout ammo shelves, and so forth, but it's reasonably functional at this point.
As soon as my old Rock Chucker press was mounted, I screwed in a new Hankins adjustable sizer, and went to work on some Hornady Great Plains bullets. At .5015 inches (measured with a dial indicator), I could start the first sized HGP into my Renegade with firm finger pressure - no short starter needed. Once started, it slid down with about the same resistance as unsized HGPs, which means that the sized HGPs will stay on the powder. When I pulled the first sized HGP out of the barrel, grooves were engraved down to the driving band just above the lowest one. It looks like the grooves are engraved uniformly around the bullet, so it should be pretty well aligned with the bore. That's one big advantage of a tapered bullet design - the base goes down the bore for a ways with no pressure, so the bullet is pretty well aligned before any starting pressure is applied.
The sizer removed quite a bit of the factory lube, which is NOT applied very well, IMHO, so the next thing I need to do is figure out lubing the sized HGPs. My first attempt will be pan lubing with Lewis' modified SPG recipe. Not sure how well it will work, as the lube bands on the HGPs are pretty shallow, and the hollow bases may fill up with lube. Worth a try, though - I'll be happy if I just end up with a uniform coat of lube which isn't too soft.
Can't wait to get out and shoot some, even though my "shooting bench" is just a pair of shooting sticks and an old 5 gallon bucket at this point, and we have about 16 inches of crusty, uneven snow on the ground around our place.
As soon as my old Rock Chucker press was mounted, I screwed in a new Hankins adjustable sizer, and went to work on some Hornady Great Plains bullets. At .5015 inches (measured with a dial indicator), I could start the first sized HGP into my Renegade with firm finger pressure - no short starter needed. Once started, it slid down with about the same resistance as unsized HGPs, which means that the sized HGPs will stay on the powder. When I pulled the first sized HGP out of the barrel, grooves were engraved down to the driving band just above the lowest one. It looks like the grooves are engraved uniformly around the bullet, so it should be pretty well aligned with the bore. That's one big advantage of a tapered bullet design - the base goes down the bore for a ways with no pressure, so the bullet is pretty well aligned before any starting pressure is applied.
The sizer removed quite a bit of the factory lube, which is NOT applied very well, IMHO, so the next thing I need to do is figure out lubing the sized HGPs. My first attempt will be pan lubing with Lewis' modified SPG recipe. Not sure how well it will work, as the lube bands on the HGPs are pretty shallow, and the hollow bases may fill up with lube. Worth a try, though - I'll be happy if I just end up with a uniform coat of lube which isn't too soft.
Can't wait to get out and shoot some, even though my "shooting bench" is just a pair of shooting sticks and an old 5 gallon bucket at this point, and we have about 16 inches of crusty, uneven snow on the ground around our place.