Reloading
What Old Desiccant Looks Like
Moisture and time are the enemies of firearms. There are many anti-moisture products on the market. They range from the high-tech (like the Goldenrod) to the low-tech (a perforated can full of desiccant). They have two things in common: they attempt to limit corrosion by removing moisture from the air, and they all cost a […]
Hands On Review With the BLACKHAWK Diversion Waxed Canvas Satchel
I believe there are four stages of learning something: theorizing (thinking), practicing, training, and doing. For most of us, self-defense never reaches the “doing” phase, so we spend most of our time theorizing, practicing, and training, in descending order. Most people spend the majority of their time theorizing, fewer practice at home or at a static […]
How to Convert a 20-Round Sten Magazine Back to 32-Rounds
The plastic magazine that came with my MasterPiece Arms 930SST “Mini” MAC 10 did not allow for proper feeding. It jammed after the first or second round. I needed more spare magazines, and I wasn’t going to try the plastic ones again. Centerfire Systems (at the time) was selling a 10-pack of 20-round Sten mags. […]
Crimping My Style
For me, 2014 was the Year of the Blackout. In an effort to reduce weight I gave the AR15 platform a chance. My experiment succeeded, and my AR15 pistol is my EDC. However, short barrels aren’t great for 5.56 and so that led me to .300 Blackout. In summary, I learned a lot this year […]
An easy way to clean up stainless steel tumbling media pins
Several months ago I posted my procedure for cleaning brass using the “wet tumbling method.” Basically you throw brass, water, stainless steel media pins, detergent and a dash of Lemishine into a rock tumbler and come back an hour or two later. The biggest downside to me is separating the pins and the brass. I […]
Forster Bullet Pulling Die Review
As I wrote about a few weeks ago, my AR15 .300 Blackout pistol ran great, but my handloaded ammunition did not. It turns out that the Lyman Accutrimmer I was using increasingly fell out of adjustment. Most .300 reloaders stop at 1.360″ brass length, and folks running AR15s will trim as short at 1.355″ (which […]
Ballistics out of a 6.75″ 300 Blackout barrel
Last Saturday I had the chance to fire some handloaded ammunition out of my 6.75″ barreled 300 Blackout AR15 pistol. Next weekend I am taking my first rifle class of 2014 and I wanted to make sure the AR15 was ready, function test my M80-based plinking rounds, and also chronograph my defense loads. More and […]
How I Wet Tumble Brass
This is my third time around at reloading. The first time was in the late 90s when I reloaded .40 S&W. I did it again in 2008 / 2009 when I shot .45 ACP, but sold off my reloading equipment right before I moved to Minnesota. I’m back in the reloading game thanks to .300 […]
First .300 Blackout Handloads with M80 Pulls and Alliant 300-MP
We plan on shooting between 4000 and 5000 rifle rounds this year during training. Ideally we’ll use our .300 Blackout rifles, and that means either a ton of money for loaded ammunition (about $0.40/rnd when you can find it) or a ton of time hand loading. We chose to hand load because I don’t like […]
How I cut 5.56 to .300 Blackout brass
In the quest to build a super-short AR pistol, I turned towards .300 Blackout as my caliber of choice. 5.56×45 (the “usual” AR caliber) is very velocity dependent and does not do well in shorter barrels. I like 7.62×39 for civilian use, but unfortunately there are all sorts of feeding problems with that cartridge and […]
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