Category Archives: Reloading

Midway USA Blemished 7mm Bullets

I ordered these bullets from Midway, because they were cheap. Over 10 cents a bullet less than the usual Hornady SST bullets I load for my Remington 700. ($0.149 cents a bullet) bringing my 7mm 154gr cost per round to 36 cents per shot vs 50 cents per shot.

They look like Winchester Power Point bullets. but I guess they could be anything?

From what I see the only blemish is how the copper jacket is around the lead soft-point. Other than that, they really look fine.

Hornady SST’s(left) vs. Midway Blemished Bullets(right)

I found the bullet length and weight consistant.

And they seemed to load fine. I gave them a CCI Magnum rifle primer,  59 grains of IMR 4831 and seated to 3.240″  Tomorrow I plan on taking them out to the 200 yard range and see how they perform.

Lee Loadmaster Press

My journey with reloading has been rocky. A few squibs, a blown primer, and of course the rounds that just go click instead of a bang. But thats part of the process. I started out just loading .40 S&W, but now I load 9, 45, 7mm, and .35REM.
This is really to outline the pros and cons of the Lee Loadmaster.
First, its the cheapest progressive you can find. With dies, you can find it for under $250. This includes a case feeder, a priming system. and pretty much what you would expect from a progressive.
Cons. Things on a progressive, just go wrong. Often. Sometimes cases don’t get primed, sometimes the press doesn’t index(turn, or cycle to the next ‘station’) sometimes bullets get seated wrong. Or sometimes it just jams and locks up. I really wish it had a light somehow built into the press. I’ve sort of rigged a book light in between the dies and it seems to work.
Most recently the issues I’ve had have been relating to priming/indexing.
If the press doesn’t prime correctly, in my case the primer pin would get stuck in an upward position. I also noticed the primers were getting stuck in between the pin and plastic
1) I sanded the primer trough smooth with very fine grit paper
2) Bent the arm that cases push back upward to get better contact with the case.

You will spend lots of time getting these issues worked out. Lots of time learning on how exactly the press works.
In all fairness Lee puts up many videos to explain how the press works and how to fix common issues. There is a whole site by loadmaster users with videos to fix common issues.
I would suggest you watch all of them while you wait for your press to arrive.
The good thing about Lee is the support. I’ve found e-mail works great to get in contact with them. They usually respond the same day and tell you new parts are on the way.
Common things that break:
Primer System(the plunger/feeder/spring)
Flipper gets worn
Decapping pins

All in all, I’ve loaded well over a thousand rounds on this, its cheap and gets the job done, but does have some issues.

Reloading is usually fun

I shoot often, so naturally I need to reload ammo often. Probably at least 100 rounds per week depending how much I shoot. I’ve been shooting a lot of 9 over the past few weeks so today I needed to do some reloading.
I start to reload some cartridges this morning and noticed a strange vertical pattern of lines down the case from my resizing die. I’ve never seen this happen before.

Then I get not one, but three cases stuck. All nickel plated brass(which physically looks great.) For those who don’t reload- a stuck case is awful, it taken time and pain to remove it from the die.
I finally managed to get them all out. I stopped reloading. I e-mailed Lee Precision(the manufacture of my press and dies) and Peter suggests the dies may be dirty. So I sprayed them out with some Gun Scrubber.
When I actually look inside of them they was a brass ring of just case debris that has built up.

I managed to get it out using some 800 grit sandpaper, pen and some Hoppes 9.

I set the die back up and everything is working perfect again. No more scratches on the case.