What did you do in the reloading room today?

[Tim K]

I shot 1K of Sierra's 123 out of my bolt gun. I got shamed into switching to the 142's, but I liked the 123's a lot. There was a bit less recoil and muzzle blast (pre-can days) which made the gun a little easier to shoot. I know I gained some ballistic performance by switching to the 142's, but I'm not convinced it made any real world difference.

[TheBelly]

142s in a gas gun suck.

yep... finding that out. They work awesome in my bolt gun.

I've got a few other weights/types that I'll give a try.

[XC700116]

I had a good time with the 123s. I was able to get them going 2900 out of my 20" gas gun before I saw any real pressure signs. I decided that I probably shouldn't be pushing them that hard. I now use the 142 SMKs, but I have a small stock (maybe 100 or so) of the 123s left that I should burn up.

The 123s and 139s are a lot easier to acquire.

What powder are you using? (I ask this question a lot, just to satisfy my curiosity of what others are using)

H4350, but also doing some testing with RL17, but not comfortable switching to it until I can test the load at over 100° ambient temp. Because it's pretty much inevitable that I'm going to run out of H4350 and not be able to re-supply as soon as I'd like. I've also found a really good load with the RL17 but have no idea if it'll get nasty (pressure/big velocity swing/lose consistency) when the temp goes up or not.

I'm mainly testing the 123 Lapua because when you put pen to paper on them, because the BC is so close on them to the 139, I figure if I can pump up the speed on them a enough, while keeping good groups/low SD, etc. it will be a ballistic advantage to run them vs the 139. I honestly don't think I'll get enough speed to make it an advantage, but we'll see. I'd need to gain a solid 200 fps over the 139 that I'm currently running @ 2830 fps while maintaining all the other goodness of my current load.

[303sig1911]

I was finally able to order some powder (thanks to powder valley) and some (montana gold) bullets. Starting next weekend I will finally enter the world of reloading!

[clocker]

Finally had enough time to clean up after too long away. Cast and powder coated some new bullets. Loaded up some in 38 special and tested out the rounds (worked great!). Also got some tax stamps back for toys, so finally fixed the CNC spindle index electronics on my lathe so that I can thread some tubes

[asmo]

Made shiny.

[stodg73]

Thought of my reloading room from a long way away.

[Hoser]

Woke up early and turned 2,000 pcs of 5.56 brass into 300 Whisper/Blackout brass.

Then loaded up some more 9x19 for my revo.

[ray1970]

Woke up early and turned 2,000 pcs of 5.56 brass into 300 Whisper/Blackout brass.

Sheesh. That would take me two weeks.

[XC700116]

Ran a pile of test loads at the range. In my 260 I managed to get the 123 gr Lapua's up to 3148 fps, with an SD of 6.4 and no signs of pressure. 5 shot group came in at .402" With that speed, this load will shave off 1.8 mils of elevation and .2 mils off a full value wind @1200 yds as compared to my current load with the 139 gr loads.

Pretty sure I'm going to load up a bunch for the next Raton match and give them a whirl in real conditions.