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I attended a beginning reloading class given by Bigbronco and Chknlyps52 with help from Fighterpilot562. They volunteered their time for free and all I had to do was to donate to a Calguns organization.
They taught me to reload 6.5 Creedmoor for my newly finished R700 re-barrel and trued receiver. We started with a 12 point safety briefing. Then we had show and tell with cases that had high pressure signs, cracked necks and a primer put in sideways.
I had sent them my once fired brass and they tumbled it for a few hours before the class. I had to remove it from the media and use Imperial wax to lubricate it for the full length resizing die. They went into the difference between neck sizing and full length sizing.
We then went through the various types of presses (they had a lot of presses). We settled on a Forster Co-Ax and then they showed me how to clean and lubricate a new die and how to set it up in the press. I resized and de-capped my brass. Then they showed me how to trim, deburr and chamfer. We also learned how to uniform the primer pockets and deburr the flash hole.
We next went into head space issues using a bullet comparator and an overall length gauge on my rifle to get readings where the lands are in relationship to the overall case length. With those numbers and numbers from a standard Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor 140 A-Max round along with Hornady reloading data we created a loading ladder with 39, 40, 41 and 41.5 grains of H4350 at two different lengths off the lands. We talked about the different scales and powder dispensers. We also had a discussions about OCW (optimum charge weight) testing.
We talked about double checking your cases to make sure they contain powder before seating the bullets. We went through the seating process check the seating length and ended with finished rounds.
I had a great time and learned a lot more then I expected. Thank you Peter, Robbie and Jeremy.
They taught me to reload 6.5 Creedmoor for my newly finished R700 re-barrel and trued receiver. We started with a 12 point safety briefing. Then we had show and tell with cases that had high pressure signs, cracked necks and a primer put in sideways.
I had sent them my once fired brass and they tumbled it for a few hours before the class. I had to remove it from the media and use Imperial wax to lubricate it for the full length resizing die. They went into the difference between neck sizing and full length sizing.
We then went through the various types of presses (they had a lot of presses). We settled on a Forster Co-Ax and then they showed me how to clean and lubricate a new die and how to set it up in the press. I resized and de-capped my brass. Then they showed me how to trim, deburr and chamfer. We also learned how to uniform the primer pockets and deburr the flash hole.
We next went into head space issues using a bullet comparator and an overall length gauge on my rifle to get readings where the lands are in relationship to the overall case length. With those numbers and numbers from a standard Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor 140 A-Max round along with Hornady reloading data we created a loading ladder with 39, 40, 41 and 41.5 grains of H4350 at two different lengths off the lands. We talked about the different scales and powder dispensers. We also had a discussions about OCW (optimum charge weight) testing.
We talked about double checking your cases to make sure they contain powder before seating the bullets. We went through the seating process check the seating length and ended with finished rounds.
I had a great time and learned a lot more then I expected. Thank you Peter, Robbie and Jeremy.
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