doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fun reloading tools

Hello All
Thought I would start a new post with some pictures of reloading tools for fun.







Please post pictures of some of your old tools.

What fun, what fun.

Enjoy the day
Mike

Mike is that a Lyman roll crimper? I always keep them on my items to find list but rarely ever see any of the sophisticated old shotgun equipment

Dipped a bunch of DuPont Bulk Shotgun & Shot into Fiocchi brass hulls with one of those Green Herter dippers starting back in the 50's. Everything else I had was homemade & long gone. I do now have several old loading tools, including a Eureka 16ga boxed set & several of the hand crank roll crimpers. Also have a Thalson & Lyman from the 50's era. these would all load good shells but were agonizingly slow if many shells were needed.

how old is old?

Hello
Yes,

1straightshot that is a Lyman roll crimper :>) It really works well. I use it for small jobs, When more production is needed, I have made an intermediate pulley set for my drill press that REALLY slows the sindle down. Then I use a Lyman roll crimp made for drill presses.



Enjoy the evening
Mike

The paradox loading tools, old and new -- what an inspiration.















[img]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/33243775_29a7bf860d_o.jpg






I have very few original *old* tools, but I do have original old rifles. They all tend to have ended up needing quite a bit of special *new* tooling to get them running.
It's always lots of fun once things get rolling!

The work ranges from building punches to building dies.
There are times I need the lathe to get anything done, but once the tools and basic components are built, the actual loading is quite simple and typically ends up happening in my graver's vise (as it's always handy), or at the shooting bench with simple hand tools.



Cheers
Tinker

This is the only photo I have stored on a host site at the moment and shows some old re-sizers to be used when paper cases get a little damp. I have a few other odd reloading items and also a digital camera that is refusing to play at the moment. Lagopus.....

This thread is very interesting to me because I load all brass hulls for my hunting loads in 28 and 16 gauge. I use a Lee Loader and shoot the loaded shells in modern guns. My hunting buddies are not impressed, but then they don't pattern and buy promo loads.

Hello All

Tinker PLEASE tell us more about pinfire reloads.

Wyobirds, if you are into brass hulls, like I am into brass hulls , check out this web site.

http://www.circlefly.com/html/wad_sizing_chart.html

I use Alcan hulls for 10 and 12 and MagTech hulls for 16, 24 and 32. Also for my 577 Snider.

Also have a lot of Rem and Win brass 12 gauge hulls, but have not resorted to them yet.

Enjoy the day
Mike

Lagopus - please check your Personal Message account on this site.
I sent you a note on your friend's rook/rabbit rifle.

Mike - the nutshell on setting up for the pinfire rifles is that they're all special and unique, but relatively simple.

The first thing I do with a pinfire gun or rifle is cast the chambers and slug the bores from the breech and from the muzzles.
I do that for both barrels, and I also run slugs through from both ends to check for bulges (which could have been hidden by subsequent barrel striking and browning or blacking) or tight spots.
It's important to know for double-damn sure what you're getting into.
I've also had numerous sets of barrels x-rayed to further my 'look-see' into what would otherwise be total unknown territory.

The circlefly comments on loading brass and proper wad column treatment is a good read - and as many things are in respect to loading black powder cartridges (shot or rifle) nothing seems to be written too clearly in stone. Great reference material though, and good to think about when you're wondering what's going on with your loads on the pattern board.

Via a chamber casting and a bore-slugging you'll quickly find out what the case-mouth wall-thickness needs to be.
My guess is that somewhere in the 99% range you'll find that your pinfire gun or rifle was built for paper tube cases.
Modern plastic hulls have similar wall thickness to vintage paper cases, so that little diddy from circlefly will likely be valuable information for anyone looking to modify modern brass cases for their pinfire guns and rifles.

Something else of note is this - you'll need to do something about securing your percussion caps and backing them for the firing pin strike --*AND*-- base wads aren't necessarily permanent. If you're looking to set up with a base wad or if you're modifying modern plastic or paper hulls for pinfire use, pay special attention to your base wads. Account for them every time you re-load those barrels. When you go messing around with cartridge modification, it's important to be especially careful of this kind of thing - and everything else while you're at it.
There's always the potential of popping a barrel by way of a bore obstruction or overload.

That brings me to powders - use real black powder.
Skip the substitutes, skip nitro-for-black recipes.
Use black powder. Goex is great, and as good as it gets for your shotshell reloading.

From there it's pretty simple.
Conservative charges of relatively equal volume powder and shot, with normal over-powder cards and lubed felt wads.

With some of the shotguns you might get lucky with simply thinning the rims of CBC brass, plugging the primer pockets, and drilling firing pin holes for use with hard bronze wire firing pins - then setting the percussion caps against the 'far side' of the case, using the barrel chamber as your backing 'anvil' for the relatively soft internal bronze firing pin.
With others, you might end up needing to go so far as making your own cartridge cases and swaging dies.

Above you'll see a steel swaging die and a series of swaged brass that I built up for my Purdey 20bore rifle.
That one was just about the most labor-intensive cartridge case development I've dealt with. The results were very rewarding though!



Cheers
Tinker