Recent content by Bill Johnson

I use a lot of once fired brass. I buy from know reliable dealers in batches of at least 200. Them I F/L resize, trim to length, and uniform primer pockets. Now, with uniform outside dimensions, I weigh cases laying them out on a piece of cardboard with lines for each weight in tens of a grain...

The "doughnut" forms after you've turned the brass necks down to the neck/shoulder junction and fired the case, unless you radius the edge of the cutting tool a little to cut into the neck/shoulder junction. I neck turn all the time on fired brass mainly because I buy a lot of once fired, but...

Spot-on advice from CB. I had typed up a very similar reply when my power went off.

Estimating pressure from fired cases/primers is a tricky business, but I have found reading the primers to be fairly indicative of high pressure. What's missing in your analysis is the condition of the primers on the first factory rounds. Note that on all the other primers that, while at the...

You've spent alot of money for no benefit if you do not know the thickness and uniformity of the neck walls. Typical Winchester/Remington/Hornady/YouNameIt brass have neck wall that vary in thickness, typically, from .012 to .018. On the same piece of brass. Unless neck walls are consistant...

The only thing I can tell you is that their 30-06 cases, fired in service rifles, either M1 or 1903, are very soft, do not last long because of primer pocket enlargement. And that's sad to say because we're talking about loads well below maximum. Maybe someone will chime in with some more...

Generally you are going to use a bushing die after neck turning because the bushing size is dicated by bullet diameter plus neck wall thickness times two, minus .002 to .003, depending on how much "neck tension" you're aiming for. Premature neck splitting can be avoided by annealing ever 3-5...

Wow, Mike! that's so funny........but so true. You could go in to ogive comparators, primer brisance and powder columns, any number of possible variables. Bench technique (shoot 22RF at 200 and you'd see how bad you really are).

K&M, without a doubt.

I think that's the best way to proceed, and shoot 5 shot groups. As they other guys pointed out, you're doing pretty darn good for an off-the-shelf Ruger. The longer range, 500 would be better, will give you a much better idea of where you can improve the load.

I don't change anything unless accuracy changes. Then I check velocity. But keep good notes to include lot numbers. You never know when that info may reveal something down the road.

Pistol loading is different than rifle. With pistols, reliability is the #1 goal. When setting up for an autoloader, I ALWAYS make up one magazine full of dummy rounds set at max length, then cycle through the gun a couple times. Sometimes that length works, sometimes not. Then, if max length...

The 1898 Mauser action is rated for cartridges that operate in the 62K PSI range with a bolt face dia of .473 which means it's designed to withstand about 3467 pounds of thrust. The 300 Win Mag requires a bolt face of .532 and operates a little hotter at 64K PSI. That yields a bolt thrust of...

I absolutely think you can handle that. You can use lady's fingernail emory boards and I doubt you could possibly sand away enough material from that action to cause any problem. I'd probably attack it with a round Swiss file first then smooth it out by wet sanding with a piece of 400 grit...

True, but annealing will fix that. So you have a standard neck die with expander....tracking now. Thanks. So when you get a new expander for the full length die, I'm not sure how you set it up but most instructions specify so much decapping pin protrusion beneath the die then lock it down...