“And Over There is Where the Garage Used to Be.”

Every time I crank up the ammunition press after a layoff, I find new ways to torment myself.

Let’s see if I can remember all the stuff that happened today. I was making .38 Super ammunition.

1. The plastic cylinder on the powder measure fell off twice. I finally taped it to the press. Perhaps I was wrong to use the Shop-Vac to clean up the spills, but after a while, when you make aggravating mistakes, you get so annoyed you would rather blow yourself up than be inconvenienced further.

2. I put the large primer feed tube on, but I was using small primers, which turned themselves upside-down in the tube.

3. Powder residue stopped up the primer feed slide and clogged up the tube to where I had to get a steel rod and force the primers out. Then I had to clean powder sludge out with brake part cleaner.

That’s all I feel like admitting.

It turns out No. 7 is a horror when you spill it. One or two microscopic grains can immobilize your primer feed slide. And when you spray it with Hornady’s expensive remedy, which is Hornady One Shot, it doesn’t really help. I think it may actually make it worse. It certainly doesn’t move the powder very well.

I was using pretty new Starline brass. This was a first. I suspect the primer pockets on new brass are tight. I had all sorts of problems getting the primers in. I had to squoosh a bunch of them in my bench vise. This may have had something to do with exposure to powder residue, though. I ended up priming and shaping the casings and then adding powder and lead in a second operation. Took forever.

Another weird thing: Starline .38 Super brass doesn’t seem to like the old-style Hornady Lock-N-Load shell plates with the spring around the casing bases. That surprised me, because everyone raves about Starline brass. I guess I won’t buy it any more. Maybe I should upgrade my press. But if I’m going to do that, I might give up and buy a Dillon. This thing is incredibly temperamental. Today I found two new design flaws, which I am too tired to describe.

If anyone from church asks to shoot my guns, I think I better tell them to buy their own shells. I have been known to manufacture questionable rounds, and I don’t want some noob shooting one round halfway down the barrel and then following it with a full charge.

I hate to waste my last boxes of factory 9mm ammunition, which I got for like $9 each. I know they’ll be that cheap again in a few months, but it’s irritating to shoot the last boxes I got at a decent pre-Obama price. That guy has killed recreational shooting. I assume. Surely people haven’t been rushing to the gun range with $25 9mm ammunition.

I’m pooped. Thank God I have piles of .45 ACP ready to go.