Shiloh Rifle Forums

Also, on the topic of "making brass", I have fired, annealed and reloaded my brass 6 times. How many is "too many"?

A LOT more than six .......

HI I have been shooting with the same brass for over 20 years now so likely been loaded and shot 50 times each or more and still working just fine for me . Black powder is not a hard on brass as smokeless powder is as the pressures are no where near as high. Keep shooting and having fun

Yeah the brass will basically last forever. Just keep an eye on the primer pockets as they can eventually get looser and have the potential to leak.

I don't think I've ever thrown out a case now that I can think of it. My 40-65 silhouette rifle has been using the same 200 cases as when I bought it maybe 15 years ago. It has had thousands of rounds through it.

Chris.

Woohoo! 250 new 45-70 brass showing up Thursday according to UPS. 6 weeks from backorder to fullfillment from Starline - not so bad, and very timely from a load testing POV.

I've never had raw, unfired, brass to play with before. Is there anything I need to do that's not in the normal reloading workflow? My flow is:

Dawn and water clean 15 mins in ultrasonic (not needed for new brass)
Tumble (not needed for new brass)
Anneal
Trim (usually my fired brass does not make shavings)
Lube and size
Very slight bell of opening to help bullet seat
Prime
Powder and wad
Bullet.

The anneal leaves a dark stain on the top 1/3" of the casing that does not polish out. Is this normal or am I doing it wrong (over annealing?) I don't want to wreck my new brass.

That is fine. Might back off a bit next time. A slight color change is plenty enough.

I don't trim until it's been fireformed period.

Yeah definitely don't trim it. It's about 99.999% certain that it'll be slightly too short after a few firings even if you do not trim it.

Chris.

You might get some Tempilac and put it on the inside of the case neck prior to annealing. You cannot accurately anneal brass by sight. The thing is, once you over-anneal a piece of brass, it’s destroyed. There’s no getting it back.

LOL you beet me too it Johnny you are very very right about that !!

I'm leveraging jetlag and enthusiasm to get started with the Saeco mold, which showed up before I did today. Newsflash, the dial gauge seems to indicate that it will make bullets 0.008 narrower in the nose than the Lyman mold, which is promsing and makes it worth giving it a try rather than just returning it.

Also, it does not fit the Lyman handles: the "fork" tines of the handles are about 3/4" short (this is a two place mold) and the holes are too small and in the wrong place.

The obvious solution would be to order a Saeco handle, but that means waiting and spending money, and it looks like I can at least make the holes fit my drilling new holes (2mm) about 1/2" further along the tines.

The question is whether the molds need to move (rotate on the pins) to close, or whether the fork tines should be snug against the sides of the slots in the mold. I'm guessing that freedom to rotate is important to get the mold properly closed. I'll warm up the pillar drill and give it a try. I hope the mold isn't going to miss the 3/4" of support that it's not getting to outboard of the pin holes.

Didn't work. The body of the Saeco mold is too thin, and there's not enough meat on the Lyman handles to put a hole in a place that let's the mold close. I'm going to need a set of Saeco handles.

You can get them off the Shiloh website.

And here it is! Not sure what I'll do with 250 cases - probably a lifetime supply since I only make and shoot about 60 in a session, and I have only killed a few by carelessness when using the press - but nice to have some spares.