You’ll recall a recent blog where I waxed eloquent about Eleanor, my Ruger RSM .416 Rigby rifle. In that blog, I talked about reduced loads using 350-grain cast Montana bullets and 5744 and Trail Boss propellant. It was fun…the Trail Boss loads had milder recoil and “good enough” (but not stellar) accuracy. Take a look at these 50-yard targets:
The above target on the left was with 30.0 grains of Trail Boss; the one on the right was with 34.0 grains of Trail Boss. I could feel a tiny bit more recoil with the 34.0-grain load, but both were light loads with modest recoil. Weirdly, the point of impact shifted sharply to the right with the lighter load, but it moved back to the center with the 34.0-grain load (and it was slightly higher). The Trail Boss loads shot okay, but they weren’t running in the same league as the load I had shot the prior week with 5744 propellant and the same Montana Bullet Works 350-grain bullet, as you can see from the 50-yard targets below.
I could see what I was getting with the Trail Boss and I could see that it wasn’t grouping nearly as well as the 5744 loads at 50 yards, so that stopped my testing with Trail Boss (that, and the fact that I had used up all my Trail Boss cartridges).
I was curious: How would Eleanor do at 100 yards? I still had some of the 5744 loads left, so I posted a couple of 100-yard targets and let Eleanor have her way. I first fired a 3-shot group and after looking through my spotting scope, I was surprised to see how well they grouped.
I thought maybe that target was a random success, and I didn’t want to ruin it by throwing more shots at it. So I fired another 3-shot group at the second target, and then another three at that same target. That’s the one you see below.
Before all you keyboard commandos start telling me that these results are nothing special, allow me to point out that these are 100-yard groups using open sights on an elephant rifle. I’m calling it good to go. Like I said earlier, when the elephants become an invasive species here in So Cal, I’m ready. The load is 45.0 grains of 5744 (it’s the load the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook specified as the accuracy load, and they were right), the 350-grain Montana Bullet Works .416 bullet sized to .417 and crimped in the cannelure, Hornady brass, and a CCI-200 primer. I didn’t weigh each charge; I just adjusted my RCBS powder dispenser and cranked them out. If you were wondering, I use Lyman dies for this cartridge.
A bit more about Eleanor: The rifle is a Ruger 77 that the good folks from New Hampshire call an Express or RSM model (I think RSM stood for Ruger Safari Magnum). They made them in 375 H&H, 416 Rigby, and 458 Lott (kind of a magnum .458 Magnum). Ruger also made a similar one in a few of the standard calibers (7mm Mag, 30 06, and 300 Win Mag, and maybe one or two others). These rifles were a bit pricey when Ruger sold them in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but evidently not pricey enough. They were too expensive to manufacture, so Ruger stopped making them. When you see these rifles come up for sale today (which doesn’t happen very often), they command a premium. I wish I had bought one in 30 06 when they were first offered; to me, that would be the perfect rifle.
The rear sight on a Ruger RSM rifle is of the African “Express” style. The elevation adjustment consists of a fixed and two flip-up blades, and they all have a very shallow V. I guess the idea of that shallow V is that it lets you see more in case an elephant is charging. The sight has two flip up blades behind the fixed blade; as range increases, you flip up the second blade, and if it is an even longer shot, you go for the third blade. I got lucky, for me, the fixed rear sight blade is perfect with this load. I made a minor adjustment for windage, and the elevation is spot on with a 6:00 hold at both 50 yards and 100 yards.
Incidentally, that rib the rear sight sits on? It’s not a separate piece. It and the barrel were turned and milled from one solid piece of steel. It’s one of the reasons these rifles were too expensive to manufacture.
The front sight is the typical brass bead (you can sort of see it in the featured photo at the top of this blog), which I usually don’t like, but with these results I can’t complain. I’ve shot better groups with two or three other open sight rifles using jacketed bullets at 100 yards; this is the best any cast bullet has ever done for me.
Want to see the first installment of the Eleanor story? It’s right here.
Tough to get to a gunstore to buy targets? Range fees for targets too high? Do what I do and order them online. They’re delivered right to your door and they’re less expensive, too.
Need a calipers for measuring your group size? This is a great place to find great calipers at a great price.
Want to check out Montana Bullets? Here’s a link to their website. Tell them Joe sent you. Trust me on this: These are best cast bullets I’ve ever used.
You’ve thought about reloading, you’ve read stuff from us and others about the benefits of reloading, and you want to do it. But how?
Hey, I was born into it. My Dad was a reloader and I had a pretty good idea what to do when I wanted to start, but the urge to do so didn’t hit until I was a young guy in the Army at Fort Bliss. I was lucky. The guy who ran the Fort Bliss Gun Club (Roy Johnson) had a room set up for just that purpose and he walked me through the process some 50 years ago. But Roy has gone on to his reward, you’re probably not stationed at Fort Bliss, and you want to get into the game. That’s what this blog focuses on, and in particular, the equipment you’ll need to get started.
Inside the Fort Bliss Gun Club. This is a fabulous place where I spent a lot of time as a young Army dude. Next time I’m in El Paso you can bet I’ll stop in again.
Reloading Advantages
There are three advantages to reloading: Cost, accuracy, and availability.
Generally, reloaded ammo costs less than factory ammo, and in some cases (especially for more exotic rifle ammunition), the savings are huge. For example, factory .416 Rigby ammo costs $170 for a box of 20 rounds; I can reload .416 Rigby ammo for well under a buck a round.
From an accuracy perspective, reloading is the only way to go. You can tailor a load to a particular firearm by varying bullet type, bullet seating depth, crimp, powder type, powder charge, brass, and primers to arrive at a combination that delivers superior accuracy (and it’s fun doing this). I have rifles that shoot 3-inch groups at 100 yards with factory ammo; with my custom reloads, I can get half-inch groups.
Today, if you reload and you’ve laid in a good stock of components, you can reload your way through any ammo shortages. Nobody has .45 ACP, 9mm, or .223 ammo in stock right now; I have enough components on hand to reload thousands of rounds. I’m on the range two or three times a week enjoying my shooting hobby while other folks are online whining about not being able to buy ammo.
What You Will Need
The things you will need to start reloading fall into two categories: The reloading equipment, and the reloading components. The reloading components are the things that combine to bring an empty brass cartridge case back to life (that includes the bullets, the propellant, and the primers). The reloading equipment includes the gear you need to take the components and turn them into a ready-to-fire cartridge.
If you want to get into the reloading game, I believe the best way to do so is to buy a complete equipment reloading package from one of the suppliers like RCBS or Lee. That’s the RCBS kit shown in the big photo above. I’ll talk about it, the Lee kit, and a couple of others further down in this blog. First, let’s review each bit of gear.
The Reloading Press
That’s the lever-operated press that accepts the dies (more on that in a second) for reloading your ammo, and sometimes the press includes a mechanism for seating primers in the cartridge case after the old primer has been removed. In other cases, a separate priming tool is used. Presses are offered by RCBS, Lee, Lyman, Hornady, and other companies.
The Lee Challenger press. It’s a decent unit at a decent price, and an ideal way to get started in reloading.
Dies
The dies are cartridge specific. For handgun cartridges, the die set usually includes three dies; for rifle cartridges, the die set usually includes two dies. The good news is that die threads are pretty much standardized, and every company’s dies will fit every company’s reloading press. In other words, if you buy Lee dies, they’ll work on an RCBS press. If you buy RCBS dies, they’ll work on a Lee press. Dies are offered by several companies, with the most popular brands being Lee and RCBS.
A three-die pistol set from RCBS. The first die knocks out the old primer and resizes the fired case. The second die flares the case mouth to accept a new bullet. The third die seats the new bullet and, if you want, crimps the bullet in place.An RCBS two-die rifle set. The first die knocks out the fired primer and returns the case to its original dimensions. The second die seats the bullet and, if desired, crimps it in place.A three-die pistol cartridge set from Lee Precision. Lee includes the shell holder with their die sets.
Shell Holder
You will need a shell holder for the cartridges you wish to reload. That’s the piece that holds the cartridge case in place so the press can push it up into the die and then extract it from the die. RCBS does not include the shell holder with their die sets (so you’ll need to buy RCBS shell holders separately); just about all other die makers do (when you buy their dies, the die set includes a shell holder for that cartridge).
A shell holder. You need to buy these separately if you buy RCBS dies.
A Powder Dispenser
This is a device for dropping a precisely-metered powder charge into each cartridge case. There are fancy (read: expensive) electronic powder dispensers, but you don’t need those to get started and a lot of folks (myself included) don’t like them. A simple mechanical dispenser will work fine (as mine has been doing for 50 years). Both RCBS and Lee offer good powder dispensers; the Lee is substantially less expensive.
An RCBS powder dispenser on the left, the Lee powder dispenser on the right.
A Powder Scale
This is a simple balance beam scale to allow you to measure the weight of the propellant charge and adjust the powder dispenser to throw that charge. There are electronic scales, too, but they add complexity and considerable expense where none is required. Again, the dominant brands are Lee and RCBS.
A simple Lee balance beam reloading scale. These scales can measure to a tenth of a grain.
Cartridge Trays
When we reload, we use a cartridge tray (to hold the cartridges as we work through the process of reloading). A variety of manufacturers offer these.
An RCBS cartridge tray. These are available from several manufacturers. I’ve been using mine for nearly 50 years.
A Case Lube Pad
This is a simple foam pad. You put case lube on the pad and roll the brass cases on it to lubricate the exterior prior to running them through the resizing die (the first die used in the reloading process). If you have a straight wall pistol cartridge, you can buy tungsten carbide dies that don’t require lubing the cartridge cases. If you’re going to reload 9mm, .38 Special/.357 Magnum, .45 Auto, or .45 Colt, my advice is to spend the few extra bucks and get the carbide dies.
An RCBS case lube pad. You put a bit of case lube on the pad and roll the brass on it to lube the cases prior to running them through the resizing die.
Case Lube
This is the lube used as described above. To mention it again, if you’re going to reload straight wall pistol cartridges and you buy tungsten carbide dies, you won’t need case lube (or the case lube pad).
RCBS case lube.
Alternatively, you can buy spray-on case lubes, which eliminate the need for the case lube pad. I’ve tried spray-on case lubes and I prefer using the pad and case lube instead. Other reloaders like the spray-on approach better.
A Primer Seating Tool
Some reloading equipment companies incorporate a primer seating tool in their press; others offer separate primer seating tools. I have an RCBS press that came with the primer seating tool, but I like using a manual hand priming tool instead. Several manufacturers offer these; I use one from Lee.
The Lee hand priming tool. These work well. You can feel each primer seating and better control seating depth with these hand priming tools.
A Bench
You may already have a sturdy workbench where you can mount the reloading press; if not, there are reloading-specific benches available.
A Lee reloading bench. These work well if you don’t have a workbench for mounting your press.
A Reloading Manual
There are several available, including the excellent offerings from Sierra, Speer, Hornady, and Lyman. Don’t think you can skip this; a good reloading manual is a must-have item for any reloader. They all explain the reloading process at the beginning, and they include safe recommended load levels for nearly all cartridges. I’ve acquired several reloading manuals over the years and they are all good; my favorites are the ones from Lyman. Others are published by bullet manufacturers (these include the manuals from Hornady, Speer, and Sierra) and those manuals include loads only for their bullets. The Lyman manual is more generic. But like I said, they’re all good.
I have reloading manuals going back 50 years. The Lyman manuals are probably the best.
That’s the reloading equipment. In addition to that, you’re going to need the ingredients for the cartridges you want to reload. That includes the brass cases, the bullets, the powder, and the primers.
Brass Cartridge Cases
You can buy virgin brass online, you can buy once-fired brass at the range or at most gunstores, or you can do like most of us have done: Save your brass when you shoot factory ammo and reload it.
.35 Whelen brass waiting to be charged with propellant. This ammo costs $43 for a box of 20 factory rounds (and you can’t find anybody who has it in stock right now); I can reload it for under 50 cents a round.
Bullets
You’ll need bullets to reload your ammo. There are lots of options here, and they basically break down into either cast or jacketed bullets. I’m a big fan of cast bullets for handgun and reduced velocity rifle reloads, and I use jacketed bullets for full-bore factory level (high velocity) rifle loads. Most folks these days order bullets online from reloading suppliers like MidwayUSA, Graf’s, MidSouth, Powder Valley, Natchez Shooting Supplies, and others. Smaller gun stores are disappearing, and you usually don’t find decent prices at the big chain stores.
Cast bullets waiting to be loaded into .45 ACP cases.
Propellant
For lack of a better term, we usually call propellants “powder,” and there are a wide variety of powders available. The reloading manuals show which powders work best for the cartridge you wish to reload.
Unique propellant and my RCBS powder dispenser. The reloading manuals will help you select the powder you need. Unique is a good general purpose propellant I’ve used for a variety of handgun cartridges and a few cast bullet rifle loads.
Primers
The primer is the component that lights the candle when you pull the trigger. There are several primer suppliers. The trick today is finding them, as there has been a run on primers since the pandemic began. If you can find primers in a local shop, buy them. The same suppliers listed above for bullets also sell primers (they are all out of stock now, but that will change as supply catches up with demand).
Winchester primers being loaded into my Lee hand priming tool. Other primer makes include Remington, CCI, Federal, and a few more.
The Best Equipment Approach: A Complete Kit
As I mentioned at the start of this blog, I believe the best way to get into the game is to buy a complete equipment reloading package from one of the reloading equipment suppliers. My advice if you are a new reloader is to go with the Lee package. It’s the least expensive and if you decide that reloading is not for you, you’ve minimized your cash outlay. I should add, however, that I don’t know anybody who ever tried reloading who didn’t get hooked on it. It is a marvelous hobby, and I believe it is as much fun as shooting.
I’ve used reloading equipment over the years from all the manufacturers. My personal setup is centered around an RCBS Rockchucker, but equipment from any of the suppliers is good. Basically, you can’t go wrong in this game from an equipment perspective. With that said, let’s take a look at what’s out there.
The Lee Challenger reloading kit. These were sold out on Amazon (and everywhere else) when this blog was published. Keep an eye on the Amazon site; it’s a good place to order the kit.
There’s only one problem with the Lee Challenger reloading kit: It’s such a good deal (well under $200 for the entire kit) that literally everyone is out of stock right now. As you know, we’re going through unprecedented times in the shooting world (guns, ammo, and reloading components are sold out due to the civil insurrection in many large cities, a new anti-gun administration on the horizon, and the global pandemic). That will change, but at this instant, no one I could find has the Lee kit in stock.
The RCBS reloading kit. RCBS makes high quality equipment that will last a lifetime. It costs more, but it’s worth it.
I’ve been using RCBS equipment for the last 50 years, and I believe it to be the best. It is built to last. If I couldn’t get the Lee package as a newbie, or if your budget will allow it, I’d go with RCBS equipment. At about $400, it’s just over twice the price of the Lee kit, but it’s still a great deal compared to buying all the different equipment items separately. The RCBS package shown above includes an electronic scale instead of a beam scale, a powder trickler (it allows you to finesse adding individual powder kernels to attain a precise charge weight), and a couple of case preparation tools that the Lee kit doesn’t include.
Lyman is another outfit offering a complete reloading kit:
Lyman’s reloading equipment package.
What’s a bit different about the Lyman kit is that it comes with a turret press, which allows you to mount all the dies in the press head and rotate them as you progress through the various reloading steps. I’m not a big fan of this approach; other folks are. The Lyman kit is just under $1000; the turret press and the inclusion of a case trimmer are what drive the price to that level.
Hornady’s reloading package. I have the least experience with Hornady reloading gear, and I’m not wild about their dies. Hornady bullets are fantastic.
The Hornady kit is about $550. That’s substantially less than the Lyman kit, but more than either the Lee or the RCBS kits.
So there you have it. Remember that no matter which reloading kit you buy, you’ll still need dies and a shellholder specific to your cartridge. You’ll probably want to purchase more equipment as your reloading interest develops, including more dies (so you can reload more calibers), case cleaning and polishing accessories, a micrometer, and more. But what we’ve outlined here will get you started and keep you in the game for years.
In this blog we’ve covered the equipment you’ll need to get into reloading. If you would like to read about how to use this equipment, we have you covered there, too. We have a bunch of information on reloading various cartridges on our Tales of the Gun page, and a complete series on reloading handgun ammo that you can review here:
I don’t name my guns. Except for one. That’s Eleanor in the photo above.
I have a thing for big bore rifles, and chambered for the mighty .416 Rigby, Eleanor certainly qualifies. We don’t have too many elephants, rhinos, or cape buffalo in southern California. But if any ever become an invasive species here in the Peoples Republik, I’m ready. I’ve read all the African hunting stories, living vicariously through the adventures of folks like Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Hathaway Capstick, and others. It’s what prompted my path toward rifles like Eleanor.
But I digress. Back to the topic du jour. Sometimes you just wake up and think to yourself: I have to to load me some .416 Rigby today.
That’s what happened to me recently. I won’t get to shoot Eleanor for a few more days, but I thought I would share a few photos of the sausage-packing process involved in prepping .416 Rigby ammo. The drill on that fine day was for a couple of reduced-velocity loads using cast bullets and Trail Boss propellant. It’s going to be a fun day at the range when I light the candle on these puppies.
Reloading is sort of like cooking. You start with a recipe and the right ingredients. In this case, that includes .416 Rigby brass (something you don’t find laying around at the range) and Trail Boss propellant (which, like most reloading components, is pure unobtanium these days).
I’m well stocked with unfired, virgin Hornady brass and I used Montana Bullet Works cast 350-grain gas check projectiles. Because I’m loading cast bullets, the first step involved flaring the case mouth. I use the Lee universal flaring tool for this. You can see its business end in the photo below.
Here’s the Lee’s flaring die and a flared case mouth.
This is what the cartridge case looks like after it has been flared. You can see the diameter opens up slightly at the case mouth. This prevents shaving lead off the bullet base as it is seated in the brass cartridge case.
The Montana Bullet Works bullets are impressive. Actually, they are beyond impressive. I think they are perfect. They look more like machined parts rather than cast parts. I loaded their 350-grain flatnose cast bullets (they are 22 Brinell hardness linotype bullets) with a gas check base (take a peek at the next photo). The blue stuff is lubricant.
I’ve fired the Montana bullets before with 5744 propellant in Eleanor and they work well, as you can see on the targets below (I order my targets from Amazon). Those were 3-shot groups at 50 yards using the same Montana 350-grain cast bullets and 45.0 grains of 5744 propellant. Eleanor is an elephant rifle with iron sights, and I’m getting groups that would work well with prairie dogs.
There’s no leading with the Montana bullets. The Lyman cast bullet reloading manual (which I believe to be the best) lists 5744 and the 350-grain cast bullet as the most accurate load in this chambering (I like the Lyman manuals better than any of the others).
The photo below shows a bullet just starting into the cartridge case. I had already seated CCI 200 primers into the cases.
Trail Boss is a reduced velocity propellant that is designed to occupy most or all of a cartridge case’s interior. It’s a light powder. The shape is unusual. The grains look like little washers.
Trail Boss is so big and fluffy my RCBS powder dispenser couldn’t throw a big enough charge with a single throw. I wanted to load these at 30 grains and 34 grains (suggested min and max with this propellant), so I set the powder dispenser to 15 grains (that’s what you see in the powder tray above) and threw two charges for each case, and then I did the same at 17 grains (again, throwing two charges for each case). According to the folks who make Trail Boss, the max load should not exceed the base of the bullet, and the minimum charge is 70% of the max charge. Here’s what a charged case with the max charge looks like.
I next seated the bullets. These cartridges are so long that you have to put the charged brass case into the shell holder, and then angle the bullet up into the die and set it back down on the case before you run the ram up. I do bullet seating and crimping in two operations. I’ll seat all the bullets to the required overall length without a crimp, and then I’ll adjust the die and run each round through again to get a good crimp. I use an old RCBS Rockchucker single-stage press I bought new in 1974. I’ve been using it ever since.
And here’s one last photo just to convey a sense of scale. From right to left, what you see below is a six-pack of .45 ACP cartridges in a moon clip ready for my 1917 revolver, a .45 70 round (I loaded some of those earlier today, too), and the .416 Rigby.
So how do these Rigby rounds shoot? I’m going to find out soon, folks, and I’ll let you know. Eleanor and I have a date at the West End Gun Club (don’t tell Sue). Stay tuned. It’s going to be fun.
Two beautiful handguns, the ones you see above are. The one on top is a Colt Walker, the one on the bottom the timeless Single Action Army. But neither are actually Colts. They are both Uberti guns, and both are magnificent.
The story is one for the ages, and it goes like this: Samuel Colt invented the revolver, but he and his factory in Paterson, New Jersey couldn’t make a go of it. Colt left the gunmaking business and went on to other ventures, but in the meantime, there were already a few Colt revolvers writing history in the American West. Captain Sam Walker and his Texas Rangers used the early Colts with great success in battles on the Texas frontier. Walker mentioned this to Colt, Colt asked for an endorsement, Walker said yes, and then he helped Colt design a new revolver to better meet frontier combat needs. Walker drove the design requirements as he took a new commission in the US Army, and the Army ordered a cool thousand of the new 1847 Colt Walkers. Colt was back in business, courtesy of Sam Walker, the Texas Rangers, and the US Army.
Thus was born the Colt Walker, one of the largest handguns ever made. Until the advent of the .357 Magnum in the 1930s, the Walker was the world’s most powerful handgun. It was designed so that if it missed the bad guy but got the horse he was riding, it would kill the horse. I can’t help but think of an old New Jersey expression (common when I was growing up and one I still use on occasion) that ends with “….and the horse you rode in on, too!”
The last of the original Colt Walkers that changed hands went for over a million bucks not long ago, so I knew that until the ExNotes blog goes more viral (than it already has, that is), I wouldn’t be getting an original Walker anytime soon. But there’s something even better from a shootability perspective, and that’s the modern reproduction Walkers offered by Uberti.
I always wanted a Walker, and a few months ago I acted on that urge. I had to wait several months because the Uberti factory in Italy was shut down by the Covid 19 pandemic. Uberti is back in operation again and my Walker recently arrived. It’s a good deal. Unlike a cartridge revolver, here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia black powder guns can be shipped direct to your door.
I knew Uberti makes a quality handgun, as I had great experiences with my “tuned” Taylor 1873 Single Action Army in .45 Colt. That’s one of the two revolvers you see in the photo at the top of this blog. It’s a cool photo because it shows the relative size of the two guns (the Single Action Army is no pipsqueak, but it’s dwarfed by the Walker). And, I’m showing off a bit with the photo’s background (it’s the pig hide from my Arizona wild boar expedition with good buddy Paul, who ordered himself a Walker not too long ago).
Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, the greatest story ever told (in my opinion). Gus carried a Colt Walker.
I’ve mentioned the Walker Colt before, most notably in the book review we posted on Revolver, the book about Samuel Colt. The Colt Walker also figured prominently in Lonesome Dove, and I thought I’d show one of the many great scenes from that movie here again.
Everybody wants to be Gus MacCrae, I guess, and I’m no exception. I suspect Paul feels the same way. So consider this a fair warning: If Paul and I walk into your establishment and order a whiskey, be quick about it. We don’t like surly bartenders, and we carry Walkers, you know.
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If you’ve followed the story about my resurrected Star reloader, you’ve read about good buddy Bruce Williams’ Star Machine Works. Bruce bought the fixtures and other production equipment from the original Star Machine Works company, and he has made a business of restoring complete reloaders and offering parts for these grand old machines. He is the go to guy when it comes to Star stuff, and his work is stunning. My Star resurrection is a ham-and-eggs approach by a guy who really didn’t know what he was doing bringing a Star back to life; Bruce’s work is the gold standard. Bruce sent a few photos to me of his restored Star reloaders, and I thought I would share them with you here.
Here’s a photo of Star that came to Bruce for restoration in the “before” condition:
Here’s an “after” photo of that same fully-restored Star:
Here are a few closeup photos showing a few of Bruce’s other restorations:
Bruce’s prices on a restored Star reloader are, in my opinion, way too low. I know the amount of work I put into mine to get it working, and there’s no way I would sell it for what Bruce gets for one of these machines. Had I known what a Star reloader is (and what the machine can do), I would have just bought a restored Star from Bruce. His work is impressive.
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You’ve been following the Star resurrection, and if you haven’t, you can get the earlier Star stories here. This blog wraps up the last few bits and pieces on the Star. The resurrected Star is fully operational now and I’ve been making ammo on it. In a future blog, I’ll do a video showing the machine in action. I would have done it for today’s blog, but I’m out of empty cartridge cases. That’s a good problem…I’ve got to get to the West End Gun Club to shoot up some ammunition so I can reload again!
This blog covers the last few details, the last few bits and pieces I cleaned up, a part or two here and there, a few adjustments, and mounting the Star on my reloading bench…so here we go.
Mounting the Star
I needed to secure my Star reloader to my reloading bench. That necessitated drilling four pilot holes for the mounting screws, and two holes beneath the reloader (one for the finished rounds to drop through, and the other for the old primers to drop through). Here’s what the holes in the bench look like (the upper hole is for the finished rounds and the smaller hole is for the old primers).
When the Star reloader operates, finished rounds drop from the bottom of the machine, which is why I needed that bigger hole you see above. When used primers are punched out of the fired case (we call this decapping), they, too, drop from the bottom of the machine. That’s what the little hole in the photo above is for.
The finished Star mounts to the bench with four countersunk wood screws. It looks really good.
Tool Head
The tool head is the piece that holds the dies, the powder dispenser, and a few other things. It was basically rusted all over. I went to work on the sides with Scotchbrite and Kroil, and the tool head cleaned up nicely.
The arrows in the above photo point to key components that mount on the tool head. From left to right, we have the double charge safety (more on that in a bit), the priming lever actuator (which also mounts the came for the Hulse case feed mechanism), the decapping and resizing die (this brings the case back to its specification dimensions), and the case flaring die (this puts a bell on the case mouth to allow the new bullet to enter the case).
Primer Feed Cam
The primer feed cam is a knife-like looking thing that mounts to the tool head. As explained in the blog on the case feed mechanism, this cam moves up and down with the tool head and actuates a lever, which in turns pushes a slider with a primer underneath the decapped case. The primer feed cam was rusty so I cleaned it with Scotchbrite. The part was originally blued, so I applied cold blue to the part to bring it back to near-original condition. It looks good.
Powder Dispenser Corrections
When you reload, one of the things you have to pay attention to is the powder charge. Too little, and you can get a bullet stuck in the barrel; too much, you risk blowing the gun up. With propellants like Bullseye (which occupy very little of the available cartridge case volume), that’s a real serious concern. One of things I wanted to do was make sure that the Star’s powder dispenser was dropping the right amount of propellant. You may remember from our blog on the powder dispenser that my Star has a powder bar marked 2.7 GR BE, which is the bar for 2.7 grains of Bullseye. That’s exactly what I wanted, so it was time to make sure that’s what the dispenser was serving.
I added Bullseye powder to the powder hopper, cycled the powder slide a few times to throw a charge, and then I cycled it once more to capture a charge in my RCBS powder scale pan to weigh it. To my surprise, I found that the powder dispenser dropped about 2.2 grains of Bullseye instead of the 2.7 grains it was supposed to dispense.
I had an idea about what might be causing the problem, but before I tore into the powder dispenser, I thought I’d check with good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works. Bruce knows more about these machines than any man alive. Bruce told me that in his experience, the Star 2.7 GR BE slides throw over the specified weight to give 2.9 to 3.0 grains, not under as I was experiencing.
I thought this for a bit and realized I probably had residual oil in the dispenser from when I cleaned it, causing the Bullseye powder to clump up, and I was right. Take a look:
I cleaned the dispenser with alcohol to get all the oil out, let it dry, reassembled it, and tried it again. Yep, Bruce was right…it was throwing right at 2.9-3.0 grains of Bullseye. I thought that would probably be okay (0.3 grains of powder is probably about what a fly poops), but I knew that 2.7 grains was the secret sauce for good accuracy in 38 Special in my Model 52 Smith and Wesson, and that’s what I wanted. I was thinking about when I looked at the powder slide again, and what do you know, I was once again blown away by how clever these Star folks were. There was an adjustment in the powder slide. It’s a little set screw in the powder slide, and by screwing it in or out you can adjust the volume of the powder slide cavity (and therefore the charge weight). Very clever, indeed.
I screwed the set screw in to reduce the cavity volume by what I guesstimated would be 0.3 grains, and I got it right on the first try. The dispenser drops exactly 2.7 grains of Bullseye now.
On that issue of overcharging a case: The real concern is that you inadvertently double charge a case. That could be disastrous. The risk could be heightened, I think, by the fact that you have to manually advance the Star’s shell plate after each pull of the lever. The mechanism does not automatically advance each time, and if someone wasn’t paying careful attention, an inadvertent double charge could occur. Well, the Star folks thought of that, too. The Star reloader incorporates a gizmo called the safety cam.
The Star Reloader Safety Cam
This thing is very clever, which seems to be a hallmark of everything on the Star. It’s a toggling guard sort-of-deal on the left side of the reloader that I cleaned with Scotchbrite and Kroil. You can see it in the photo below.
Take a look at the red and yellow arrows in the photo above. That blued-steel Y-shaped toggle guard translates back and forth on its pedestal. There’s a wire spring underneath the guard that makes it naturally flip to the position you see the photo above. Now, look at the post beneath the tool head (the yellow arrow points to it). If you attempt to operate the lever and lower the tool head (which would also operate the powder dispenser and drop 2.7 grains of Bullseye into the cartridge case beneath the powder dispenser), that post will hit the toggle and stop further tool head downward motion. When that happens, no powder will drop. We want that, because the case sitting below the powder dispenser has already been charged with propellant.
Okay, this is going to get a little complicated, so bear with me. The Star reloader’s shell plate does not automatically advance. You have to manually advance the shell plate as a separate action (it isn’t slaved to pulling the reloader’s lever). Now, imagine you’ve pulled the lever in the previous step, doing all the things that makes happen (knocking out the old primer, resizing the case, inserting a primer in the next case, flaring a case mouth, dropping 2.7 grains of Bullseye into the primed and sized case, and seating a bullet and crimping the case). Wow, that’s a lot. Now it’s time to manually rotate the shell plate to the next position. When we do that, the finished cartridge (new primer, new powder, new bullet, crimped bullet) advances into the safety cam toggle, rotating the toggle toward us.
You can see all this in the photo above. The safety cam toggle rotates toward us (indicated by the red arrow), pushed there by the completed cartridge case just before that case drops through the reloader (the case is indicated by the yellow arrow). When the safety cam toggle moves toward us, the post mounted on the tool head (indicated by the green arrow) now has a clear shot at a hole in the shell holder (it’s no longer obstructed by the safety cam toggle), and the tool head can be fully lowered. The new cartridge drops through the reloader, through the hole in the reloading bench shown at the top of this blog, and into a box waiting below the bench. When the completed cartridge drops through the reloader and the lever is raised, the safety cam toggle’s spring pushes it back to the natural position, and the lever cannot be fully lowered again until the next cartridge case pushes the safety cam toggle to the safe position. It’s clever and it’s complicated, but it’s simple and it prevents dropping the tool head twice on the same cartridge (thereby preventing a double charge).
Seating and Crimping Die Adjustment
The final die in the tool head is the seating and crimping die. It does two things. It seats the new bullet in the cartridge case (it pushes the bullet in to the correct depth), and it roll crimps the cartridge case around the new bullet.
Seating depth and crimp are made through two adjustments. There’s a locknut on the seating die beneath the tool head to lock the die in place, and there’s another locknut on the seating post to lock it into position. Crimp is adjusted by positioning and locking the entire die in the tool head, and bullet seating depth is adjusted by how far the seating post is threaded into the die body and then locked in place with its locknut (see the red arrows in the photo below).
Case Feed Tube Support
The last item I needed to add was the case feed tube support. You may remember that I jury-rigged an external support from a coat hangar. It was definitely a bit of Bubba engineering, but hey, it worked. Good buddy Mike saw that, felt a wave of pity and a willingness to help, and asked me if I wanted a part that he had. I said yep, Mike shipped it to me, and here it is installed on my machine.
This project has come together very nicely. I just loaded another 50 rounds of .38 Special with the Star. I used a different bullet (the Hursman 158-grain cast flat point, which is what necessitated the bullet seating depth change described above). The Star sure did a nice (and fast) job. I loaded 50 rounds in less than 10 minutes. This thing is really cool and I am getting used to the tempo and the hand-eye-coordination/feel of the thing. At first, I felt like I almost needed another hand to operate the Star because there’s so much going on, but I got the hang of it very quickly. You only have to do three things each cycle:
Advance the shell plate one position (you do that manually on these machines; the mechanism doesn’t advance the cases).
Put a bullet in the charged shell at the back of the press.
Pull the lever down and then bring it back up.
While doing the above, you need to pay attention to the powder magazine, the primer magazine, and the case feed tube to make sure each has not run out of the components it feeds. The Star reloader really is a slick device, and it works great.
As I mentioned in one of the earlier blogs on the Star, these machines ruled the roost for high-volume reloading for a cool half century. At one point back in the day, a Star reloader sold for north of a thousand dollars, and there was a 2-year wait to get one. It’s easy to see why. This is a nice piece of equipment. If you’re a gearhead, a gadget guy, a shooter, and a reloader (and I check all four boxes), you can’t help but love a Star reloader.
Do you enjoy reading about bringing old stuff back to life? You’ll love the Resurrections page!
It’s the .35 Whelen (not “wailin'”), but with a name like that, I had to have a little fun. I also considered “Win Some, Lose Some” for the title of this blog, but I’ll get to that in a minute. What this blog is all about is the beginning work in finding a reduced velocity load for my .35 Whelen Ruger No. 1.
Photos from the Gunbroker auction for my rifle (yeah, I saved them). The big featured photo above shows the wood with an orange tint, but that’s because I used flash for that photo. The rifle’s colors are closer to what you see here. It’s a beautiful rifle.
My .35 Whelen is the one you see in the photos above. I have a thing, you see, for Ruger No. 1 rifles. The first rifle I ever bought was a Ruger No. 1 in .30 06 when I was in the Army back in the ‘70s. I initially thought I’d wear out the barrel on my .30 06 and have it recut to .35 Whelen, but that ain’t gonna happen (I’ll never shoot that rifle enough). I have shot it a lot, though. An infantry division of jackrabbits in west Texas met their maker on account of me and my .30 06 No. 1.
Me, half a century ago with a 30 06 Ruger No. 1 and a very dead jackrabbit (one of many) in the west Texas desert. That was a 400-yard offhand shot. The older I get, the better I was.
Okay, back to the .35 Whelen: The concept of a big bore .30 06 stuck in my mind. I’d wanted a Whelen ever since I read about the cartridge. It was created by Townsend Whelen in 1922 (there’s some disagreement about whether it was Whelen or a guy he worked with, but there’s disagreement about everything on the Internet, and Townsend Whelen is the story I’m going with). Old Colonel Whelen ran a .30 06 cartridge case over a .358 expander, plunked in a .358-caliber bullet, and voila, he had created the .35 Whelen.
The .35 Whelen was strictly a wildcat from 1922 to 1988; in 1988 Remington chambered their 700 Classic rifle for it (my good buddy Jason has one and he recently took a nice buck with it). Then Ruger manufactured a limited run of No. 1 rifles in .35 Whelen maybe 5 or 6 years ago (I got mine from that run). Most of these rifles had very plain wood (both the Remingtons and the Rugers); when I saw the one featured in this blog on GunBroker, I jumped on it. The gun looks even better in person that it does in the photos (and it looks great in the photos). My mantra for many years has been that you just can’t go wrong with a Ruger No. 1 and fancy walnut. I believe these to be some of the classiest rifles ever made.
Why a reduced load? Hey, why not? I’ve got other thumpers, and if I ever hunt dinosaur, I can take my .458 Win Mag. I thought finding a way to make the Whelen work with less energetic loads would be fun. Factory-level loads are tough at both ends, and I want to have fun with this rifle. Folks say the .35 Whelen is as good a game-dropper as a .375 H&H. That may be, but it’s irrelevant to me, and besides, those kinds of energy levels come with big recoil. Finding a load that makes a thumper less of a thumper is my idea of fun. I just think the cartridge looks cool, too.
So I’ve had the Whelen a few years now, but until recently, I had never fired it. Then, for reasons I won’t go into, I no longer have a .357 Magnum handgun but I have a couple thousand 200-grain cast .357 Mag bullets. Hey, I thought…let’s see if they’ll work in the .35 Whelen. I looked online and found that other guys are doing it, my 200-grain bullets are sized at .358, and I thought it ought to work.
The Lyman cast bullet data for this bullet in the .35 Whelen.
I looked in the Lyman cast bullet book and I think the bullets I bought are the very same 200-grain Lyman bullet their cast bullet manual shows for the .35 Whelen (the profile is exactly the same). Whoa, this just might work, and it would give me something to use those big pills in.
A big heavy 357 Mag/38 Special bullet. It does well in the .357 Magnum revolver (I’ve shot 3-inch groups with this bullet in my Ruger Blackhawk at 100 yards).
I actually have .35 Whelen brass, but I wanted to make some the old-fashioned way like Townsend Whelen did. I ran 20 new .30 06 cases through the .35 Whelen sizing die to open the case mouths to .35 (from .308), I flared the mouths slightly with the Lee case mouth flaring tool (that’s so the cast bullets will start into the case mouth without shaving lead), and then the brass cases went into the tumbler. They came out looking good.
.35 Whelen brass crafted from .30 06 cases.A .30 06 case on the right, which is what the .35 Whelen cases are formed from.
I selected Unique as the propellant for this first load because I have some on hand, and because it shows the lowest velocities in the Lyman manual. I went with 15.0 grains as a starting point. My 200-grain .357 magnum cast bullets leaded the bore a little bit in my .357 Magnum Blackhawk revolver, so I was mildly concerned that they would lead the bore in my Ruger No. 1. Hold that thought, because we’re going to return to it in a second.
15.0 grains of Unique.Seating the bullets in my RCBS Rockchucker press.
My .35 Whelen cartridges looked good, and they chambered with no issues in the No. 1. I was eager to get to the range to see how they would group.
A finished .35 Whelen cartridge. It’s a handsome cartridge, I think.I loaded 20 rounds for a trial run. This is good-looking ammunition.
So how did it work? Well, that brings us to the “lose some” portion of the tentative title I mentioned at the start of this blog. You know, as in “Win Some, Lose Some,” although I don’t think any No. 1 with wood like the one you see here could be filed in the “lose some” column.
Bottom line? The cast bullet load didn’t perform well at all. The bullets didn’t tumble in flight (as would have been evidenced by their keyholing through the target), but they didn’t group worth a damn, either. I’m talking 12-inch groups at 50 yards. Hell, on a mediocre day I can shooter smaller groups at a hundred yards with a handgun. A quick look at the bore revealed the culprit: Leading. Lots and lots of leading.
A severely-leaded Ruger No. 1 barrel. The bullets I used are intended for handgun velocities. I was hoping for a miracle. It didn’t happen. Not surprisingly, accuracy was nonexistent. Good buddy Greg commented that there was probably enough lead in that barrel to cast another bullet or two.
Okay, it’s knowledge gained, and that’s not a bad thing. These handgun bullets won’t work in my No. 1. But there are cast bullets out there made specifically for rifles, and I knew where to go to get some. I like the cast bullets made by Montana Bullet Works. I called them when I got home, I had a nice conversation with Bruce (the owner), and a hundred of his bullets are on their way to me now. Bruce’s bullets are from an RCBS mold, they have a gas check, they’re hardened to 22 BHN, and they’re heat treated (to prevent breakup when hunting). Everything I’ve read about these bullets on the Internet indicates they are great, and I’ve had good experiences with Montana Bullet Works when using their bullets in a different big bore rifle. I’ll update you with a range report when I try them.
Montana Bullet Works 200-grain flatnose gas check bullets. It will be interesting to see how these perform in the .35 Whelen.
In the meantime (while I’m waiting for the Montana Bullet Works bullets), I explored the Internet and my loading manuals for more information on a reduced .35 Whelen load. I didn’t do well with the 200-grain cast .357 Mag bullets but in researching this more, I found that others have had decent results using jacketed .357 Mag bullets, and there are loads published for this in the Lyman manual. The .35 Whelen rifle bullet diameter is listed at .358 and the jacketed pistol bullets are listed at .357 (we’re talking inches here, folks), but guys on the Internet are saying they get good results with the pistol bullets. So I loaded 20 and made a quick run to the range.
Hornady 158-grain .357 Magnum jacketed flatnose pistol bullets. These grouped well in the Whelen.The Lyman manual’s data for using 158-grain .357 Magnum pistol bullets in the .35 Whelen.20 rounds of custom-made, good-looking .35 Whelen ammo.
I loaded at 24.0 grains of 5744 because I have that powder on hand and I didn’t want to dip into my stash of discontinued 4759. While I was loading these, I was a little leery about shooting .357-inch diameter bullets in a .358-inch bore. About 45 years ago in another life I tried loading .45 ACP bullets in a .458 Win Mag (I know, I was young and dumb). The difference there was too much (the pistol bullets were .451 inch and the bore diameter for a .458 Win Mag is .458). Those rounds fired okay, but accuracy was horrible. The bullet was a whopping 0.007 smaller than the bore. Here, with the .35 Whelen, I’m 0.001 smaller. Maybe it would work, I thought.
I arrived at the range in the late afternoon and set up a target at 50 yards. At the West End Gun Club, the rifle range points about 20-degrees north of due west, and what that means is that late afternoon shooting involves shooting into the sun (the sun is off to the left about 20 degrees). Everything I’ve read about the effects of lighting on bullet point of impact says that the point of impact moves in the opposite direction that light emanates from, but my experience has always been exactly the opposite. If the light is coming from the left, my point of impact is to the left, and that’s what I experienced with the Whelen.
My Ruger has a brass bead front sight (which I think is the worst kind of front sight), and it had a decided flare on the left side from the sinking sun. Sure enough, my first group was sharply offset to the left. Tight, but to the left. I shifted the sight over to the right, and my guesstimate put the point of impact dead even with the centerline of the target. I fired a 3-shot group, moved the front down a hair, and then fired a 5-shot group. All were gratifying small, given that I was shooting almost into the sun by then and using iron sights (well, brass and iron, but you know what I mean).
My 50-yard .35 Whelen target. The first group (a 0.795-inch group) was off to the left. I drifted the rear sight to the right and shot the 0.490-inch, 3-shot group. Then I moved the rear sight down a hair (or was it a hare?) and shot a 5-shot, 1.133-inch group. The top 3-shot, 2.037-inch group was with full power, 200-grain Hornady jacketed bullets.
This is looking good. I am very satisfied with the accuracy I’m getting with the reduced velocity jacketed pistol bullet groups. They’re maybe about 1500 feet per second, and that just feels right.
Then, just for giggles, I fired another 3-shot group with “real” .35 Whelen ammo, loaded with the 200-grain Hornady jacketed softpoint bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 ammo. That’s at the low end of the big bore loads in the Hornady manual, recoil was substantially higher, and as expected, the group was quite a bit higher (I had the rear sight all the way up for the reduced velocity loads). It wasn’t as tight as the pistol bullet reduced loads, but it’s the first load I tried in the big boy .35 Whelen load region. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was, by now, nearly directly even with my line of sight. I have a million excuses, folks.
The real deal…a big boy .35 Whelen load with a 200-grain Hornady bullet designed for big game rifle shooting. Recoil was more than with the reduced loads, but it was not overwhelming. I’d say it was about the same as a 30 06, but this was at the low end of the .35 Whelen propellant range. The reduced loads discussed above are more fun.
Overall, this is good stuff. At least it is to me. I’m sure there’s a clown or two on Facebook who shoots quarter-inch groups offhand in the rain at 500 yards with his .35 Whelen (it’s always a guy, never a gal, making those insane claims), but for a geezer like me shooting iron sights, this ain’t bad for the second time I’ve had this rifle on the range. You can bet there will be more.
You might be wondering: Why not just go with a full-bore, factory-equivalent load? I’m way ahead of you there. I’ve got a hundred rounds of factory-level .35 Whelen loads ready to go with 200-grain and 250-grain jacketed Hornady bullets (well, now it’s 97, as three of them went through that target you see above). Me? I’m on a quest to develop a decent reduced load for this rifle and I am making good progress. I can shoot the full bore stuff later; for now, the reduced load quest continues. I’ve got good results with the jacketed 158-grain Hornady pistol bullets; when the Montana 200-grain cast bullets arrive, I’ll let you know how they work.
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Like the title says, this is a story within a story. It’s about using primer pickup tubes with my resurrected Star reloader, and how Lady Luck smiled on me yet again.
First, a bit of background. There are a few approaches in the reloading world for transferring primers from the primer box into the reloader. In our general series on reloading, I showed how to use the Lee primer tool, which is what I generally use when I’m loading on a single stage press like my RCBS Rockchucker. Another approach is to use a primer pickup tube and a primer tray. See, the deal is that you don’t want to touch the primers with your bare fingers. You might get skin oils on the primer, and that could make the primer inert. As explained earlier, in this game, you want all the primers to be “ert.”
The first step is to transfer primers from the box they come in into a primer tray, like you see below.
That green circular deal on the left in the photo above is the primer tray. It consists of a base and a lid. You take the lid off and drop the primers into the base, like you see below.
When you do that, though, invariably some of the primers will face up and some will face down. We want them all facing down in the tray’s base, and we get that by jiggling the base. There are little circumferential ridges molded into the base, and when you jiggle the tray, it makes all the primers face down (see below).
Get ready for more cleverness here, folks. What we do next is put the lid back on the primer tray, invert it, and then remove the base from the lid. That leaves us with the lid, and all the primers in it are facing up (see below).
At this point, we pick up the primers from the tray using a primer pickup tube like you see in the photo below.
The tube you see in the photo above is an RCBS primer pickup tube. It’s a hollow tube with a spring catch on one end and a spring clip on the other. What you do is take that tube and push it down (spring end down) on top of each primer. That stacks the primers, one on top of the other, in the tube. Then you invert it over the primer magazine on the Star reloader, remove the spring clip, and all the primers in the pickup tube drop into the Star’s primer magazine.
Star reloaders originally had a brass primer pickup tube, but that didn’t come with the one I have. I’m not complaining; my Star reloader was free. And I figured I’d just use an RCBS primer pickup tube, because I knew had three or four of those stashed away somewhere. But I couldn’t find the things. Then I remembered I had put a bunch of reloading odds and ends in a 50 cal ammo can somewhere, and I went through maybe 10 ammo cans before I found it. I used the RCBS primer pickup tube and I had to hold it carefully in alignment with the Star’s primer magazine when transferring the primers from the inverted tube, pulling the pin, and letting the primers fall into the Star brass primer magazine. It worked just fine. It wasn’t the original Star gear, but hey, you go to war with the Army you have.
After I did that, I went on to other things. I thought I was doing pretty good, you know, finding those RCBS primer pickup tubes, but the box they were in kept playing over and over again in my mind. Something was tickling the neurons, but I didn’t know what it was. Then it hit me. I remembered earlier in the day when I took the RCBS primer pickup tube out of the box. I could see it clearly in my mind:
There were two other brass primer pickup tubes in that box. In my eagerness to get the RCBS primer pickup tubes (the ones I was looking for), I reached right over the brass tubes. Could it be? I put that stuff away a decade ago, way before I ever had the Star.
I went back to that box immediately, and son of a gun, there were not one, but two Star original brass primer pickup tubes. Two! I think they came from Sue’s Dad before he passed away more than 10 years ago (he was a reloader, too), and I got a lot of his old bits and pieces. He never had a Star reloader that I ever saw, but he must have latched onto these two primer pickup tubes somewhere along his journey through life. How about that?
So, back to the story du jour…and more of the Star folks’ cleverness. Star used a slightly different approach than did RCBS. For starters, they made a cross cut in the pickup end of their primer pickup tubes to give the spring tension needed to hold the primers in the tube.
I started picking up a batch of primers from the primer tray lid with my newly-discovered Star primer pickup tube.
When you get that last one, you push it the rest of the way in with a probe (not your finger). With apologies in advance for the inadequate photo depth-of-field, here’s what the last primer looks like in the Star tube.
Then you invert the tube, so all the primers are at the other end. The spring clip keeps them from falling out. There’s a flange on the end of the Star primer pickup tube. It interfaces with the Star reloader’s primer magazine to keep the primer pickup tube aligned with the primer magazine tube.
Here’s the top end of the Star reloader’s primer magazine, with the primer follower in place. I removed it and placed the primer pickup tube on top.
At this point, I then removed the spring clip, and all the primers that were in the primer pickup tube transferred (gravity feed!) into the primer magazine.
So there you have it. The Star is up and running, and I’ll post about cleaning up a few more details on this magnificent old machine in the next Star blog. Stay tuned!
Roscoe: It’s slang for a snubnose revolver. No one is really sure where the term originated. There are others…heater, rod, piece, burner, gat (that last one is easy, with me knowing a little bit about The Gatling Gun and all), but the origins of most of these terms are lost in the haze of handgun history. And on that Roscoe terminology, I recently tumbled onto a very cool website I’ll be talking about a bit more here on the ExNotes blog. But that’s for later. This blog is about my Roscoe.
It’s a Model 60 (no dash) stainless steel Smith and Wesson snubbie, to be specific. I mentioned it and the work my good buddy TJ was doing to it not too long ago, and it’s back. And it’s awesome. I had TJ do an action job, a little cosmetics work, and fix a problem or two.
First, the action work. TJ lightened both the double and single action trigger pull, and he did it the old-fashioned way…lots of hand work, polishing, and fitting. Here’s what the guts of my Model 60 look like after a TJ Level 1 action job:
I initially thought I’d have TJ put a high polish on the entire revolver (it would have been something north of $300 just for that work), but TJ was looking out for my best interests. “I can do the whole revolver,” TJ said, “but it will look a lot better if you just have me do the ejector rod, the cylinder, the trigger, the cylinder release, and the hammer.” He was right. It looks awesome.
Here are a few more shots of the high polish TJ put on these components.
The work on the trigger is lot more than just cosmetic. TJ recontoured the face of the trigger in addition to polishing it, and it really makes a difference in double action shooting. It’s much easier to find and control that precise instant when the hammer drops during double action shooting with the new trigger contour.
As part of the Level I action job, TJ also applied orange Day Glo to the front sight. It’s a small touch that works wonders. Finding and putting the front sight on target is much faster with this Day Glo treatment. It’s not just a cosmetic thing.
I mentioned in a previous blog that the revolver was hard to open, and TJ found and fixed the root causes of that problem. The ejector rod threads had stripped, the ejector rod’s axis wasn’t concentric to the bore, and the barrel underlug catch was not properly configured. My Model 60 opens and closes the way it should now. It’s slick.
Here’s another small detail I like…polishing the cylinder release and its slotted nut (it’s not a screw, even though it looks like one). This little bit adds a nice touch to the revolver.
The grips are smooth rosewood, and they work well with their S&W emblems against the stainless steel revolver. I like the look.
So, on to the main question: How did the TJ-customized Model 60 shoot? Superbly well, thank you. I tried two loads with the new-to-me Model 60. The first was the 148-grain wadcutter with 2.7 grains of Bullseye; the second was a 158-grain cast truncated flat point bullet with the same 2.7 grains of Bullseye. I loaded both on my new-to-me freebie Star progressive reloader. Yep, the Star is up and running now, and how it works will be a story for a future blog (in the meantime, you can read about the Star resurrection here).
I fired four targets at 50 feet and the results are interesting. The first two targets were with the 148-grain wadcutter load (I use an Alco silhouette that has four small silhouettes on a single target sheet).
I shot the target on the left with a 148-grain Missouri double-ended wadcutter bullet; the one on the right is with a Hornady swaged 148-grain hollow base wadcutter bullet. I’ll tell you more about those in a bit.
Before TJ did any work on my Model 60, the gun printed wadcutter groups a good 12 inches to the right (good if you want to hit your bad guy in the elbow, I suppose). After TJ fixed the ejector rod issue I described above, the wadcutter bullets still shot a little bit to the right, but much less than they had before. That rightward bias is a function of the load, not the gun (as you’ll see in the next set of targets).
The really good news is how the Model 60 performed with the 158-grain truncated flat point bullets. Those puppies shot exactly to point of aim, and after warming up with the first group on the left target below, I got serious about focusing on that beautiful Day Glo front sight and shot the group you see on the right target. Point of aim was at 6:00, and for a 2-inch barrel Roscoe, that ain’t bad shooting.
If you’re not familiar with all this wadcutter and truncated flat point bullet business, here’s your lesson for the day. Let’s call it Bulletology 101.
The brass cartridge on the left is loaded with a Missouri 148-grain DEWC (double ended wadcutter) cast bullet; the nickel-plated 38 Special cartridge to its right is loaded with a Hornady 148-grain swaged hollow base wadcutter (HBWC). The Missouri DEWC bullets are symmetrical (they’re the same top and bottom); the Hornady HBWC bullets have (as the name implies) a hollow base (you can see those bullets in the center of the photo above, one inverted and the other right side up). The idea behind a wadcutter bullet is that it punches a clean hole in the target (that makes it easier to score). The two bullets on the right side of the photo above are 158-grain cast truncated flat points. I have a local caster make these for me.
I am enjoying my Model 60 and the custom work TJ did on it, but I’ll tell you what…this puppy bites. The recoil is significant (even with the lighter 148-grain wadcutter loads), and I’m a guy used to shooting big bore handguns. That little .38 Special cartridge is nothing to sneeze at (Elmer Keith, Dirty Harry, and all the rest of the bigger-is-better gunsels notwithstanding).
For a defense gun, I can live with Roscoe’s recoil (it’s not a handgun I would put 100 rounds through during a range session, though). For all you keyboard commandos out there, I know, I know. You can do that all day long. I can, too, with a 1911. But this little Chiefs Special is a handful, and after firing 5 or 6 groups, I’ve had enough. Your mileage may vary. I know, too, that if I put the Pachmayr-style oversize rubber grips on it, it would be more manageable (and I own a pair of those). But then it wouldn’t look like it does now, and I love that look.
Hey, there’s more to this story…TJ also did a little work on my Compact 1911. The latest improvements on the Compact 1911 are coming up in a future blog, so stay tuned!
Want silhouette targets for your next trip to the range? Don’t pay exorbitant range prices. Get them here.
Custom grips for a snubbie Smith and Wesson? Take a look here!
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Want to turn your handgun into a one-of-a-kind combat companion? You don’t need to live out here; TJ’s work is carried daily by law enforcement officers (and others whose lives depend on their sidearms) all over the world. Here’s where you need to go to get started:
Back in January I tested a bunch of 9mm cast bullet loads in the three handguns you see above: A SIG P226 Scorpion, a Smith and Wesson Model 659, and the Springfield Armory 1911 Target. For that test series (you can read it here), all the loads used the Missouri 125-grain cast roundnose bullet with different powders and different charge weights. My cast bullet testing showed the SIG to be the most accurate, followed by the Springfield and then the Smith and Wesson Model 659.
I promised an update with jacketed bullets to assess accuracy and functionality of all three handguns (and to find favored accuracy loads for each). It took a while, but I finally got around to making good on that promise this past week. The six different loads I tested for the jacketed 9mm test series are summarized below:
Actually, the term “jacketed” doesn’t really apply to the Xtreme bullets (they are copper plated, not copper jacketed). The Armscor bullets are brass jacketed. Both the Winchester and Speer bullets are copper jacketed bullets. As you can see from the table above and the photos below, the Xtreme, Armscor, and Winchester bullets were of the roundnose configuration. The Speer 147-grain bullets were jacketed flatnosed bullets. I didn’t try any hollow points in this test series; I prefer roundnose bullets in my 9mm handguns. They are reliable.
All groups were 5 shot groups. I shot a total of 360 rounds in the two test series (both the jacketed and cast bullet accuracy tests).
While I was shooting last week, I was a little disappointed. I thought I had done a lot better with the cast bullets back in January. I thought my jacketed groups were larger when I eyeballed the targets, but you never really know until you measure the groups.
9mm jacketed bullets on an Alco target. I like using the Alco target that has four mini-silhouettes on a single target. All testing was at 50 feet.
When I returned home, measured the group sizes, and tabulated the results, I was surprised. The results of the jacketed and plated bullets were not too different from what I had achieved with the cast bullets almost a year ago. Take a look:
The most surprising finding, for me, was that the average results with the jacketed bullets (versus the cast bullets) were almost identical. Here’s that data extracted from the above, shown in a table that makes it a little easier to make the comparison:
My testing showed essentially the same results for the three handguns I tested whether I used cast bullets or jacketed bullets: The SIG P226 Scorpion is the most accurate (it is a magnificent handgun), followed by the Springfield Armory 1911, followed by the Smith and Wesson 659. It doesn’t matter whether it’s with cast or jacketed bullets: The averages are eerily similar for each gun, with a very slight accuracy advantage going to the cast bullets for the SIG and the 1911, and a very slight accuracy advantage going to the jacketed bullets for the Smith 659. But the differences between jacketed and cast bullets are so small they can be ignored. Cast bullets are usually a lot less expensive than jacketed bullets, so this is good knowledge.
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