I've become a reloading addict as much as a 1911 addict, my AR habit is even worse.
I've been reloading for my ARs for about 4 years and only very recently got into reloading for my handguns, in particular my DW Silverback 10mm so I can afford to shoot the thing.
Until last week the only pistol powder I had was 4lbs of Vhitavuori N340 and while a very clean, consistent and great metering powder the most performance I could get out of a 180gr bullet was about 1050 max, and that was pushing it to .4gr over their published max and since I dont have pressure testing equipment I decided to not push it any further and just buy 4lbs of H800X, 3lbs of Accurate #9 and 1lb of Ramshot Silhouette. I also bought 3k Winchester Large Pistol Primers, 250 200gr Nosler HPs, and my guy on GB told me he had a small coveted stash of 200 pulled 200gr Federal HSTs SCORE!! Oh, and I bought 500 new Starline 10mm cases. All set.
Over the weekend, since I just happen to have a little extra free time lately I loaded 25 of the HSTs over the A#9 starting at 12.0gr and going up in .3gr increments continued up to 13.2gr, 5 groups of 5 each, seated to 1.260". The Accurate #9 seems to be a very popular powder for 10mm so I was hoping to luck into a magic load for my Silverback using the least possible number of the HSTs keeping the rest to load as keepers. Well, the Reloading God smiled on me, the 12.9gr load is just a hammer, and at 25yards showed me a 1.5" cluster off of a bag, and a just perfect POA/POI. The numbers were very impressive too, 1172fps, ES-9fps and SD-4fps. To me at least, those are some happy numbers. I'll say though, that load has some bark! Man, factory loads in 10mm are nothing, I really felt like I had a big bad 10mm in my hands. Factory stuff, to me, feels like a 45 but a full house load is so much more. The A#9 showed good accuracy across the board, and the numbers were all always in the single digits or in the low teens. I am impressed. Ejection was no different than with any other loads I've shot through it, at about 2 O'clock and about 10' away. There was no bulge in the cases, something I was worrying about due to the Silverback having a ramped barrel and leaving just a smidge of the case unsupported. Now, I did have flattened primers BUT the primers were flattened on ever single loading I shot today and that is something I wanted to ask yall about.
All of my pistol reloading so far has been with Federal 105M primers, those are the Large Pistol Match primers and I dont remember seeing this with those as much, some flattening but not as bad. And, I noticed when priming the cases, which I do by hand, the WLPs felt very soft and were even deformed by the priming tool rod no matter how gentle I tried to be. So, are Winchester primers known to have a softer cup than other primers?
I know, no pics so it's all lies! I really had a great day at the range, until everybody else started showing up and walking downrange to hang targets while people are shooting. So, I decided it was time to make that 45 minute drive back home.
I've been reloading for my ARs for about 4 years and only very recently got into reloading for my handguns, in particular my DW Silverback 10mm so I can afford to shoot the thing.
Until last week the only pistol powder I had was 4lbs of Vhitavuori N340 and while a very clean, consistent and great metering powder the most performance I could get out of a 180gr bullet was about 1050 max, and that was pushing it to .4gr over their published max and since I dont have pressure testing equipment I decided to not push it any further and just buy 4lbs of H800X, 3lbs of Accurate #9 and 1lb of Ramshot Silhouette. I also bought 3k Winchester Large Pistol Primers, 250 200gr Nosler HPs, and my guy on GB told me he had a small coveted stash of 200 pulled 200gr Federal HSTs SCORE!! Oh, and I bought 500 new Starline 10mm cases. All set.
Over the weekend, since I just happen to have a little extra free time lately I loaded 25 of the HSTs over the A#9 starting at 12.0gr and going up in .3gr increments continued up to 13.2gr, 5 groups of 5 each, seated to 1.260". The Accurate #9 seems to be a very popular powder for 10mm so I was hoping to luck into a magic load for my Silverback using the least possible number of the HSTs keeping the rest to load as keepers. Well, the Reloading God smiled on me, the 12.9gr load is just a hammer, and at 25yards showed me a 1.5" cluster off of a bag, and a just perfect POA/POI. The numbers were very impressive too, 1172fps, ES-9fps and SD-4fps. To me at least, those are some happy numbers. I'll say though, that load has some bark! Man, factory loads in 10mm are nothing, I really felt like I had a big bad 10mm in my hands. Factory stuff, to me, feels like a 45 but a full house load is so much more. The A#9 showed good accuracy across the board, and the numbers were all always in the single digits or in the low teens. I am impressed. Ejection was no different than with any other loads I've shot through it, at about 2 O'clock and about 10' away. There was no bulge in the cases, something I was worrying about due to the Silverback having a ramped barrel and leaving just a smidge of the case unsupported. Now, I did have flattened primers BUT the primers were flattened on ever single loading I shot today and that is something I wanted to ask yall about.
All of my pistol reloading so far has been with Federal 105M primers, those are the Large Pistol Match primers and I dont remember seeing this with those as much, some flattening but not as bad. And, I noticed when priming the cases, which I do by hand, the WLPs felt very soft and were even deformed by the priming tool rod no matter how gentle I tried to be. So, are Winchester primers known to have a softer cup than other primers?
I know, no pics so it's all lies! I really had a great day at the range, until everybody else started showing up and walking downrange to hang targets while people are shooting. So, I decided it was time to make that 45 minute drive back home.
