Victory is Mine

I managed to generate 100 rounds of .38 Super ammunition. I hope it works.

Setting up the press was not too bad, although it seems like the decapping pin works best when it extends a lot farther than the manual says. The little 9mm bullets are harder to get a grip on than big ol’ .45 slugs. That was annoying. And the few times the primer feed didn’t work, the No. 7 powder whizzed right out through the primer holes. The huge flakes of Unique weren’t nearly as bad.

One nice thing about No. 7: if you double a charge, you can see it a mile away. It fills the case.

I can’t understand why a small, light round requires 1.6 times as much powder as a huge round. I suppose traveling 1.5 times as fast is part of it, and I assume the powders are inherently different.

Winchester primers are packaged much more intelligently than Federals. They’re upright in their trays, so you can plop them right out on your primer tray, close it, flip it, and start filling your primer tube.

I didn’t use case lube, but I put the cases in a bag, sprayed a quick shot of dry lube in there, and rolled them around. May have made life somewhat easier. Oddly, I had no trouble marking the cases later. I put Sharpie marks on the bottoms of the cases, to make them easier to spot at the range. I don’t care what happens to my other cases, because they’re free, but I am not losing a single .38 Super without a fight.

I’m up to 835 rounds of .45 ammunition! I now have no excuse for not shooting a minimum of 200 rounds a week. That should be good for my marksmanship. Instead of shooting 25 rounds per set, maybe I’ll go up to 50.

I don’t know if I want to screw with making up recipes. I think that if these loads work, I’ll just buy a big jug of Unique and a big jug of No. 7 and be satisfied.