Good buddy Jose, who has written for us before (I’ll give you a link to his other articles at the end of this blog), sent this story to us a day or two ago. I enjoyed reading it and I think you will, too.
By Jose Armenta
Hi Joe!
I have one you might like….
“Minute of Golf Ball”
I was at the range two weeks ago on a very busy day fooling around with the first 22 semi auto rifle my parents bought me for Christmas when I was 12 years old (um, I mean Santa Claus did). It’s a Marlin Glenfield Model 60 and it came with a 4x scope.
Anyhow some years ago I mounted an inexpensive BSA “Sweet 22” 4×9 scope on it, I mean really inexpensive like 60 or 70 beans. I put four golf balls out on the ground by my targets at 100 yards while some kids and the range hands looked on. Using bulk “rot gut” Federal ammo, I picked off all four balls with four shots. Golf balls fly about 10 to 15 feet when hit with a 22, sort of like when you hit them with a chipper iron. Two kids with a Ruger 10/22 tried bouncing them to no avail. So next range break I set them back up and did it all over again, and the results were 4 for 4!
I told the kids my 50+ year old department store rifle was “minute of golf ball.”
Oh, and yes, it does have the famous Glenfield squirrel stock. I learned to hunt with this rifle so it will always be my favorite.
Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?
Jose
Jose, that’s awesome.
To answer your question (Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?): I know I do, good buddy Greg does, and I suspect quite a few of us do. My first .22 was handed down from my Dad, who bought it when he was 8 years old for $8 in New Jersey of all places (a state with what are probably the most stringent gun laws in the country). I like your story a lot, Jose. It’s a good story, it hits on a topic that many of us can relate to, and it suggests a new blog line: The Rimfire Series. Thanks for submitting this to us, and if you have more stories, please send them in!
I visited with good buddy TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few days ago. I’m having TJ work on my Smith and Wesson Shield (we’ll post that story in a future blog). While I was there we talked about the poor trigger pull inherent to striker-fired pistols, and TJ mentioned his custom Glock. He showed it to me and I was blown away. It is beautiful. I’ve seen custom Glocks before, but nothing like the pistol you see here. This one is in a class all by itself.
TJ calls this pistol the Rock Glock for good reason: Check out the granite-speckled, multi-color Dura-Coat finish. The pictures are good, but they don’t do the gun justice. In person, it is visually arresting. Stunning. Beautiful. There are probably more adjectives I could use, but you get the idea.
TJ’s Glock started life as a Glock 22. Here’s a partial list of the custom features TJ incorporated:
Custom Glock 34 9mm slide
Match barrel with MWG compensator
Double-textured grip stippling on the front strap and trigger guard
Custom contoured slide release (it provides a much easier lock and release)
Extended magazine release
Doctor red dot optical sight-scope
Custom Overwatch aluminum trigger
Match connector
Full action and reliability work
Like all of TJ’s custom handguns, this one is not simply a collection of drop in off the shelf custom parts. TJ does a full customize, fit, and polish on everything (the custom parts and the mating Glock components). The Rock Glock is old world craftsmanship applied to modern weaponry. The man is a perfectionist and it shows in everything he does. It’s what keeps me coming back to TJ when I need (or want) custom work done on my handguns.
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Interestingly, TJ kept the factory Glock striker (the firing pin) in the Rock Glock. He finds them to be much better made than aftermarket strikers. Kudos to Glock on that.
Check out the grip area (both front and back) and the trigger guard. They are deeply stippled to assure a rock-solid, zero slip grip.
One of TJ’s purposes on any project is to assure absolute reliability. That’s not hype. I’ve experienced it with all the guns TJ’s modified for me. Part of that includes recontouring and polishing the feed ramp on semi-auto handguns. Check out TJ’s touches on the Rock Glock’s feed ramp.
TJ let me dry fire the Rock Glock and I was impressed. He told me that the stock gun had a 6.5-pound trigger pull and it was rough. The Rock Glock now has a 3-pound trigger pull and it is buttery smooth.
It was a good visit and I’m eager to get my Shield after TJ works his magic on it. You’ll get the full report here on ExNotes when I do.
Half a lifetime ago I was a yuppie, and the symbols of being a successful yuppie included an MBA and a Rolex. The Rolex was easy (the only requirement was having more money than brains). The MBA was more difficult. It required going back to school, which I did. Getting the MBA definitely gave me a boost. My career at the munitions company was on fast forward; at one point I was the youngest vice president in the Aerojet corporation (then I got fired, but that’s a story for another time). I loved being in the bomb business (business was booming, so to speak), and being a former Army guy, I was in my element.
That could have been me in the ’80s and ’90s. I wore a jacket and tie to work every day. I had the big glasses, too.
Anyway, while I was going to night school for the MBA, one of my classes was titled Human Behavior or something like that. The guy who taught it was a Ph.D in one of the soft sciences, and I knew pretty quickly that he leaned way left. That’s okay; in my book you can lean however you want as long as you don’t expect me to agree with you on every issue.
The first night of class the prof had everyone tell the rest of their class their name and what they did. We were all yuppies, we were all young, and we all had good jobs. It made for good entertainment, but I had a feel for how things were going from the first several yuppies who told us what they did and the prof’s reactions and questions. Yep, the guy was a definite leftie. I started to wonder what his reaction would be to me…a guy firmly entrenched in the military industrial complex working for a munitions company.
“So what do you do, Joe?” Dr. WhatsHisName asked.
“Uh, I’m an engineer,” I said, hoping he would leave it at that, but knowing he wouldn’t.
“What kind of an engineer are you, and who do you work for?”
“Uh, I’m a mechanical engineer,” I said. No sense in oversharing, I figured. Maybe he wouldn’t notice I didn’t name my company.
“Who do you work for?”
“I work for an aerospace company.”
“What company, and what do you engineer?” This guy wasn’t going to give up. I liked my job and I liked what I did, but I wasn’t about to tell Jerry Rubin here I supported the Vietnam War.
“I work for Aerojet, and we make a variety of products.” It had become a contest, and I was losing.
“What are your products?” He had me. Time to ‘fess up.
“I do cluster bombs.” There. It was out. I knew the guy was going to call whoever it is you call when you find someone violating the Geneva Convention. The good doctor stared at me for several seconds. The other 30 or so yuppies in the class were dead silent. It was a pregnant pause if ever there was one and we were pretty close to the 9-month mark. Somebody’s water was about to break.
“Does your family know what you do?” he softly asked, speaking almost in a whisper.
“My wife does,” I said, mirroring his subdued tone.
“And how does she feel about how you earn a living?”
At this point, I knew I had to come clean. “Truth be told, Professor, she’s disappointed in me.” I had hoped that would end the discussion, but the guy would not let up. He was a dog and I was the bone. Then I sensed a way out, anticipating what his next question would be.
“What does she say to you?” he asked.
“Well, Doc, like I said, she’s disappointed, and she’s made that known on several occasions.” The good Professor was nodding knowingly. He was hearing my confession. I don’t recall specifically, but I’m pretty sure he was smiling. I was on a roll and I continued. “You see, Professor, my wife works for TRW’s Ballistic Missiles Division. They do nuclear intercontinental missiles and she’s always asking me why I’m wasting my time screwing around with conventional weapons. If you’re going to go, she always says, go big. Go nuclear.”
My yuppie classmates started laughing. Me, I was scared. I was running a perfect 4.00 grade point average in the MBA program up to that point, and I thought I had just blown any chance of aceing this course. The professor nodded without expression, made a note on his pad, and went on to the next yuppie. My being a wiseass had earned a good laugh, but that note he made couldn’t have been a good thing and I was afraid it would cost me.
So how did it turn out? I busted my chops in that course and I got my A. But I was sweating bullets for the rest of the term. Little, non-nuclear bullets, but bullets nonetheless. More importantly, the cluster bombs I helped engineer won the Gulf War a few years later in 1991. Most of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard tanks were taken out with CBU-87/B cluster bombs and GAU-8/A 30mm ammo (and my company, Aerojet Ordnance, also made the ammo for those A-10 Gatlings). Sometimes when studying human behavior, the guys who know (I mean, really know) reach the only conclusion and solution possible: An adequate quantity of high explosives delivered on target. I’m not at all embarrassed about having had a hand in that. Fact is, I’m proud of it.
The Ruger Model 77 rifle goes back to 1968. It gave Ruger a place in the centerfire hunting rifle class, and like the Remington Model 700 and Winchester Model 70 it would compete against, it outdid both by using the lucky number 7 twice in its name. The Model 77 is a good-looking bolt action rifle based on the Mauser design, with a classic walnut stock designed by famed custom rifle builder Lenard Brownell. I’ve owned several Model 77 Rugers, including this new-in-the-box .30 06 Liberty gun. I’d like to be able to tell you how accurate it is, but I can’t. I’ve never fired it. Nor has anyone else, other than the person who test fired it before it left the factory.
Every firearm Ruger manufactured in 1976 carried this inscription.There’s no lawyer’s warning on the barrel about reading the instructions. We call these “pre-warning” guns. They were made in a time when people had more common sense.
The Liberty designation mentioned above refers to the “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” roll marking on the barrel, which was a feature Ruger had on all its guns made in 1976. I bought the rifle in El Paso that year (I was in the Army stationed at Fort Bliss). This one has every thing that came with the rifle (the original serial numbered box, the scope rings and their blue cloth bag, the instructions, and the warranty card). It’s a brand new, unfired, almost-50-year-old rifle.
The tang safety Model 77 is considered more desireable.The original box. The cardboard held up surprisingly well. This gun is new in the box (NIB) and this is the original box.Original documents!The box is serialized to the rifle. I obliterated the last number, which almost makes it look like the serial number matches the chambering.
You know, Rugers (and most guns, for that matter) were different 50 years ago. The bluing was deeper, the checkering was hand cut (and way better than the laser cut fuzzball checkering you see today), and the guns just felt better. This Ruger is like that. It’s immaculate, and there’s only safe ding on the stock. Other than than, there’s not a mark, dent, ding, gouge, scratch, or (Heaven forbid) spot of rust anywhere on the rifle. Even the anodized aluminum floorplate is pristine.
The Ruger Model 77 MSRP was $169.50 in 1976 and I believe I paid something like $139 for this one. I probably have the original receipt for it somewhere. A new Ruger Hawkeye in .30 06 (the rifle the Model 77 evolved into) lists for $1399 (yep, ten times what I paid in 1976), but a new one is not as cool as the one you see here.
Plain walnut, but elegant in its own way.The unmarred anodized aluminum floorplate.Early Ruger Model 77s wore this grip cap.Check out this gorgeous hand cut checkering. You don’t see that too much today!The rifle’s sole safe ding, done by yours truly. Nobody’s perfect. It will steam out. I’m leaving it like this.God’s cartridge. The .30 06 is one of the all time greats.
This rifle may be going on the block soon. It’s time to start downsizing the armory and it’s time for someone else to enjoy owning it. You’re probably wondering how much I’m going to ask for it. So am I. As I look at this magnificent example of 1970s firearm manufacturing and post these photos, I’m having second thoughts. It is a .30 06, and that’s God’s cartridge. Maybe it needs to send a few rounds downrange, and maybe I’m the guy to do it. We’ll see.
Check out that photo above. It’s a flat dark earth Smith and Wesson M&P 9 Shield, with ammo reloaded using the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit. Yep, this is a “two-fer” blog: A first look at the Shield, and an evaluation of the first loads prepped with the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit.
I initially tried two loads in the Shield:
124-grain plated roundnose Rainier bullets and 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 powder.
124-grain plated roundnose Rainier bullets and 5.6 grains of Accurate No. 5 powder.
I wanted to start low and work up, partly because that’s good reloading practice and partly because the Shield was new to me and I didn’t know how it would work and what it would like. The first reduced load (5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 and a 124-grain plated bullet) wouldn’t cycle the Shield’s action. I fired 50 rounds this way, one at a time. I’d have to pull the slide back and release it after each shot. For the Shield portion of the evaluation, I knew I needed to bump up the load. For the ammo portion of the evaluation, every load fed and fired flawlessly. The Lee turret press had done its job.
Bumping up to the 5.6 grains of Accurate No. 5 (still with the 124-grain plated bullet), the Shield’s action cycled but a couple of times the slide closed after the last round in the magazine fired. I fired 50 rounds in this test, loading 5 rounds in the Shield’s magazine each time. The Shield was pushing the slide back far enough to strip off a new round, but on two magazine loadings the slide did not go far enough back to engage the slide stop after the last round. I needed to bump the charge a scosh more. For the ammo eval, every load fed, fired, and ejected flawlessly. Again, the Lee turret press had done its job.
The Lee Classic Turret Press, a phenomenal value and a great reloading setup.
At this point, I knew I needed to go a little higher on the powder charge with the 124-grain plated bullet, and I knew the Lee Classic Turret Press was making good ammo. Everything fed and there were no jams.
The first rounds loaded to an overall cartridge length of 1.610 inches. I later moved that back to 1.140 inches.
I loaded the above 9mm ammo to an overall length of 1.160 inches, which is longer than I usually load 9mm. The Lee manual has the cartridge overall length with a plated 124-grain Rainier bullet at 1.169 inches. The cartridges would go in the Shield’s magazine and they fed fine when shooting, but when loading them in the magazine, the first cartridge tended to go horizontal instead of being angled up as others were loaded on top of it. That hung up the magazine while cartridges were being loaded into it. In the past, I had normally loaded 9mm at around 1.120 to 1.130 inches overall length. I decided that for my next load I would go up to 5.8 grains of Accurate No. 5, and I would seat the bullets for an overall cartridge length of 1.140 inches. I went home and in 20 minutes I had loaded another 50 rounds. That Lee Classic Turret is fast.
50 rounds of custom-crafted 9mm ammo created on the Lee Classic Turret Press.
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When I returned to the West End Gun Club, I set up a target at 50 feet, took out the Shield, and loaded the first magazine. Loading to a cartridge overall length of 1.140 made it easier to load the magazine. So far, so good.
Next, I fired 20 rounds to assess the ammo’s functionality. Everything worked perfectly. Every round fed, every round ejected, and life was good. The Shield’s bright fixed sights were printing a bit to the left, so I held to the right on a fresh target and rattled off 30 rounds.
Thirty rounds at 50 feet from the Shield. Not too shabby for a belly gun.
The Shield’s recoil was not at all uncomfortable; it was way better than a .38 snubnose revolver. The Shield is a very light pistol (19.0 ounces). That’s lighter than the S&W Model 60 (23.2 ounces) or a Compact 1911 (33.4 ounces). Those weights for the 1911 and the Model 60 may not sound like a lot, but (trust me on this) it’s enough to weigh on you at the end of the day. I guess the Shield’s light weight is the big advantage of a Tupperware gun. I like it, and I like the fact that the gun is pleasant to shoot.
A few days later, I was on an indoor range and I set up the Alco target that has four mini-silhouettes on a single sheet. I ran it out to 21 feet and put 50 rounds on target (dividing them roughly between the four targets), all shot offhand while standing. The load was the same as the one mentioned above. That’s 5.8 grains of Accurate No. 5 and a 124-grain plated Rainier roundnose bullet at an overall cartridge length of 1.140 inches, and for these, I used mixed brass.
The quad mini-silhouette from Alco Target in Monrovia, California, and 50 rounds fired standing at 7 yards.
I also tried two different powder-coated bullets with Accurate No. 5. One was the 147-grain Boudreau flat nosed bullet with 4.8 grains of Accurate No. 5. This is an accurate load in the Shield (even more so than the plated bullet load mentioned above), but it leaded the bore. The other was the Boudreau 124-grain round nose bullet with 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5; it, too, leaded the bore. The plated bullets did not lead the bore at all so I think they are a better load. I loaded more 147-grain powder coated bullets with a lighter charge to see if that would eliminate the bore leading, but they did not and I had cycling issues. 4.8 grains of Accurate No. 5 is what this 147-grain powder coated bullet wants.
The Shield with 124-grain powder coated roundnose bullets. These leaded the bore.147-grain powder coated bullets. These, too, leaded the bore. They are accurate, though.Another Alco quad mini-silhouette with 5-shot groups fired standing at 7 yards, this time with the 147-grain powder coated Boudreau bullet and 4.8 grains of Accurate No. 5.
Let’s talk about the Shield a bit. My Shield is the first iteration (not the Shield 2.0, as that model is not sold in California). The Shield has a 3 1/8-inch barrel.
The Shield’s 8-round magazine. The left arrow points to the spacer. It can slide up, as indicated by the right arrow.
The Shield’s magazine could be better. It has a plastic spacer at the bottom, and that spacer rides up when loading the magazine. Conceivably, it could interfere with seating the magazine in the gun. In my opinion it is a poor design. The collar slides down as easy as it slides up, so that’s good. You get two mags with the Shield. The one you see above holds 8 rounds and it has a grip extender that feels just right to me. There’s another one that doesn’t have the grip extender and it holds 7 rounds. I haven’t done anything with that one, other than checking to make sure it was in the box when I bought the gun.
The Shield’s sights are the best I’ve ever used. They are bright and easy to see. The sights let in light from the sides, and that design just flat works. It’s the first gun I have ever shot with these sights. They are better than my SIG P226s’s Tritium sights, and those sights are good. The photo below isn’t enhanced; it’s what the Smith’s sights actually look like.
The Shield’s sights. They are the best I’ve ever used.
The Shield’s trigger, in a word, is terrible. There are other triggers available for the Shield, but I will leave this one alone. The trigger got a little better with use and a couple of cleanings (I’ve put about 600 rounds through the Shield so far). The Shield is a striker-fired gun and the trigger is not what I would consider good, but it’s better than it was initially. Compared to a good 1911 like the Springfield, it’s awful. But, it’s good enough to get rounds on target (as you can see above).
The Shield’s slide release, out of the box, was super stiff and essentially unusable. I could release the slide with two thumbs, but not with one. I found it best to pull the slide back and let it go to release the slide. This aspect of the design (or its execution) is poor, and requiring two hands to release the slide is not good for a defensive weapon. A close examination of the slide stop showed that it was rough where it interfaced with the slide, so I judiciously worked it over with 600-grit sandpaper, and it releases more easily now. I can release it with one thumb with no magazine in the gun, but it still takes two thumbs and a lot of effort with the mag inserted and that’s bad. It’s surprising that Smith and Wesson would let this happen.
A SIG P226, the Smith and Wesson Shield, and a Springfield Armory 1911, all chambered in 9mm. Flat dark earth is the new black.
I had the SIG and my 1911 with me when I shot the Shield. The Shield doesn’t look that much smaller in a group photo, but it is flatter and it will carry concealed better. In subsequent blogs, I’ll explore different loads prepared on the Lee Classic Turret press fired in all three of the guns above. I fired a few rounds through the Springfield, and they worked just fine; the same is true for the SIG P226. Interestingly, the lighter loads that wouldn’t work in the Shield did work in the Springfield. It’s counterintuitive, but compact handguns are tougher to make work well than are full size handguns. That’s because the recoil spring in a compact handgun has to be much stiffer than one in a full size gun.
The Shield’s sear deactivation lever. You have to push it down to remove the slide and barrel.
To takedown the Shield, you do not simply unlock the slide takedown lever. There’s a sear deactivation release in the magazine well (identified with a red arrow in the photo above), and you have to push that down before you can turn the slide takedown lever for disassembly. You can’t do it with your finger; you need a small screwdriver or a thin pen. With the SIG, you just turn the slide takedown lever with the slide back.
Cleaning the Shield is a breeze. You make sure the gun is unloaded, release the mag, lower the sear deactivation lever, rotate the slide takedown lever, and the gun comes apart. The slide comes off the frame, and the spring subassembly and barrel come out. That’s it. Five parts (the magazine, the receiver, the barrel, the spring subassembly, and the slide.
The plated ammo I loaded on the Lee turret press didn’t lead at all. Zero. Zip. Nada. The powder coated bullets did, which surprised me. All were accurate.
The bottom line? Let me put it this way: I like the Shield; I love the Lee Classic Turret Press kit. The Shield will get better with more shooting and I want to try more loads in it, but that 5.8-grains of Accurate No.5 and 124-grain plated Rainier roundnose load is a winner. The Lee Classic Turret press and all its accessories were good to go right from the beginning. Its design and quality are excellent.
The Lee Classic Turret Press…what can I say? It’s awesome. It’s fast, easy to use, inexpensive, and it makes great ammo. I say it’s the best bang for the buck in the reloading world. As an engineer I’m impressed; as a consumer and reloader I am delighted. I have already fired several hundred rounds loaded on the Lee Classic Turret Press in my Shield, the Springfield, and the SIG and once I settled on a load, every one of them fed, fired, extracted, and ejected perfectly in three different handguns. I had a box of 1000 124-grain plated 9mm bullets a few days ago; I like the Lee turret press so much they’re all gone now (they were either sent downrange or they’ve been loaded and labeled and they’re waiting their turn to go downrange). I love reloading and shooting; I love it even more now that I’m loading with my Lee turret press.
A word of caution here…these loads performed acceptably in my guns. Your firearms may vary and you need to develop your own loads. Always start low and work up in any load development program.
We’re just about there setting up and using the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit. We explained in prior blogs how to set up everything except for the safety prime, and that’s what we’re going to focus on here. The safety prime can be purchased separately; when you purchase the Classic Turret Press Kit it is in included. You literally get everything you need to start reloading with the Classic Turret Press Kit except the dies and the brass, bullets, primers, and powder. I chose a set of 9mm dies because it was my intent to load 9mm only on my classic turret press, but I like the press so much I’m going to buy additional turrets so facilitate changing from one cartridge to another. I really like the Classic Turret Press Kit
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But I digress; back to today’s focus, and that’s on the Lee safety prime. It arrives packaged nicely, as has been the case with everything from Lee.
The Lee Safety Prime packaging. This carton arrives inside the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit box.Inside the Lee Safety Prime box.
The Lee safety prime kit includes a primer two primer feed mounts, two primer trays, two primer feed chutes, and two primer triggers. The primer tray, feed chute, and trigger are provided as assembled units. One is for large primers, the other for small primers. They are marked accordingly. The two primer feed mounts you see in the photo below are included because the safety prime can be used on different types of presses. We’re installing this on a classic turret press, so we will only need one of the two brackets (the one on the left side of the photo below).
Mounts for the single stage Lee press and the turret press, and primer trays, feed chutes, and triggers for small and large primers.
When we prepared the blog on installing the classic turret press, I showed but did not explain the two primer arms that Lee provides with the turret press. There’s one for large primers (either rifle or handgun) and one for small primers (either rifle or handgun. These mount easily; you simply drop them into the slot on the ram, they fall into place, and they pivot on an axle in the ram.
Primer arms for large and small primers. These are included in the turret press hardware.
There’s an axle inside the press ram, as shown in the photo below. It’s the attach point for the primer arm. The primer arm drops into the ram when there’s no shellholder in the ram (if the shellholder is in place, you cannot insert the primer arm, so you need to remove the shellholder to install the primer arm).
The axle for mounting the primer arm.Inserting the primer arm into the ram. The slot shown by the red arrow mounts over the axle shown in the photo above.
Once the primer arm is installed, reinstall the shellholder.
The primer arm mounted on the ram.
As the ram is lowered, in the last inch or so of its travel the primer arm contacts the press base and the arm rotates to place the primer directly below the cartridge case. When the press is lowered completely, the press arm seats the primer into the cartridge case in the shellholder. We’ll show and discuss this further below.
The next step is to mount the safety prime components on the classic turret press. There’s a 1/2-inch bolt and washer securing the top of press; it needs to be removed to install the safety prime mounting bracket.
The 1/2-inch turret head mounting bolt has to removed to install the safety prime mount.The turret head mounting bolt and its washer.
The 1/2-inch bolt and its washer are then installed in the safety prime mounting bracket, and the mounting bracket is installed on the press.
The bolt and washer on the safety prime mount.
Next, we’ll show the safety prime tray, feed chute, and trigger. As mentioned above, as delivered from Lee the primer tray (the big triangular affair with the Lee name and appropriate warnings), the feed chute, and the trigger are already assembled. The primer tray is a press fit into the feed chute; you can leave them assembled as shown below. Note that the feed chute has slot near where it meets the primer tray; this area interfaces with the safety prime we mounted on the press.
The small primer tray, feed chute, and trigger. The tab the arrows point to slips into the safety prime mount.
The feed chute fits into a loose joint on the safety prime mount. There’s a lot of relative motion between these two items, and that’s okay. Lee cleverly designed this loose joint so that it has six degrees of freedom. This very clever design allows the safety prime trigger to move up, down, left, and right, and it can rotate. We’ll see why that’s important in a bit.
The feed chute coupled to the safety prime mount.
The Lee safety prime primer tray is a clamshell arrangement with a lock and an on-off switch. In the open position, it allows the primer tray to open so you can load primers into the tray. In the lock position, the tray is locked closed and it blocks primer entry into the tray. In the on position, it allows primers to feed into the feed chute.
The primer tray has a switch that locks, opens, and allows the primers to flow from the tray to the feed chute.
When you want to load primers in the primer tray, you can do either remove the primer tray from the feed chute, or you can remove the entire primer tray, feed chute, and primer trigger from the press. To open the primer tray, place the lock in the open position, and open the tray’s clamshell.
The safety prime primer tray in the open condition.
Put the primers into the tray. You’ll notice that some face up, and some face down.
Primers loaded into the safety prime primer tray.
Once the primers are in the tray, and with the tray open, gently jiggle the primer tray back and forth. Don’t get too aggressive here or you’ll jiggle primers out of the tray. Just go easy, and after a few seconds, all the primers will face up. The jiggling allows the ridges in the tray to turn all the primers face up.
After gently jiggling the primer tray left to right the primers will all face up.
Once the primers are all face up, close the tray clamshell and put the lock in the lock position. This will prevent primers from leaving the tray until you want them to.
The safety prime primer tray closed and locked. The primer tray is shown removed from the feed chute, but it doesn’t need to be to load primers into the tray.
With the tray mounted on the feed chute, insert the primer tray, feed chute, and trigger assembly into the safety prime mount on the turret press.
A loaded primer tray, feed chute, and trigger mounted on the safety prime mount.
At this point, move the primer tray lock to the open position, and the primers will fill the feed chute. The entire affair can be moved around (within a limited range) to allow the safety prime trigger to find where it wants to be.
The interface between the safety prime mount and the primer tray, feed chute, and trigger allows for left to right, up and down, and rotational movement.
Here’s a macro shot of the forward end of the trigger. It includes guides (one on each side) that allow moving the trigger to make contact with the primer arm and correctly position itself.
The trigger base includes two ramps that guide the trigger over the primer arm.A macro shot of the trigger over the primer arm. The trigger’s ramps guide the primer arm into position.
Here’s how this works. I positioned the sizing die directly above the ram, with the ram in the lowered position. I raised the ram a small amount and placed a 9mm cartridge case (one that I’ve already fired) in the shellholder. I then fully raised the ram, driving the fired case into the sizing die and decapper. I heard a satisfying “tink” as the primer fell into the primer catch tube.
The spent primer tube hangs beneath the turret press ram. You can remove the red cap at the bottom to dump the spent primers. This is the cleanest spent primer collection approach I’ve ever used.
With the press in the fully-raised position, I pushed the primer trigger forward into the primer arm. That allowed the trigger to align with the primer arm. I then pushed down on the trigger. That’s the required motion on the trigger: Forward and then rotate downward, which places a fresh primer from the feed chute in the primer arm. I then allowed the trigger to swing away from the primer arm.
Pushing the trigger forward to mate with the primer arm and then down deposits a single primer into the primer arm. It’s a very clever approach.
Voila! When the trigger was allowed to move away from the primer arm, there was a CCI 500 small pistol primer waiting to be seated. The safety prime moving away from this primer is a very important safety feature. If the primer in the primer arm fires when it is seated, the prior rotation of the safety prime trigger (and the rest of the safety prime assembly) keeps the other primers away from the one being seated, and prevents the other primers from sypathetically igniting.
And there you go!
I then lowered the ram with a freshly sized case. As the ram moved down, the primer arm contacted the press base and began to rotate into the ram.
Lowering the ram rotates the primer arm into position.
When the ram approached the last part of its travel, the primer arm positioned the primer directly beneath the deprimed and resized case. As I moved the lever up for to complete the stroke, I could feel the primer being seated.
Fully lowering the ram seats the primer into the case that was deprimed on the upstroke.A freshly primed case.
Wow, this was cool stuff. I had already adjusted the Lee auto-drum powder measure to throw the correct charge of Accurate No. 5 powder (see our earlier blog). Now all I needed to do was to adjust the bullet seating die and the factory crimp die.
Adjusting the bullet seating die involved positioning the turret so the case was directly beneath the die. I wanted to seat the bullet to the desired cartridge overall length, but I didn’t want to crimp the bullet with the bullet seating die. That involved running the die all the way into the turret so that it contacted the shellholder, and then backing it out enough so the crimping feature in the die did not contact the cartridge case mouth. Then, the next step was to adjust the bullet seater (the knob on top of the bullet seating die) so that it achieved the desired cartridge overall length (in this case, I was shooting for 1.160 inches). The Lee Modern Reloading manual recommend 1.169 inches, but I didn’t want the cartridge to be that long. I made the adjustment by putting a bullet in the case mouth and repeatingly running the ram up, screwing in the bullet seater a little bit at a time between each stroke until it seated the bullet to a cartridge overall length of 1.160 inches. All this is explained in more detail in our earlier blog on using Lee’s Deluxe 4-die set.
The 9mm Luger cartridge dimensions as shown in the Lee Modern Reloading manual.A 124-grain plated roundnose bullet started in a 9mm case.The bullet seating die. The red arrow points to the bullet seater. Screw it in to seat the bullet deeper, screw it out to not seat the bullet as deep.Right on the money, at the desired cartridge overall length of 1.160 inches.
Now that I had the bullet seating die adjusted, the last step was to adjust the crimping die. That’s also explained in detail in our earlier blog on using Lee’s Deluxe 4-die set. What his entailed was raising the ram fully and then screwing the factory crimp die into the turret until it contacted the shell holder. I then adjusted the crimp by screwing in the crimping feature in the crimping die. Lee recommends a case mouth dimension of 0.381 inches; I wanted a case mouth outside diameter of 0.378 inches. I wanted a stronger crimp.
The Lee factory crimp die. The red arrow points to the crimp adjustment. Screw it in for a stronger crimp, screw it out for a less aggressive criimp.A cartridge mouth outside diameter of 0.378 inches.
At this point, I was ready to start loading. I found it easy to do with the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit. After loading powder into the auto-drum powder measure and primers into the safety prime primer tray, and positioning the sizing die directly over the ram, I got into a rhythm. The sequence goes like this:
Place a fired 9mm cartridge case in the shellholder.
Raise the ram to resize and decap the case.
Push the safety prime trigger down and into the priming arm.
Lower the ram (this advances the turret to place the expander die over the ram) and seat the primer.
Raise the ram to charge and flare the case.
Lower the ram (this advances the turret to place the seating die over the ram) and place a bullet in the case mouth.
Raise the ram to seat the bullet.
Lower the ram (this advances the turret to place the crimping die over the ram).
Raise the ram to crimp the bullet.
Lower the ram (this starts the sequence again by advancing the turret to place the sizing die over the ram).
Remove the reloaded cartridge and place it in the ammo box.
After the first few rounds, it was time for a fit check, also known as the plunk test. I shoot a lot of 9mm; it is one of my favorite cartridges. I have three 9mm handguns: A SIG P226, a Springfield Armory 1911, and a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield. Of these, the Springfield has the tightest chamber, so I use its barrel (after taking it out of the gun) for the the plunk test. If my reloaded 9mm rounds pass the plunk test in my Springfield barrel, they will feed and chamber in anything.
Three glorious 9mm pistols: A SIG P226, a Smith and Wesson Shield, and a Springfield Armory 1911.The Springfield Armory 1911 barrel.I left the barrel dirty for a more stringent plunk test.
The plunk test is straightforward and highly technical. I drop a 9mm round into the chamber, and if it drops in easily with a nice plunk, it passes the first part of the plunk test.
Plunk! Easy chambering in a dirty barrel with gravity feed. So far, so good.
The second part of the plunk test involves turning the barrel down, and if the round falls from the chamber with a nice plunk, it passes the second part of the test.
Plunk! Yep, a slight downward tilt and the reloaded 9mm round dropped right out. The Lee factory crimp die works wonderfully well.
If the first few rounds pass the plunk test, I’ll then proceed to reload the rest of the ammo. That’s what I did here, and while I had the barrel out of the Springfield, I randomly selected a few more rounds and similarly plunk tested them. They were good to go.
You know, I still do the plunk test on all of my 9mm ammo because old habits die hard. Before I started using Lee’s Deluxe 4-Die set, I would occasionally experience plunk test failures, and what that meant is the rounds would most likely jam when I was on the range. With Lee’s factory crimp die, that just doesn’t happen. With Lee’s dies and this turret press, I suspect plunk test failures and jams will be a thing of the past. You probably realize by now I really like my Lee dies. And I absolutely love my Lee Classic Turret Press Kit.
After finishing the plunk test, we were off to the races. I loaded one box of 9mm ammo, which took less than 20 minutes. You can load high quality ammo quickly with the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit.
The first 50 rounds reloaded on my Lee Classic Turret Press. Life is good.
Next up…range firing the ammo you see above in a new S&W Shield, a SIG P226, and a Springfield Armory 1911. That blog will post in a few more days.
Stay tuned!
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After mounting the Lee Classic Turret Press, the next step is to install the auto-drum powder measure on the expander die. This blog focuses on doing so. The auto-drum powder measure is a well-engineered device. As I installed and adjusted the Lee auto-drum, I was impressed with its design and build quality.
The Lee auto-drum powder measure in its carton. As always, the packaging and the included instructions are excellent.
The auto-drum powder measure includes the bottle, the bottle top, two adjustment keys, two quick change drums, the auto-drum tightening screw, and the body.
Lee auto-drum powder measure components.
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In addition to the above, Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit includes a powder measure riser. It’s used to raise the auto-drum powder measure so it clears the safety primer feed when the turret rotates. We’ll cover installation of the Lee safety primer feed in the next blog.
Lee’s Powder Measure Riser as packaged from the factory.Lee’s powder measure riser includes the body, the tube, and an o-ring.
The photo below shows the auto-drum body. It’s a die-cast part what includes the auto-drum (the black cylindrical subassembly inside the silver die casting). As the Lee turret press ram is raised, the cartridge case pushes a cylinder in the riser up. The upward movement of that cylinder actuates a lever (the black piece on the auto-drum, which rotates the drum). There’s a cavity in the drum that fills with powder when it is aligned with the bottle. When the drum rotates, the cavity holding powder rotates to align with the expander die, and a fixed amount of powder drops through the expander die into the brass cartridge case below. It’s a clever approach.
Lee’s auto-drum powder measure body.
The central part of the auto-drum consists of three molded black plastic subassemblies. These are the screw subassembly, the cover, and the drum. You unscrew the screw (shown on the left in the photo below) and the drum can be removed from the auto-drum body.
Lee’s auto-drum body disassembled, showing from left to right the screw subassembly, the body, and the drum.
The drum is where the powder amount is defined. There’s a cavity shown by the red arrow in the photo below. The amount of powder the drum drops can be adjusted by making changes in the volume of this cavity.
A macro shot of the drum. The cavity indicated by the arrow is what determines the powder volume.
There’s a threaded adjustor in the drum that is 0pposite the cavity. The top of this threaded adjustor is the bottom of the drum’s cavity. Screwing it in reduces the powder volume; screwing it out increases the powder volume.
The screw indicated by the red arrow moves in or out to adjust powder volume.
Lee provides two hex keys for making the powder volume adjustments.
The auto-drum hex key used for adjusting powder volume.The hex key inserted in the powder drum adjustment screw.
There’s a place in the drum body to store the key, or you can simply leave it in the threaded adjustor (which is what I do).
As mentioned in an earlier blog, I decided to use Accurate No. 5 propellant for my 9mm reloads. It’s one of several propellants listed in Lee’s Modern Reloading manual for use with the 124-grain plated bullet, and it’s a powder on I had on hand.
You go to war with the army you have. I had Accurate No. 5. I usually prefer Unique for 9mm, but I use that powder for other cartridges and I didn’t want to use it up. Accurate No. 5 seems to be in stock everywhere these days and I had some on hand, so it was my choice. As you’ll see in a later blog, that was a good move.Lee’s Modern Reloading book (see our earlier review) had 9mm loads for a plated 124-grain bullet using Accurate No. 5.
I loaded two loads for my initial 9mm evaluations. One was with 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5; the other was with 5.6 grains of Accurate No. 5.
After zeroing my Lee safety powder scale, I set it at 5.2 grains. I used the Lee dipper to add powder to the scale until the beam balanced. The Lee powder dipper (provided with the Lee 9mm dies) makes a good powder trickler.
Using the Lee dipper to add exactly 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 to the scale.
Once I had 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 in the Lee safety scale (indicated by the balance beam), I transferred that amount to the Lee drum.
Right on the money.
Initially, the powder was well below the surface of the drum. The idea here is to use the auto-drum key to screw in the adjuster until the surface of the powder in the drum cavity is approximately flush with the surface of the drum. This is to get the drum adjustment close to the desired powder amount (in this case, 5.2 grains). This is a coarse adjustment. We’ll dial in the adjustment once the auto-drum is reassembled.
After pouring 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 in the auto drum powder cavity, I used the adjustment screw to bring the powder charger level with the drum surface.
After accomplishing the above, I poured the powder into the powder bottle and I reassembled the auto-drum into the auto-drum powder measure.
Next, I removed the fitting and its o-ring from the expander die.
The Lee powder through expander die. I removed the fitting indicated by the red arrow so I could install the auto-drum powder measure.I kept the o-ring with the expander die fitting. The riser, which installs in the expander die, includes its own o-ring.
After removing the expander die fitting, I replaced it with the Lee auto-drum riser.
The riser is included in the Lee classic turret press kit.The riser includes three pieces: The riser body, an o-ring, and the cylinder.The riser installed in the expander die.
After installing the riser, I then threaded the auto-drum powder measure into the expander die as shown below.
The auto-drum powder measure screws into the riser above the expander die. The black thumbwheel tightens the auto-drum powder measure in the riser.The auto-drum powder measure installed on the riser and the expander die. With each upward press stroke, the cartridge case pushed the riser cylinder up, which pushes the auto-drum’s lever, which rotates the drum and drops the powder through the die into the cartridge case. Clever, indeed.
The Lee auto-drum powder bottle and its cap are what hold the powder. The cap is a red molded plastic piece with an on-off valve at its base. The cap’s valve is closed after adding powder to the bottle or removing the bottle from the auto-drum powder measure. It is opened after the bottle is installed in the auto-drum powder measure. When closed, it prevents powder from spilling out of the bottle when the bottle is removed from the powder measure.
The auto-drum powder measure bottle cap and its open-close valve (the black drum at the cap’s base). The valve rotates to open or close.
After adding powder to the bottle, threading the bottle top onto the bottle, and closing the cap’s valve, we can invert the bottle and place it on top of the auto-drum powder measure. There’s a raised rib on the bottle cap valve and a groove in the auto-drum die casting to align the bottle with the auto-drum powder measure.
Accurate No. 5 powder in the auto-drum powder measure bottle.The auto-drum powder measure bottle with its cap installed.The auto-drum powder measure bottle cap valve has a raised rib that fits into the auto-drum body. This axially aligns the bottle with the body.The body notch that accepts the bottle cap valve rib.The auto-drum powder measure installed on the expander die. The arrows show where the bottle fits into the auto-drum body.
At this point, I placed an empty cartridge case (with a spent primer) in the shellholder and fully raised the ram to run the cartridge case into the expander die. This expanded the case mouth and actuated the auto-disk powder measure to dispense approximately 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5 powder into the case. When I lowered the ram, I could see the case with powder in it. Note that I used a cartridge case with a spent primer only because I was setting up the auto-drum powder measure on the press. Ordinarily, in the normal operation of this press, the cartridge case would have a new primer in it.
A cartridge case that has been expanded and charged with powder.
Remember that my initial adjustment was a crude one, accomplished by screwing in the auto-drum adjustor to bring the powder level approximately level with the auto-drum’s surface. The next step is to dial in the auto-drum cavity adjustment such that the auto-drum dispenses exactly 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5. To do this, I took the powder in the case (shown above), poured it into the Lee safety scale pan, and checked the weight on the safety scale.
Pouring the cartridge case contents into the Lee safety scale pan.
I found that I was a little bit under 5.2 grains of powder. I expected this, as I couldn’t get the auto-drum cavity completely full of powder for the coarse adjustment described above. I made an adjustment to increase the amount of powder dispensed by turning out (i.e., unscrewing) the auto-drum cavity adjustor by a quarter of a turn.
The initial charge was a bit light, as will typically be the case when dialing in the auto-drum powder measure. I increased the volume by turning the volume adjustment out with the hex key.
After an attempt or two at adjusting the auto-drum, I had the dispensed powder amount exactly where I wanted it: 5.2 grains.
Bingo! 5.2 grains of Accurate No. 5.
I am impressed with the Lee auto-drum powder measure. I like the fact that it automatically dispenses powder with each stroke of the press handle if there is a cartridge case going into the expander die, and I like that it can be infinitely adjusted. Older designs used fixed (i.e., non-adjustable) cavities that dispensed fixed power amounts. The infinite adjustment feature of this powder dispensing device is a better approach. I also like that the cartridge case remains directly in front of you after the press is lowered (unlike a progressive reloader, in which the cartridge case may be on the other side of the press when it is charged). With the Lee classic turret press kit and its included auto-drum powder measure, you can see that each case has been charged with powder and that you have not inadvertently double-charged the case. And, if anything is not as it should be, you can easily remove the cartridge from the shellholder, correct the problem, and continue. On a progressive press, this is much more difficult to do.
This brings us to where I want to be in today’s blog. So far, our blogs described mounting the bench plate, installing the press, intalling and adjusting the first two dies (the resizing die and the expander die), and adjusting the Lee auto-drum powder measure to dispense precisely the amount of powder required. Tomorrow, we’re going to cover installing the Lee primer feed and making final adjustments to the bullet seating and factory crimp dies. Stay tuned.
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Our story on the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit continues. There’s a lot in the kit, and we’re presenting articles on each item (links for our earlier Classic Turret Press Kit, its contents, and other Lee-related blogs are included at the end of this blog). Today’s blog focuses on the Lee bench plate. The bench plate allows quick installation and removal of any Lee press, and its price is $39. The bench plate idea is a good one. I own a couple of Lee progressive reloaders and I don’t have extensive real estate on my loading bench. The Lee bench plate is the answer.
Here’s what you get in the Lee bench plate kit.
The Lee bench plate includes the lower plate, two Z-bars, four Phillips head screws, three panhead bolts with washers and nuts, and the upper plate.
The smaller upper plate bolts to the press base (the red casting that forms the base of any Lee reloading press). The larger lower plate bolts to your reloading bench. The two zinc plated pieces are Z-bars that screw into the lower plate and capture the upper plate bolted to the press. The upper plate has several holes that allow it to be attched to any Lee press. You can buy extra upper plates if you have other presses. It makes it easier to change presses on your bench.
The Lee bench plate includes everything you’ll need except the bolts required to attach the lower plate to your reloading bench (that makes sense because Lee doesn’t know the thickness of your reloading bench). You have to drill four holes through your bench to attach the lower plate. Here’s what the lower plate looks like installed on my reloading bench.
The lower plate attached bo my reloading bench.
After attaching the lower plate to your reloading bench, the next step is to attach the upper plate to the reloading press. I installed the upper plate on my Lee Classic Turret Press using the three panhead bolts, nuts, and washers Lee includes. Note that the press is inverted in the photo immediately below.
The upper plate attached to the press. The red arrow indicates the nub that prevents the press and upper plate from backing out. The press is upside down in this photo.
It’s not immediately apparent in the Lee instructions how to orient the upper plate (i.e., which side faces up). It should be installed such that the flat base of the plate is at the bottom, and the two lips on either side extend up. This will be more clear in the photos below.
Once the upper plate is attached to the press, the press and plate are set on the lower plate and the Z-bars can be secured to the lower plate with the four Phllips head screws Lee provides. The Z-bars capture the upper plate, securing the press to the lower plate and the reloading bench.
There are nubs at the end of the upper plate lips that catch the end of the Z-clamps (denoted by the red arrow), so then the Z-clamps are tightened, the little nub prevents the whole affair (upper plate and reloading press) from backing out.A macro shot showing the upper plate nub captured by the Z-bar.
Here’s the press mounted on the bench with the Lee bench plate. It’s a clever approach.
Lee turret press attached to the reloading bench with the Lee bench plate kit (right side).Lee turret press attached to the reloading bench with the Lee bench plate kit (left side).
If you have other Lee presses or reloading gear, you can purchase additional upper plates (Lee calls this part the steel base block) directly from Lee. Lee includes the mounting hardware (the panhead bolts, nuts, and washers) with each additional upper plate. Lee lists the other equipment items compatible with the bench plate in their instructions:
Classic Turret Press
Load-Master
Breech Lock Reloader Press
Breech Lock Challenger
Classic Cast
Breech Lock Classic Cast
Pro 6000 Six Pack Progressive
Red Base Pro 1000
Red Base 4 Hole Value Turret Press
Year 2018+ Pro 1000 Press
Year 2018+ 4 Hole Value Turret Press
Auto Breech Lock Pro Press
Automatic Processing Press & Automatic Case Primer
Auto Bench Prime
If you don’t want to purchase additional upper plates, you can make your own upper plate from 3/4-inch plywood. Lee includes a drawing in their instructions showing the dimensions of a plywood upper plate. That’s a nice touch. Lee also offers information on plywood bases for, as they describe it, “other color” presses. That’s a nice touch, too.
The key question in all of this is: Do you need the Lee bench plate? If you use one press only, the answer may be no. You could just mount your press directly to the bench and not use the plate at all. But if you own other Lee reloading gear (or another “other color” press), you might want to consider the Lee bench plate. Or, if you want to get your press out of the way to use your bench for other purposes (such as cleaning a gun), it makes sense. The bench plate greatly eases removing the Lee press for installing other equipment or to clear the bench. It’s a good idea and good value for the money. It makes sense for me.
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Today I took the Model 60 to the range. All shooting was at the standard full size B21 police target and the distance 7 yards. I shot double action as fast as I could to see if I could keep them on the target. I did, as you’ll see below.
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The first load was with the 158 grain Hursman cast bullet (a truncated conical bullet with a flat point) and 2.7 grains of Bullseye. I loaded this ammo on my Star reloader with the bullet seater backed out to account for the longer 158 grain bullet. The Star did a nice job on these cartridges.
Here’s 50 rounds, shooting double action rapid fire (really rapid fire, as fast as I could while still hanging on to the front sight).
I was pleased with that target and the load. The load was light and easy to shoot. The Star can’t easily be adjusted for powder charge and I have it set up for wadcutter ammo, so all I changed was the bullet seating die. I didn’t even adjust the crimp; I just backed out the seater.
Next up was the same bullet (the 158 grain Hursman cast bullet), loaded with 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5. I loaded this with the single stage RCBS Rockchucker.
The load was noticeably hotter than the first load, but not so much that it became unmanageable. Here’s 50 rounds of the above ammo on the B21. The brown areas that appear to be bullet holes are not holes on this target; that’s the sun shining through previous holes behind the target.
One shot went out of the 5X ring at 11:00. Eh, you can’t win them all. The guy in that target wouldn’t know the difference.
Then I shot another 50 rounds, this time wadcutter ammo. This was with the Gardner 148 grain powder coated double ended wadcutter bullet and 2.7 grains of Bullseye. I loaded this ammo on the Star.
These had three shots out of the x-ring, but I was really flying, doing my best to imitiate Ed McGivern. You know, you can make a double action revolver cycle faster than a semi-auto pistol. Ed McGivern could, anyway.
I had a good day at the West End Gun Club, but that’s stating the obvious. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad day at the West End Gun Club, and I’ve been going there for close to 40 years. Here are the take-aways from today’s range session:
I found it was easy to shoot really, really fast with the Model 60 and still keep all shots on the target.
At this distance, all of the loads grouped about the same. I’d have to go out to 50 feet, I think, to see an accuracy difference.
The one most pleasant to shoot was the 158 grain Hursman bullet with 2.7 grains of Bullseye, and at this distance, it was accurate. It’s a nice load. That load had less recoil than the same load with the 148 grain wadcutter bullet. I think that’s because the 148 grain wadcutter bullet has more bearing area so the pressure is probably higher. After returning from the range, I loaded the remainder of my Hursman cast bullets with this load.
The gun shoots to point of aim with all three loads.
The Model 60 is a wonderful handgun and shooting a snubnose .38 is fun. The keyboard commandos can wax eloquent about the need for 20-round magazines in the latest Wunder 9; five shots from a Model 60 does it for me.
As if the day weren’t perfect enough, someone left 250+ pieces of once-fired 9mm brass on the range. I ordinarily would not use range brass and Lord knows I have plenty of 9mm cases, but this was pristine stuff and I could see that it had never been reloaded. It’s in my blood, I guess; I can’t leave good brass laying on the ground (it was in my tumbler 10 minutes after I got home).
There are three outfits that I recommend you consider if you’re reloading .38 ammo and if you want your handgun to perform well. The first is TJ’s Custom Gunworks. TJ did the action job and polishing on my Model 60, and his work is beyond stellar. The next is Lance Shively’s TriggerShims.com. If you want to assure your cylinder gap is what it’s supposed to be to assure smooth cycling and minimize misfires, Lance’s shims will do the trick and they are inexpensive. The next is Lee Precision reloading gear. I am migrating to near-complete use of Lee equipment, and I used a Lee Deluxe 4-die set when loading the .38 ammo on a single stage press. I recently acquired a Lee four turret press as part of a Lee Precision package deal. I’ve always been completely satisfied with the gear I’m using from Lee. Watch for a near-term blog on the four turret press kit. I’m eager to get it into service, and when I do, you’ll read about it here.
Two more things: Here’s a link for the B21 targets you see above (they’re different and they’re fun to shoot). And, I frequently get compliments on the Altamont grips my Model 60 wears. They make the gun much more comfortable to shoot and they don’t print if you’re carrying concealed. If you want a set of Altamont grips, a good place to get them is on Amazon.
Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit includes their Modern Reloading manual. It’s written by the late Richard Lee (the founder of Lee Precision), it’s the second edition, and Lee’s retail price is $40.98. By way of comparison, on Hornady’s site their reloading manual is $59.99, on Sierra’s site their reloading manual is $39.99, on the Lyman site their reloading manual is $34.98, and on the Speer site you get the load data for free (it’s published on their site). You can also purchase the Lee manual on Amazon; oddly, the price on Amazon is higher than it is on the Lee website.
The Lee reloading manual is comparable in heft and contents to other big reloading manuals. It’s a hardcover book with 692 pages and several chapters on various reloading topics, including basic instructions and more in-depth discussions of advanced reloading topics. Richard Lee wrote the first parts covering various topics including the company’s history, Lee’s reloading equipment, primers and primer sensitivity (this was extremely interesting), how to reload, reloading for best accuracy, rifle reloading, handgun relaoding, measuring powder, powder safety, pressure issues, matching bullet metal to chamber pressure, hardness testing, bullet casting and sizing, shotgun reloading, and muzzle loading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lee’s articles. They are written in a folksy, technical, and easy to follow manner. It’s like having a conversation with one of my shooting buddies. That, all by itself, is a good reason to buy the Lee reloading manual.
A load table inside the Lee reloading manual showing some of the date it contains that other reloading manuals do not. This includes the starting charge volume, the Lee dipper number, the Lee Auto-Disk number, and the 1 Grain Factors.
The load data tables start on Page 161 and continue to Page 686 (the load tables comprise most of the book). These are interesting and they include several bits of data not found in other reloading manuals. There’s the usual dimensioned cartridge drawings, starting load and max loads, the pressure, and the velocities, and then there’s more. These additional pieces of information not usually found in other reloading manuals are:
Useful Case Capacity. On each of the load table cartridge drawings, Lee includes the useful case volume in cubic centimeters. Why this is useful will be apparent when you read the next bulleted statement.
Volume cc. This table entry, immediately to the right of the starting load, shows the volume occupied by the starting charge. You can compare this to the useful case capacity info (see above) included in the cartridge drawing to get an idea of how full the cartridge case will be at the starting charge. Usually, a cartridge will perform better if the case is full or nearly full. I’ve not seen this information in other reloading manuals. I think it’s a good thing to know when selecting which powder to use.
Lee Dipper. Lee manufactures different size powder dippers. The powder dipper is basically a yellow plastic spoon used to scoop a known volume of powder. Some reloaders use this approach rather than using a powder dispenser or a scale, but others do. Dippers are included with Lee dies, and you can also buy a set of different sized dippers separately. It’s not the powder measurement and dispensing approach I used, but I found the data interesting. I’ve never seen this data in other load manuals.
Auto-Disk. Lee makes an Auto-Disk Powder Measure. It’s a device that uses a sliding disk with different volume chambers (or cavities) in it to control the volume of powder dispensed by their Auto-Disk Powder Measure. These cavities are denoted by decimal numbers. The Lee reloading manual tables identify the appropriate Auto-Disk to use with charges included in the table. I’ve never seen this data in other manuals.
1 Grain Factor. This is another bit of data not included in any other reloading manual I’ve ever seen. The 1 Grain Factor can be used to show velocity reduction if the maximum powder charge is decreased by one grain. You take the maximum velocity, multiply it by the 1 Grain Factor, and it will show the decrease in velocity that will be realized by reducing the powder charge 1 grain. There’s a similar 1 Grain Factor included that can be used to calculate pressure reduction for a 1 grain powder reduction The 1 Grain Factors are not included for every cartridge (they are included for the hotter magnum cartridges such as .44 Magnum and 7mm Remington Magnum).
A Lee dipper included with a set of Lee reloading dies. The dipper is a powder scoop. You can also buy the dippers separately.An earlier Lee Auto-Disk Powder dispenser. This powder dispensing approach used disks (see lower arrow) installed in the dispenser (see upper arrow). The disks contained different cavities that dispensed different powder volumes.A Lee Auto-Disk powder disk, as seen from below. The cylindrical openings collect different volumes of powder from the Auto-Disk hopper. Selecting different openings will dispense different charges.Lee Auto-Disk powder disk as seen from above. The volume designator for each cavity is identified on the disk top. The Lee reloading manual shows which opening to use for a selected powder charge. No other reloading manual contains this information.
The Lee manual breaks with typical reloading manuals on the order in which loads are shown. In other manuals, the cartridge sequence is organized by bullet diameter, and then within each bullet diameter category, by cartridge maximum velocity. There is a table of contents in the Lee manual (it’s on Pages 159-160) showing all the cartridges included in the Lee manual and where their load data appears.
If you are a reloader who enjoys getting into the more technical aspects of load development (and what reloader isn’t?) I believe you will thoroughly enjoy Lee’s Modern Reloading. I think it’s a first-class work as good as or better than the manuals from Lyman, Sierra, Hornady, and other reloading manual publishers. It’s money well spent, and when you purchase Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit, you basically get it for free.
Here’s 50 rounds, shooting double action rapid fire (really rapid fire, as fast as I could while still hanging on to the front sight).
