What did you do at your reloading bench today?

[5shot]

I formed some .360 BHMR from range pickup .30/30 R-P brass. Thought I was going to have to anneal them but once fired cases did very well without that. There were some R-P nickel cases in the bunch and I really didn't think they were going to tolerate such a radical forming. I was wrong!
These will be used in a light plinking load, 170 gr. SWC over 12.5 of BlueDot. About 1550 fps.

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[Hatchdog]

I worked on a project that’s been on the back of the bench only to have a big flop. A local guy had a bunch of .315 Hornady round balls that he gave me for a song with the idea of creating a gallery load to shoot in my Ruger SP 101 327 Fed Mag. I live in a no shooting community and thought these quiet loads would be a great way to break the rules and do some out the back door shooting.

So after gathering some 32 ACP brass I made a few test loads using 1.9 grs of Tite Group which is the fastest powder I had on hand. Bullseye is what is recommended but the Tite Group is pretty close in burn rate, just a bit slower. My set of 32 H&R dies which I thought would work for this project pretty much didn’t. I knew the seater die would not seat the ball in the 32 acp case due to length so I bought a 32 acp taper crimp seating die. Come to find out the expanding die wouldn’t get low enough to do its job. It is the Lee powder thru expander die with the floating expander piece in it. I had to put a bunch of flat washers in it in order for it to expand the case mouth.

So after all this I finally got a test load ready to try. It was raining pretty good so I stayed in the garage and took aim at a nearby stump. Pulled the trigger and……..”click”. Hmmm reset the cylinder and……”click”. Checked the primer and saw a very light strike. Just to be sure I tried another case with a seated primer and……”click”. Hmmmmm put this primed case in my little 32 acp and …….”bang”. Apparently the rim thickness on the 32 acp brass which is considered semi-rimmed thus able to be extracted/ejected in a revolver is too thin making it seat too deep in the chamber for a solid firing pin strike. Shucks.

So now I have nearly 500 .315 round balls I have no use for.


The fixings…


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I may have snatched success out of the jaws of failure. Originally I chose 32 acp brass on the advice of the guy I got the balls from which made sense to me that such a light charge would probably be more consistent in a small volume case. I checked and the difference in the rim thickness between the 32 acp and 32 S&W is visibly noticeable. I didn’t have any 32 S&W short or long brass on hand but I did have some long ammo around. Some Federal factory ammo and some reloads that were given to me.

So I pulled the bullet from one case, re-primed it, charged it with 2.0 of Unique and seated the ball. Took it outside and fired it and was rewarded with a very quiet pop exactly what I was trying for. Thankfully the ball cleared the barrel, not sure where it hit as I shot it into the base of a Ponderosa Pine which has very coarse bark. So I pulled the bullets from all the remaining ammo, de-primed the live primers and the brass is in the tumbler now. I ordered some Lee Alox bullet lube, I think it might be a good idea to put a light lube on the balls.

Interesting the powder in the ammo while different in color were both charged to 2.0 grains. The bullets are 90 grain lead rn.

Once I get it all loaded I’m hoping it will have enough oomph to knock over a bowling pin. We’ll see about that.

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[CT_Shooter]

I may have snatched success out of the jaws of failure. ... I pulled the bullet from one case, re-primed it, charged it with 2.0 of Unique and seated the ball. Took it outside and fired it and was rewarded with a very quiet pop exactly what I was trying for.

Excellent job, Hatch. Congratulations. I look forward to the rest of the story.