Recent content by Kennibear

A Bourbon thread has to be as risky as an oil thread on a motorcycle forum. My go to is Black Eagle which we found about a year ago. Was on the sample tasting table at Total Wine and was a pleasant surprise. Mostly a Scotch man in deference to my late father in law John Howard, God rest his...

Try to find used equipment. Don't pass on Lee as they make some very useful stuff like their case trimmers. A mechanical scale and powder funnel is all you need for powder for 20-40 rounds per month. Somebody's hand priming tool. Spend good money for dies as they are IMHO the most important...

I have a 375 Ruger with a factory installed 26" barrel and 270 grains is about optimal for the powder capacity. You should consider the RUM 375 with a 1 in 9 as Harperc says. The Ruger runs out of powder capacity pretty fast with bullets over 270. KB

NRA did some tests in the 60's for their Reloading Digest and they found that when a powder is pushed past its designed peak pressure the velocity drops. 4895 is designed (chemically) to work best at 48kpsi. I would guess 7828 to work at the max of 65kpsi. Most nitrocellulose chemistries run...

At one time (70's) Federal made WW primers under contract. My cousin in law worked for Federal on that production line. But much like Detroit who knows who makes what. Federal is my goto but my experience with WW is good. Remington 9 1/2 LRM have delivered good loads too. Try them and see...

Heat kills powder faster than moisture. Some double based powders like Unique are essentially water proof. One of the first batches of Laflin & Rand's (then Hercules, then Alliant) Unique has been kept in a jar of water for more than 100 years and it still tests fine. Most ball powder has some...

I have a couple of loads, one 30-06 and one 300WM, that have single digit SD's with Remy 9 1/2M primers. All my concerns with Remy's disapeared with those two loads... KB

The Lee collet neck sizing die has the least stress and fatigue effect on the cartridge case. With their under size mandrills you can adjust the bullet tension. The Lee Classic Cast press is pretty good. I use the Lee collet factory crimp die for all my crimping needs. I just bought a Lee...

Belding & Mull which are only available on Ebay used. Unbelievably consistant and they still are out there after God knows how many years. KB

Back in the day some casters used a zinc alloy similar to Zamak to cast bullets. They were lighter by about 30% than lead and harder. As I recall the author shot the same bullet into a log three times recovering it with a knife and loading it again. If they are quite hard that is probably...

I used to shoot machine guns in Idaho and had a real mass quantity brass processing need. This method I came up with works so well I have never bought any equipment to clean brass. When you do 1000 cases a week it has to be fast. 1) Deprime brass. I use a 45ACP FL die for most of this but...

Contact Lee. They require a few sized cases shipped too. Include the photos above. Good Luck! KB

Flat base Sierra 55gr Spitzer over 23.5 grains of H322 and a CCI or Federal small rifle match primer. There is a reason Bench Rest types use flat base bullets - they are consistently accurate. This is the go to load I use. With a 1 -12 twist 60 grain bullets are your upper limit. Try some Nosler...

The LR game always involves reloading. I cannot imagine anyone progressing off first base with just factory ammo. You will have to start reloading now. That being said the rig you have is a fine LR rig by any standard. 14X top end power on your scope is fine. My first LR scope had 12X tops...

I have a 27" barreled M98 @ 15# that I used for LR in Idaho. When trekking up and down those hills the 15# was a problem, not the 26". In my old age I am reluctant to leave any velocity on the table. KB