It's a Miracle!!! I made some ammo!

[bobjones223]

I am using same load you made up but I am using 4.2 gr of TG. I think I started around 3.8 and didn't have any issues, but found my groups were better at 4.2. This was in a G19. Good luck and hopefully everything works for you.

I think I am running 4.0 gr. If I remember right at 3.8 I couldn't hit minor power factor?

On a side note I have that same magnetic parts bowl on my bench only I put my primers in it.

 

[Expat]

Congrats. Lots,of questions are good when you are talking about possibly blowing **** up.

 

[Ben Nelson]

Congratulations, and welcome to the brotherhood!

 

[Doublehelix]

So many great responses, thank you for all of the kind wishes! Today I go and shoot some holes in paper and see how they fly.

@Bsubtown: Yeah, I stocked up on crap-tons of powder and primers before the election not knowing which way things were headed. Should be good for a while.

Thanks also to those posting their loads. I will work up some different testing loads tonight to see what works well in my guns.

I love this place!!! Couldn't have done it without you all!

 

[gregkl]

Very nice set-up and a nice job on the reloads. You and I obviously have some common similarities. My reloading area looks a lot like yours. I am in sales but work in manufacturing where we practice 5S. I use and always have used 5S in my personal life.

Keep up the good work and enjoy your new hobby! One that actually pays too!

 

[AmmoManAaron]

Late to this thread, but a big Congrats! anyway. Your setup is spacious, clean, and well-organized and your technique is very prudent for someone just starting out - you get out of from me!

Honestly, I'm jealous that I didn't have that nice of equipment or space when I started and I'm jealous right now over how well organized and spacious your setup is. I've got way too much clutter and odds-n-ends accumulated and not enough places to put it all so it just stays where it is for now, lol.

 

[Doublehelix]

Late to this thread, but a big Congrats! anyway. Your setup is spacious, clean, and well-organized and your technique is very prudent for someone just starting out - you get out of from me!

Honestly, I'm jealous that I didn't have that nice of equipment or space when I started and I'm jealous right now over how well organized and spacious your setup is. I've got way too much clutter and odds-n-ends accumulated and not enough places to put it all so it just stays where it is for now, lol.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragment, and no worries about the mess. Although I tend to be fairly neat and organized, things are going to start moving to disorder shortly!!!

 

[Doublehelix]

The good news is that all 17 bullets went BANG!!! (I saved one out of the 20, and I pulled two bullets to double-check the loads as they weighed heavy... they were fine btw).

The accuracy was "OK", slightly worse, but similar to factory loads. Here are a couple of targets at 21 feet:





I was a bit rusty as I have not been to the range in about 4 weeks with other stuff going on, so some of this was me. At 21 feet, I should be nailing it.

I am going to work up some loads this weekend to test on Monday and see if I can tighten these groups a bit. My factory rounds looked a little better, but then again, I was blasting a full magazine of 15 rounds and pretty much tore up the red.

Overall a great success in that they all shot perfectly, and were not horrible, especially for a "guess load" behind plated bullets. Not great, but not horrible accuracy either. I was worried that they would hit the targets in the adjacent lanes!!!

I am ecstatic and honestly couldn't be happier with how these turned out.

 

[Bennettjh]

Glad they worked out!

 

[oldpink]

You'll eventually find a sweet spot load that will outdo most any factory load, but that level of accuracy is certainly nothing to cry about.

 

[1911ly]

The good news is that all 17 bullets went BANG!!! (I saved one out of the 20, and I pulled two bullets to double-check the loads as they weighed heavy... they were fine btw).

The accuracy was "OK", slightly worse, but similar to factory loads. Here are a couple of targets at 21 feet:





I was a bit rusty as I have not been to the range in about 4 weeks with other stuff going on, so some of this was me. At 21 feet, I should be nailing it.

I am going to work up some loads this weekend to test on Monday and see if I can tighten these groups a bit. My factory rounds looked a little better, but then again, I was blasting a full magazine of 15 rounds and pretty much tore up the red.

Overall a great success in that they all shot perfectly, and were not horrible, especially for a "guess load" behind plated bullets. Not great, but not horrible accuracy either. I was worried that they would hit the targets in the adjacent lanes!!!

I am ecstatic and honestly couldn't be happier with how these turned out.

I hate to say it but, man, that looks terrible. What time will be around tomorrow? I'll get that junk out your way.

But seriously, Isn't it a pretty awesome feeling to pull the trigger on ammo you loaded yourself! You will find yourself just buying brass, projectiles, primers and powder and loading everything from now on.

You can try loading a tenth of a grain up and down at a time and see what happens if you want to play around. I load 10 at a time when I am working up a load, have some fun! that's what reloading is all about! you being in control of the variable's!

I am proud as hell of you!! And we both had projects that worked this week. I got that carb on my neighbors snowblower cleaned and running like a top!

 

[Broom_jm]

Those groups like fine to me...I don't think a BG would complain.

I work with SA pistol loads until the gun functions perfectly every time and the accuracy is "acceptable", especially if I've made the decision that my carry loads will mirror whatever local LEO's have in their guns. If I'm loading my own SD rounds, I spend a little more time with it, tweaking the charge weight for better accuracy and near-max charge weights.

I was going to mention earlier that weighing 9mm rounds in an attempt to detect a missing powder charge, or double charge, is not a very effective means of QC. With larger cartridges, where the powder charge is a higher percentage of the total weight (think 308 Win.) you can use that method, but it's still not a good practice. When you batch load, charge every case in the block and then stand under a bright light n' check every case. Also, I do NOT like TG powder for 9mm, because a double charge is technically possible, although bullet seating may not be. For my money, I am absolutely willing to pay for more powder and deal with a touch more recoil, which is why the 9mm ammo I load for 3 pistols and my son's Hi-Point carbine all use Power Pistol. It's very consistent and you CAN NOT double-charge w/o powder overflowing the case. In fact, this is a requirement for every single load I use, in every cartridge. I will only use a powder that gives a high fill rate, making it easy to confirm the case has been charged, and 100% impossible to double-charge...why take that risk, if you don't have to? To save a cent or two per load is not worth it, to me.

 

[Doublehelix]

I was going to mention earlier that weighing 9mm rounds in an attempt to detect a missing powder charge, or double charge, is not a very effective means of QC. With larger cartridges, where the powder charge is a higher percentage of the total weight (think 308 Win.) you can use that method, but it's still not a good practice.

Understood, thanks, and I agree. For my first time however, I thought it would add one more safety check. Here was my (obviously flawed) thought process:

1) I weighed each empty cartridge before loading (with spent primers still in tact)
2) I weighed each bullet before seating

Then if I load them with the same weight of powder, they should weigh "about" the same after loading, right?

Well, 18 of the 20 completed cartridges weighed pretty close to the same (within 0.1-0.4 grains), but 2 out of the 20 both weighed about 4 grains more (not 0.4 grains, but 4 full grains).

Instant alarms went off in my head that I had 2 double charges. This frustrated me because I was SOOOO careful.

I went ahead and pulled the bullets to check, and they were both perfect at 3.8 gr. so I pulled them for no reason.

The only thing I can think of is that I made a mistake when weighing somewhere, or it had to do with the spent primers weighing differently??? The primers weigh nowhere near 4 gr., so I am stumped as to why this extra safety check failed on those 2 rounds.

When you batch load, charge every case in the block and then stand under a bright light n' check every case.

I actually did this for each load.

Also, I do NOT like TG powder for 9mm, because a double charge is technically possible, although bullet seating may not be. For my money, I am absolutely willing to pay for more powder and deal with a touch more recoil, which is why the 9mm ammo I load for 3 pistols and my son's Hi-Point carbine all use Power Pistol. It's very consistent and you CAN NOT double-charge w/o powder overflowing the case. In fact, this is a requirement for every single load I use, in every cartridge. I will only use a powder that gives a high fill rate, making it easy to confirm the case has been charged, and 100% impossible to double-charge...why take that risk, if you don't have to? To save a cent or two per load is not worth it, to me.

I like that philosophy, and I do have a lb. of Power Pistol to try out. I did not use Titegroup to save money, only because it seems to be a universally loved powder for clean, accurate, high-velocity loads. The folks that seem to not like it (such as yourself) worry about double charges, but other than that, I have not heard anything else negative about it.

I am not tied to TG at all, and as a newbie, I am just looking for advice from others that have a lot more experience, which is why I chose TiteGroup for this first set of rounds.

I also have some HP-38/Win231 plus the PowerPistol that I mentioned earlier. I actually tried to find some published load data for PP with Berry's coated 124 gr. RN bullets, and could not find anything (at least on the Alliant site), so for my first batch, I went with something that I knew to be a great powder with load data that I felt was trustworthy (published on the Hodgdon web site).

I will take your philosophy to heart, and will look to other powders in the future that you can't double-charge (although I have a crap-ton of TG to burn through). You are right that it is not worth the cost, nor is it worth the small incremental accuracy I might gain from one powder to the next. I want reliability, decent accuracy in a pistol, and safety. Cost differences are not even in the list.

I am not going to load SD cartridges (at least for a long, long time, I have a lot of factory SD ammo), and for pistol, I am not so worried about absolute match-quality ammo. Now for Rifle, I think I am more concerned about wringing out every last fraction of an inch of accuracy (!!!) for those rounds. The good news about rifle loads however is that I don't have to worry about double charging since the powder is going to be pretty close to the case mouth anyway.

 

[t-squared]

Not poo-pooing other more experienced reloaders opinions, but I will share mine. On the press Doublehelix is using, if you are running it properly it in "progressive mode"- with the index rod in place, it's pretty hard to double charge a case. By properly I mean full return strokes of the arm on each pull. The only way to get a double dump is to short stroke at station 2 and not advance the turret.

Again, a lot of you guys have probably SPILLED more powder than I have USED in my short metallic reloading career. But after 3000 plus loads through my LCT, and all of them being Tite Group or HP38, I'm not overly concerned about a double charge.

 

[romack991]

Yep, there is no reason why you can't have reliable, accurate, and safe ammunition using Titegroup. As you have previously read, many reloaders do it every day. Others may prefer different powders and that is fine as well. All powders all have their pros and cons.

Looks like you are off to a good start. Congrats.

 

[bulletsmith]

Just found this thread. Nice work and impressive setup. You seem to have a meticulous nature that will serve you well in this task, especially as you graduate to bottleneck cartridges.