I like shooting handguns a bit more than rifles or shotguns. Somehow, when going to the range to shoot either a rifle or shotgun, it always seems to involve a bit more preparation and gear than going to shoot a handgun. Handgun shooting, for me, involves just grabbing whatever I want to shoot, some ammo, magazines (in the case of a pistol), my range bag containing eye and ear protection and off I go. Much more convenient so that I find myself shooting handguns probably two or three times more frequently than rifles / shotguns. More shooting = more ammo consumption = more reloading = MORE FUN!!
Thoughts about the Lee Breechlock and Hornady Lock-n-Load Bushing Schemes
- Thread starter RedGoat
- Start date
LDB
Elite
Thanks. I actually don't have any bench. I'm still studying and learning to know enough to be comfortable touching hazmat materials. When I do it will be using a Buchanan hand press working on a Lifetime table. I have 20 years of "accumulating" to work on cleaning up/out to have room for anything else.
Very nice. I've only seen the Buchanan in interwebs pics, never had the opportunity to examine or try one firsthand. How do you find that it operates? As easy as a bench mounted press? I have the Lee hand press, but this one looks much easier to operate and appears to have a bit more leverage.
I have a LOT of Lee dies, accumulated since the late 70s. Presses, not many. Had one of the cheapo Lee presses, but it broke at the linkage and gave me a nifty scar. Aldo had one of their turret and one of their shotgun presses. NEVER liked either one and bout gave them away. Do have one of their O presses with the die lock system. Press is OK, but not impressed with the locking system. Use the Lee press in my Winter home, in my Summer home, I use a Herters C press.
jumpinjoe
Hellcat
Can you describe in a little more detail how you went about "polishing" the interior surfaces of your "Perfect" powder measure without getting either surface "out of round?" Did you use, for instance, the surface of the drum as the backer for the polishing sandpaper against the interior housing surface and vice-versa? I think that I'd like to give that little tweak a try. I do find the minuscule dribbling of powder granules very annoying, and, although adjusting the tension of the drum-to-housing helps, the tension level that gives a 100% leakproof seal also makes the operation pretty stiff. Unfortunately, Lee's only guidance regarding the issue for years has amounted to, "Just live with it. We've sold you a very good powder measure at a great price and called the arrangement 'perfect' !"
I think I made a slight mistake IIRC in that I used the sandpaper on the body of the Lee Auto Disc measure when I converted it to the double disc setup. I placed the paper flat on a piece of glass which was supported on a doubled over bath towel on the kitchen counter top. Then simply rubbed it back and forth a number of times, keeping it perfectly flat to the paper and checking often so that I didn't take too much off, until it mated with the sliding disc perfectly. When I say perfectly, I mean there was absolutely no light to be seen between the body of the measure and the top of the sliding disc, but the disc still slid back and forth with no effort.
Now to the Perfect powder measure. I could never find a really good way to use sand paper due to the crazy angle of the drum. So, going back to some of my old race car engine building days/techniques, I removed the drum from the body, removed the cut-off wiper from the body, then leaving all the other assorted parts/pieces off the body, I added just a small amount of auto valve grinding compound/grit to the inside of the body, all the way around. Inserted the drum making certain that the adjustable thimble is pulled back inside the drum far enough to not be hurt while grinding. By keeping just a small amount of pressure with my hand/fingers, I continually rotated the drum inside the body back and forth which I held in the palm of the opposite hand. Every so often I'd remove the drum, wipe it and the body down real good and see how the match marks were doing, then reinsert the drum at a different point of rotation than the last time, and after painting the entire inside of the body with IIRC yellow high lighter. The stuff you'd use to mark/highlight certain verbiage in a letter for example. Rotate some number of times, remove, wipe and repeat till all the highlighter is gone if needed. Keep in mind the drum will wear away faster than the body so watch it closely and watch for match marks all the way around. I'm not certain about the highlighter, it may have been a Sharpie pen. The reason I'm saying that is it seems like I was using something red far more opaque than highlighter by the time I was done, but can't remember why. And coloring, even Dykem Blue would work I'm sure. All you're looking for is something to tell you if you have 100% mating surfaces and if you know what to look for you can see it in the grinding scratches on the parts without color. But I'll tell you this, once you've done this, you'll think a whole lot more of the little measure. By the time I finished mine, I could run tons of "True Blue" powder through it and never lose a grain. Well, maybe not a ton! You can even get an adapter on Ebay, etc, to mount the little measure directly to the top of the powder through expander die when loading if you want. It's much better and faster than dumping from the measure into a pan then into the case, or even removing the resized case and holding it under the measure. Give it a try, you'll like it. BTW, I haven't bought any in a long time but used to buy valve grinding compound at most any parts house in a small container just a little bigger than an "Alka Seltzer" tablet for a couple dollars. Be aware, that was probably 40+ years ago I bought the last tin I had and used on the powder measure a few years ago. Let me know if there are more questions.
Herters? Neat. I owned one of those long, long ago. The model I had used Herters proprietary shell holders rather than the now common "universal" style, so I sold it at some juncture along the way. I kept my old faithful RCBS RockChucker though.
jumpinjoe
Hellcat
I've never used one of the shot shell presses from "Lee" so have no real experience. Although have a few buddies who have and seem to get along OK with them most of the time and have heard the replacement black gauge housing has made a pretty good difference over the old style red one. But I can't anything bad about either of my turret presses. The original was an old style 3 station way back before carbide dies were made famous. Bought in early 1970's and used it regularly till about 2019. About 2021-2 I bought a new 4 station Classic turret and love it even more. I use the breechlock bushing often and never had an issue. What is the problem with them?
Thank you so much, Joe, for the detailed explanation of the procedure. My mechanical / engineering capabilities are all self-taught, so I hadn't thought of your approach. I'm familiar with the "marking up mating surfaces" to determine contact points via my adventures in gunsmithing (hobby level only).
I can probably get some valve grinding compound either online or from an auto parts store. I'm wondering if Flitz would work? I have plenty of that. I'm uncertain of whether it (Flitz) would be coarser or finer than valve grinding compound. Mebbe I should just stick with what worked for you.
And thanks for the adapter tip. I think that I'd heard of that one before and even found it on eBay, but didn't order it at the time. Maybe it's time that I did.
jumpinjoe
Hellcat
I'm thinking Flitz is sorta like Comet scouring powder isn't it? If so, I don't know how long it would take to do a measure because I'm thinking it's much finer than valve compound and typically works better with a little water. Valve compound wont need any water and wipes up/out easier and cleaner I think. I thought about Comet, but then decided I didn't want to introduce the water into the project. BTW, if you're offered a choice of grit in the valve compound, choose a finer one. That stuff is pretty aggressive. Stop and look often. Even 40+ years ago they had a choice, but I don't have a clue today what grits they were.
LDB
Elite
I'm actually going to give it the first workout with depriming some .38 brass. I've enjoyed playing with it without any die and it is top quality, really well made and fine workmanship. I got the Lee hand press and then found the Buchanan. I like that it sits upright on the table. And I don't know for a fact but I believe you are right about the leverage and operation.
There's a good video of it on the "Ultimate Reloader" YT channel. I really like his stuff. He uses it for an operation on military brass which is supposedly the most difficult operation there is and it takes care of it. So I figure my revolver brass and .22 Hornet isn't going to be much for it.
Let us know how it works for you.
I've done resizing of pistol cases (.38 and .357) with my Lee hand press and it works, but.... I find it way too easy to smash a finger or pinch myself once the major resistance is overcome. Maybe I'm just clumsy. The main task that I use it for is decapping (using a universal decapping die) out of doors to keep contaminants from the spent primers out of the house and away from the grandkids. It is EXCELLENT for that. Also, every once in a while, in the midst of a reloading session where I'm churning away and suddenly need to do a small volume, one-off operation with a die other than what is already in my bench mounted press, I'll grab the hand press and put the needed die and shellholder in it to do the operation rather than stopping my mainline process and changing out the die and shellholder in my bench mounted press and then having to swap back.