Is ammunition becoming more available?

I read an article in the business section of a national newspaper ta few weeks ago that said the demand for and sales of guns and ammunition had been slowing down. Coincidentally, I received an email from Sportsman's Guide saying they'd just gotten in a big shipment of Wolf .22 Match ammunition. I thought about it, and decided to buy a few brinks, just to be on the safe side. A week later I saw this in a number of papers:

"Despite overall Black Friday spending down 11-percent nationwide, gun sales increased that weekend and Montana store owners report they just keep rising."

I went back to Sportsman's Guide and saw they were out of the Wolf, along with just about every other .22LR with the exception of some of the more expensive Ely and RWS match ammunition.

Surprisingly, they did have a lot of ammunition in stock that's been difficult to find. They've got a few dozen varieties of .380ACP, and not just the premium stuff- they have PMC (50 rounds/$15.95) GECO, Federal and a few other under-$20 boxes. I counted 36 different varieties of .38 Special in stock, and several other calibers that have been in short supply. The biggest shortages were in rimfire ammunition of all sorts. There was zero .22Mag, .17HMR or .17Mach2.

Over at Midway, things looked a bit better, with several non-match .22LR varies being available- although not my favorite, CCI Standard Velocity. But reloading powder is still in very short supply, with only 17 differ t smokeless powders in stock- and none of my old standbys, Bullseye, Unique, 2400, and Trail Boss.  I have a few bottles of each of these on hand, which should get me through a year or so. There's one bright light:  Midway appears to have plenty of small pistol primers from Winchester, CCI, Federal and Remington, none of which could be found a year ago. Maybe supply is finally starting to catch up with demand.

A good 125gr load for the Ruger LCRx

A lot of the commercial defensive loads for the .28 Special use 110gr or 125gr JHPs, in part because the lighter projectile  results in lower recoil, compared to the old standard 158gr LRN or SWC.  I have a few boxes of these Speer 125gr JHPs on hand- I found a good deal on them last year- and decided to see if I could find a good load for my LCRx. I decided to start with Bullseye powder, as it's the fastest burning powder I have on hand. A fast powder means more complete combustion in a short barrel, and that means better efficiency. 

The Lee manual suggests 4.5-4.8gr of Bullseye behind this bullet for a +P load. Alliant's own data gives 4.5gr for the standard .38 Special load, and 4.8gr for the +P load. I decided to start at the low end. The Lee .49cc disk delivers a measured 4.5-4.6gr, according to my Hornady digital scale, so I decided to go with that. I used my 4-die Lee set, with the Factory Crimp die adjusted for a medium crimp- it's important to get a secure crimp with lightweight gun that will recoil a lot. I made up 50 loads using an assortment of cases and headed to my club.

My first test was at 20 feet, and everything was on target and centered. I backed up to the 50 foot line, and produced the followed pattern shooting double action:

Not too shabby. There was a bit of flash, but it wasn't too bad. Recoil was snappy- this isn't a gun I'd want to put a few hundred rounds through. But I wasn't working on a plinking load.  reloaded and continued firing:

That's actually 9 shots, by the way. You can see one pair of overlapping holes just above the 9, but the  hole below and to the left is also a double. Looking at this target I decided to stop right there- I think I have my load.  

Dardas Cast Bullets

There are a great many small bullet casters in this country that turn out a good product. My favorite supplier for most everything  is Dardick Cast Bullets, right here in Michigan. They're quick to ship, have good customer service, and they're only 100 miles from here. They don't have all the bullet styles I load, but they do offer most of the more popular ones in several weights and, for revolver fans, several sizes. If you're a fan of PPC, or Cowboy Action shooting, you'll probably find anything you need in a hard cast bullet at Dardas, from .32 to .50 caliber- including .44-40 and. 45-70. 

Subsonic Cast bullet loads for the Ruger Super Blackhawk Pt. 2

Good weather and time in my schedule finally coincided today. It was an absolutely perfect day to spend some time at my club's outdoor range, with very little wind and temperatures around 71 degrees.  I packed up the Super Blackhawk and the moderate .44 Magnum  loads I'd made up a week ago: 240gr LSWC over 6.8gr of Trail Boss powder (RCBS Little Dandy rotor #25).

Normally I test new loads and new guns starting at 25 yards. For some reason I decided to set up at 50 yards instead, and started out shooting while seated at the bench, supporting my gun in my hands with my elbows on the bench. My first shot missed the paper. For the second I held dead center- and hit a few inches from the bull! My second went wide to the right ( I jerked the trigger) but the third was also close to the bull:

I was so amazed I took this target down and put up a fresh one. I switched to shooting standing at that point, and still managed to get all my shots on the paper in a very reasonable group.  Besides being fairly accurate, this load is also pleasant to shoot. It generates around 500 ft-lbs of energy, which is about 40% the energy of a full 240 JHP load, and about what you'd expect from a modest .357 load. The increased weight of the Super Blackhawk definitely smooths out the recoil. The report is modest, too, compared to a full magnum load.

Thirty years ago I liked to shoot full-bore loads a la Elmer Keith: 22 grains of 2400 under a 240gr JSWC (Elmer used a 250gr "Keith" bullet.) The roar, combined with the tongue of flame from the muzzle, and the recoil that flipped the muzzle skyward was very entertaining to a young shooter. But unless you're actually hunting good-sized game, there's no need for a 1,500 foot-pound load. This load delivers .44 Special energy, which is more than enough for smaller game, varmints, and knocking over metallic silhouettes, and doesn't leave any lead in the barrel.

I was a bit concerned about cost, as Trail Boss is much bulkier than other powders and comes in 9 ounce jars rather than the 1 pound jars of most powders. It's also a bit pricier, costing about 50% more per ounce than Unique and almost 60&% more than Bullseye. But when I compare per-round costs, it turns out that a 6.8gr charge of Trail Boss is less than a penny more per round. I'd planned on making up some more subsonic loads with Unique and perhaps some other powders, but really, I think I've found my ideal subsonic load.

(Part I of this post is here.)

Subsonic Cast bullet loads for the Ruger Super Blackhawk Pt. 1

While I do have a box of factory Remington .44 magnum loads that have been sitting in the safe for over 20 years, I thought I'd start out with some milder loads for the new/old Super Blackhawk I picked up this past February. Subsonic lead loads are quieter, more fun to shoot, and more economical, too; unless you're actually hunting there's not a lot of need for full power loads.

Cases are still in short supply (I have some on back order at Midway) so I bit the bullet (pun intended) and and paid $40 to a scalper on Amazon for 100 new Starline cases. I also I ordered a few hundred 0.431" lead SWC bullets from Dardas, primer from Midway, and as I have a good supply of suitable powders on hand I was set to go.

For my first loads I decided to go with that classic, hard-to-screw-up powder, IMR Trail Boss. I've talked about it before. It's a very fast burning powder, on a par with Bullseye, but it's around four times as bulky as Bullseye. It was designed for Cowboy Action Shooting but has applications for a wide range of low-veocity loads for handguns and rifles. Basically, you find the volume of a case with a seated bullet, fill 70% of that with Trail Boss, and you have a safe load.

I decided to go with IMR's published loads for the .44 mag, which range from 6.0-7.3 grains for a cast bullet. Even at the max load, IMR's testing says you're only at 21,600 psi. As the SAAMI spec for the .44 mag calls for a maximum of 36,000 psi, that's a very comfortable margin. I ordered a #25 rotor for my RCBS Little Dandy powder dispenser, which actually delivered a consistent 6.8gr of powder, according to my Hornady electronic scale. If anything, that will give me an even wider safety margin.

As you can see, that 6.8gr fills the case about 3/4 of the way. That's good. A double charge would over-fill it, which I'd immediately recognize. Anything that increases the margin of safety is worthwhile.

Often when I'm reloading low volumes I use a simple press rather than my turret press. It takes a bit longer, but this way I can easily inspect each load before I slip a bullet in. I have the powder measure mounted next to the press, so it's dump powder, inspect, insert bullet...

... and press...

Result: A safe load. I'd intended to go to my club to test these today, but it's been raining pretty continuously, so perhaps tomorrow. In the meantime perhaps I'll make up some wadcutter loads in 7.62x25R I've been meaning to try in my Nagant revolver.

Finding a good .38 spl target load

These are some of the first two batches of .38 special reloads I tried in my new/old S&W 14-3 Masterpiece. The classic target load for the .38 special is 2.7gr of Bullseye behind a 148gr hollow base wadcutter. I've got some Bullseye, but thought I'd try some other loads using both old powders and newer ones.

I first tried Unique, as I had some on hand. I've used it both for shotgun loads and in the past for .38 and .44 Special loads. It's the second oldest powder on the market (Bulleseye is the oldest) and its longevity is due at least in part to the fact that it's still a useful powder.  I also tried a powder I hadn't loaded before, Winchester W231, which many handgun shooters say is the most versatile powder around.

My Unique load was 4.1gr behind a 148gr cast DEWC, seated flush with the case mouth. This is a bit hotter than the typical target load but turned out to be accurate in both the S&W and the Ruger Blackhawk. (I always test new loads in the Blackhawk first, as it's a tremendously strong gun.) While it was accurate, I had trouble getting the Unique to meter accurately in my Lee Disk Measure, even after giving it a good powdered graphite treatment. My weighed charges were as much as .4gr off from what the Lee manual said I should get from a given disk.

The W231 measured perfectly- within .05gr of what the Lee Manual claimed. That's pretty decent. I was using 3.5gr of W231 behind the same Dardas cast double-ended wadcutter bullets, again seated flush. The W231 produced more flash than the Unique, which was surprising, as W231 is a faster burning powder. Interestingly, most of the flash seemed to be coming from the cylinder gap- something other reloaders claimed to have observed in postings I found in various shooting forums.  Accuracy was good, and recoil was mild, but I'm still looking for a milder load.

While the Lee manual listed 3.5gr as the starting charge, I found a number of shooters on line who stated that 3.2gr of W231 was their preferred load for target, plinking, and small game, so I loaded up 25 of those for testing, along with a similar number of cartridges charged with 2.7gr of Bullseye for comparison. In both instances I only seated the bullet to where the crimp groove was just at the case mouth. By having the bullet not seated flush, there's more room in the case for the powder charge, and pressure should be significantly lower.

The most pleasant load I've fired in the .38 special, and one of the most accurate, is the one my friend Ric uses for PPC- 2.2gr of WST behind a 148gr  hollow base wadcutter (HBWC). I may end up getting some WST and loading a few of my own, using the cast wadcutters. I have a few hundred Remington HBWCs, but I haven't had good luck loading them in my press; they seem to all distort, or get shaved on loading by the dies or the case.

Update: I bought a pound of WST at Double Action and loaded 50 rounds with the same 145gr DEWC bullets I've been using. The Lee disks don't go low enough for the load I wanted, so I used the Lee microrometer-adjustable charge bar to get the 2.2gr charge. I had a good deal of difficulty getting this calibrated with the Lee scale, and there was a fair amount of powder leakage I wasn't able to eliminate.

I went back to the range with three loads: 3.2gr W231, 2.2gr WST, and 2.7gr Bullseye, this time crimped on the first groove rather than being seated flush. All were pleasant to shoot, and the 3.2gr W231 load is a big improvement over the 3.5gr load- much less flash and noise and more accurate. The 2.2gr WST load wasn't as accurate as the others, probably because I had so much trouble getting it to meter accurate from the Lee disk measure.  I think I'm going to stick with Bullseye and W231 for my light loads for now.

Setting up a reloading press

One thing about progressive presses and turret presses- you have to make sure they're properly aligned. I was setting up my new Lee Turret Press, setting the dies to the proper height, setting the bullet seating ram, and so forth before I began loading live rounds. (Notice there's no primer in this case.)  I'm not quite sure how this happened, but it did make me stop and check the advance mechanism and make sure the dies were advancing and indexing properly before I started priming cases.

I'm keeping this on my reloading bench as a reminder ;-)

A good, cheap, reloading stand

It's been two months (!) since I bought my new Lee Turret Press, and I'm finally ready to start reloading again. In the intervening weeks I've scraped all the loose paint off two walls, patched them with hydraulic cement, painted them with Drylok, thrown out several full garbage bags of assorted junk, put up three large shelving units and mopped the floor, none of which is of interest to shooters and reloaders.

What might be of interest is the stand I found for my reloading press. Lee has a well-regarded three-legged stand that comes with their quick-mount system for around $80 plus postage, but I found something cheaper, and perhaps better for my purposes at Harbor Freight. They call it an "Adjustable Height Heavy Duty Workstand," and while it normally sells for $27.99 it's been on sale for $24.99 for some time. It's not really adjustable in height, except while you're building it, but it is pretty heavy duty.

The top is a piece of 3/4" thick MDF, 20-1/8" by 17-3/4", and it's sturdy enough to mount some pretty heavy equipment. HF says the stand has a capacity of 1000 pounds, although I don't know that I'd be comfortable putting that much weight on it. But it is more than sufficient for mounting one or more reloading presses, which is exactly what I did. I've got the Lee Turret press on one side, the quick-mount bracket on the other (I'll be using this for a single stage press), and there's still room for more. There are two shelves underneath where you can keep extra dies and other components.

I actually bought two of these, with the second one now supporting my 4" belt sander. I'm temped to get a third to remount my drill press.