The kids head back to school this week. I’m not sure who’s more excited, my wife or my daughter. My son is definitely the least; he struggles with ADHD and what we believe is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. If you’re not familiar with ODD, it makes discipline nearly impossible, once he digs in, there’s no moving him.
It’s been tough on my wife and me as we try to keep order at home and some sanity for ourselves. We’re hoping school resources can help. For all of Vermont’s problems, the schools are well funded and offer solid support for kids who need it, so “back to school” might finally bring us a bit of relief.
Meanwhile, I’ve been working through the reloading backlog and realized I no longer have the time or patience to hand trim brass. I used to spend Sundays at the trimmer with a movie running, but those days are gone. With piles of brass needing attention, I’ve started looking into powered trimmers—more on that in this week’s Time at the Bench.
Website Updates
I mentioned that Marc had some new neighbors move in. That got him reevaluating what loads might be proper to be carrying in his revolver. He put his thoughts down on paper and we published them this week.
Time at the Bench
Annealing 7.62×39
I’ve been using the AMP annealer for a while, and my latest batch of 7.62x39mm went smoothly with one exception: the Lee shell holder doesn’t let every case slip in and out cleanly. Rim sizes vary by brand, so some snap in—fine for sizing, but tricky when you’re pulling hot brass out during annealing. The Redding #12 Shell holder is said to be the best for this cartridge; I even have one sitting in my Midway cart. In the meantime, I used a .308 Win shell holder. It takes some finesse since cases can drop off if you’re not careful, but it worked well enough that only a few slipped into the annealer, and those were easy to fish out. Cases come out hot enough to melt plastic, so I drop them into a metal pail to cool before transferring them to a plastic one.
Trimming Brass, by hand no more
Anyone who knows me would say that I am a creature of habit. Unfortunately, my habits are taken to the extreme and I can be slow to change. When I sat down to start sorting the 7.62×39 cases by case length into a “to trim bucket” and a “no trim bucket”, it dawned on me that I was going to be doing a lot of trimming. Most of the brass was as much as .020 longer than the max case length. Which was a bit shocking. That’s a lot of hand cranking on the manual trimmer and given I had done a bunch of hand trimming on 30-06 a few months ago, I was not keen on doing all this 7.62×39 brass.
As I was sorting this brass and realizing the sheer amount of work I was signing up for, I asked myself the question “Why? Am I doing this?”
Why am I sorting brass to trim? It would be far more efficient if I just assumed all of the brass needed to be trimmed and run it through a trimmer that trims it back a set amount. Of course, if I am hand trimming it makes sense to sort it, but if I have a power trimmer, well, problem solved.
Thus I decided it was time to finish the drill press rebuild I had started months earlier. Rather than buy a dedicated brass trimmer, I put the Delta 220 drill press I’d been given to use. Built between the 1940s and 1960s, these machines are all-metal and far sturdier than today’s budget presses. Before putting it to work, I stripped it down, ran the parts through a washer, bead blasted them, replaced the spindle and pulley bearings, and gave everything a fresh coat of Ford Grey paint. I added a new Jacobs chuck, a ½-hp three-phase motor, a VFD, and I’m installing an RPM sensor and speed dial. I’ve poured far more time and effort into this press than it’s worth, but I expect it to last a lifetime and perform beautifully.
While it would seem like this is a tangent, it circles back to brass trimming as there are several purpose-built brass trimmers on the market that are designed to mount on the end of a drill or drill press. Probably the most well-known is the World’s Finest Trimmer or (WFT) by Little Crow Gunworks.
However, Little Crow Gunworks is not the only participant in that party. There are at least a half dozen brands and designs of cast trimmers that follow a similar pattern. Here’s a short list.
I have not tried these personally however the price point is tempting to try at least one or two and see if they are as good as the WTF.
Frankford Arsenal Universal Precision Case Trimmer
I have messed with this one a bit, and found it was probably an ok entry level tool. Not something I was overly impressed with but at the same time, it was not a complete flop.
That list is not exhaustive. There are other companies, even some unknown brands that produce these. All of which are very similar in operation and concept. Lyman has a dedicated trimmer that works like the old Gracey Trimmers. Frankford Arsenal recently released a similar unit. Of course, Giraud has their dedicated unit as well that is very popular among high volume shooters. If you think about it, all the trimmers I’ve mentioned so far are basically a Giraud, or Gracey trimmer without the motor.
The only thing I think some of the dedicated hand crank trimmers have, an advantage on the powered units, is the ability to do wildcats. The way my RCBS Trimmer clamps on to the back of the shell means I can trim just about any case out there. This is more of a challenge with trimmers that rely on the case body, or index off the shoulder.
9x19mm Processing
As I mentioned last week, I had a die loose and ended up seating a bunch of bullets longer than what would gauge in a cartridge checker. I debated on whether I should just sort through the rounds and separate out the rounds which were too long or if I should just run them through the press again and set the bullets back and reapply the crimp.
I decided on the latter. It is quick enough to feed rounds into the bullet seating station on a 550 and run them through bullet seat and crimp. Probably faster to do it that way than to sit down and sort the whole batch. I have a tendency to load cartridges long. Unless I am trying to line up the case mouth with a crimping groove, or loading solid copper, I like to keep the distance between the bullet and lands to a minimum, provided they will still feed.
The advantage here is that since my nominal, non-screwed up COAL was long already, I could set up the seating and crimp die to knock everything back .020 and still have a safe load. For me the only reason to do this was to have a degree of consistency. Everything got pushed back to the same point and crimped in the same relative location. I am just about through it all. I have the same chore to do with several lots of 223 Remington I loaded a while ago.
Speaking of Reloading Mistakes
Pictured above is my reject bin from the marathon batch of 9x19mm I loaded. What do you do with your rejects, split necks, backwards primers, crushed case mouths? I set them aside with the intention of salvaging components, but more often than not they end up in a “live ammo” scrap bin.
Industry and Legislative News
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Connecticut’s Assault Weapons Ban
This probably is not a surprise to anyone, the 2nd Circuit is a left-leaning Circuit court, and gun advocates were expecting a loss here. This case, NAGR v. Lamont, is very likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. Right now, this is setting a stage for some serious questions to be asked at the Supreme Court as the lower courts seem to consistently uphold the constitutionality of Assault Weapons Bans despite these bans running directly in opposition to the Heller decision.
New Mexico’s 7 Day Waiting Period Blocked
The 10th Circuit Panel blocked the 7-day waiting period required for gun purchases, saying it violates the 2nd Amendment. You might as well say it violates logic as well, if I am a gun owner, and I have a gun, why should I have to wait seven days to take possession of another gun? That is the relatively benign consequence of such a law. The real consequence is a woman who may be legitimately in fear for her life is blocked from purchasing the very thing that could preserve her life.
Since 2023 Vermont has a 3 Day “cool” down period on all handgun purchases. I have yet to find any meaningful data that indicates that a waiting period has had beneficial results.
Glock Switches in Illinois
We’ve talked about this before. Glock switches are a thing that turns pretty much any Glock on the market into a select fire pistol. They are very much not legal. In a testament to Glock’s design (I can admire the design even if I am not particularly fond of Glocks) the core components have changed very little, if at all, since its introductions. This means that most if not all the parts in a Gen 1 Glock fit and work in a Gen 4 Glock. What is unfortunate for Glock is that this means illegal Glock switches will work in every generation of Glock.
These Glock switches aren’t being churned out but the thousands in some dude’s basement machine shop. They were/are being imported from China, you could buy one on wish.com, when that website was popular a few years ago. So, they are not especially hard to get, they are easy to install, and no one seems to know what to do about it. This has fueled at least one lawsuit against Glock for not changing the design, and it is fueling a particularly concerning crime wave in Chicago. There have been more than 20 new cases in the last 18 months, and over the last four years seizures have skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, the picture that is being painted here is not what is happening. No one is pointing to China and saying, “Hey knock it off”. They are pointing their fingers at Glock, and gun owners. It’s not hard for those who have anti-gun tendencies to paint with a broad brush, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. We are seeing a legislative push in California to ban Glocks outright as a consequence of this.
New Guns and Gear
Shell Shock 308 Win Next Gen Cartridge Case
Shell Shock Technologies has released their new nickel-stainless composite shell for the 308 Win. This joins their line up of 380 ACP, 9x19m, 5.56 NATO, and 300 AAC Blackout. The company’s claim to fame is their composite cases which use a thin-walled nickel alloy for the case body and either stainless or aluminum for the case head.
The nickel case body is thinner than brass which allows more case volume, and should deliver better performance when using slower burning powders. They are also lighter. However the rifle brass is not reloadable. The pistol brass can be reloaded and supposedly they have quite the long life cycle. However they require special dies to reload.
There are several companies who are working on composite cases, and this does seem to be the way of the future of cartridge case technology. Brass is heavy, expensive and soft, which limits the pressures it can handle. Composite cases can handle much higher pressures, tend to be lighter, and they also can have larger case volumes.
With the price of copper on the rise, and the market looking for the next generation of ammunition, do not be surprised if we see more stuff like this.
H&R Introduces an M-14
H&R has announced they are bringing out an M-14 under the H&R Brand, and hinted that there may be an M1 Garand in the works as well. As a big fan of these old war horses, I am happy to see this. I really enjoy shooting my M1A and the few times I have shot an M1 Garand, I very much wish I had one of those as well.
H&R was a company that was basically put into a grave by Remington. During the 2020 Remington Bankruptcy the H&R Brand was purchased by Palmetto State Armory. So it is nice to see a legacy company essentially come back from the dead. Time will tell if these rifles are of a quality build or not, but it’s exciting to see something new to hit the market that isn’t a polymer Glock clone or another M4 / AR-15 build.
That is all we have for this week.
The Ballistic Assistant is a website dedicated to the art of handloading and shooting. We aim to share tips on reloading and shooting, inform others on what’s going on in the firearms community, and provide our opinion and thoughts on firearm related news and events. If you like what you read, we only ask that you subscribe and share with a friend or two.
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Jay – jay@theballisticassistant.com
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I would like to load 55 grain FMJ in my 5.7×28 pistol. Load data is scarce. Help!!!
Good Evening Rick,
I can probably help you with that. If you shoot me an email. Jay@theballisticassistant.com I can get what you’re load details are and I should be able to help track down some load data for you, or generate some data via QuickLOAD
Sure.
There is plenty of data for 40 grain JRNSP and JSP. There is nothing for 55 grain FMJ BT SP. I would like to load the same bullets that I use in my 5.56 AR. There is not much out there. Any help would be appreciated. I would like starting loads as well. No one wants to blow up a gun. Thank you sir.
For 55 gr FMJ-BTs in 5.7×28, I suggest using Ramshot True Blue with a COAL of 1.575 in. A good starting point is 4.6–4.8 gr, then work up slowly in 0.1 gr steps while tracking velocity—going much past 5.0 gr isn’t recommended. Watch bullet fit, since many 55s have a long ogive that pushes the case mouth onto the curve and makes crimping tricky. The max COAL is 1.594, but you may end up with feeding issues if you load that long.