Finished my first rounds!

[mikehtiger]

*Disclaimer* I'm just some idiot on the internet. I'm not responsible for your gun blowing up or any lost appendages if you decide to use my recipes without verifying anything in a reloading manual.

Here's my recipes:

.40 S&W:
180 Gr. Barrys Bullets FMJ
5.8 Gr. Winchester Auto Comp.

.223 Rem:
55 Gr. Hornady FMJ
24 Gr. Ramshot Tac

Verdict:

The .40 shot just about as well as some of the cheaper ammo I've bought. I think it needs about .2-.4 more grains. Much more snappy than factory ammo. I had two failure to feeds and one dud round (Probably a bad primer).

The .223 shot better than most of the factory ammo I've shot. I've had issues with double feeds in my AR-15, but zero problems with this set up.

I'm officially hooked. I can't stop thinking about reloading more rounds. Picked up a ton of brass at the range too!

[Germz]

Glad you like reloading. Now heres a word that will be the bane of your reloading existence. "Trimming"

lol. where is the rest of your load data? primers? OAL? did you ladder up to 24gr or just pull that number out of the air/manual/internet site?

[uhlan1]

welcome to the addiction.

[BruinGuy]

Congratulations! It's an awesome feeling shooting ammo you've reloaded yourself. Despite the current cost of components I feel guiltless shooting my reloads, but feel like I'm pissing away money whenever i shoot factory loads now.

With your .40 load, you say it felt snappier. Not having looked at the manual, I might nevertheless suggest that you try a ladder test going both up and down from your current powder charge by .2gr increments. Sometimes accuracy suffers when the load is a touch too high. I like to start at or near the manual's minimum load and work up to find the load my firearm likes. If it is on the lighter side that's okay - it just saves me powder.

[mikehtiger]

I used winchester small pistol/rifle primers. OAL was 2.250 on the .223 and 1.135 for .40

I kinda just pulled that number out of my head after looking at the max-min in my reloading manual and looking online (These were right at the min.). I am going to do the step up and step down thing on the next batch for the .40. I'm just using the ammo for plinking so I'm pretty pleased with the results I had!