Black Friday - Angeles Ranges 11/26

Connor P Price · Post by **Connor P Price** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:32 pm

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year, I don't much care for shopping so I'm going shooting while the women shop instead.

Angeles, left side, 8:30. Who's with me?

evo · Post by **evo** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:46 pm

I was planning on going to zero my new Premier 5-15. What time shall we start?

Connor P Price · Post by **Connor P Price** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:58 pm

evo wrote:I was planning on going to zero my new Premier 5-15. What time shall we start?

I'll be arriving between 8:30 and 8:45 depending if i hit the snooze alarm. Line goes hot at 9:15.

aermotor · Post by **aermotor** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:16 pm

I'll most likely be there around 1 or 2 if you're still going to be there. Bringing out all the toys with a few friends I think.

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:19 pm

I'll be there this Friday.

Post by **AR15barrels** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:28 pm

I might show up and plink.

K_Labs · Post by **K_Labs** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:51 pm

I'm down to head out. I have my 100 yard zero at least.

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:55 pm

Speaking of Angeles, I just ran across this pic on the web:

It's Angeles from the old days. Note the 400-yard berm. It's not even a berm.

khw9mm · Post by **khw9mm** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:02 am

johnlee wrote:Speaking of Angeles, I just ran across this pic on the web:

It's Angeles from the old days. Note the 400-yard berm. It's not even a berm.

Love those thru the reticle pics!! Didn't we have a thread like that a while back?

Won't be there Friday but will be there Saturday. Have fun!

264Charlie · Post by **264Charlie** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:17 am

evo wrote:I was planning on going to zero my new Premier 5-15. What time shall we start?

Don't worry it will be off or broken in a few rounds anyway. They need to
Make a few trips back before the work well.

Ask me how I know:) or Ryan,

buffybuster · Post by **buffybuster** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:25 am

264Charlie wrote:
Don't worry it will be off or broken in a few rounds anyway. They need to
Make a few trips back before the work well.

Ask me how I know:) or Ryan,

That way you can vouch for their excellent CS.....

I wonder if it's the German engineers (why use one part when ten will do the same thing mentality) or the American craftmanship (union made, union pride, uh.. that's not my job) mentality that isn't compatible....

evo · Post by **evo** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 9:59 am

Really? They seem to have a good reputation. What are the issues you've seen with them?

shooter65 · Post by **shooter65** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:47 am

might be there also

DirtRacer151 · Post by **DirtRacer151** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 12:18 pm

264Charlie wrote:
Don't worry it will be off or broken in a few rounds anyway. They need to
Make a few trips back before the work well.

Ask me how I know:) or Ryan,

What about me? ;)

Post by **AR15barrels** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 12:28 pm

DirtRacer151 wrote:What about me? ;)

Some people will just accept the random shifts and think it was them...

Connor P Price · Post by **Connor P Price** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 12:31 pm

evo wrote:Really? They seem to have a good reputation. What are the issues you've seen with them?

They have a reputation for shifting zero seemingly at random. They will fix them if it happens, but its no fun during a match. Some people don't have issues with them at all though.

evo · Post by **evo** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:49 pm

I take it this isn't just people not setting the zero flip correctly right? I'm certainly not ready to compete so as long as it's fixable I'll be happy.
I'm just really not a fan of the reticles in Nightforce and S&Bs. If this one doesn't work out I guess I'll try US optics. Anyone coming Fri have an T-pal I can peep through?

DEMjunior · Post by **DEMjunior** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:49 pm

I should be there Friday morning around 8. It would be nice to meet some fellow shooters and maybe learn a thing or two in the process. Ive been shooting a scoped rifle for only about 2 months....I got A LOT to learn lol.

DirtRacer151 · Post by **DirtRacer151** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 3:00 pm

evo wrote:I take it this isn't just people not setting the zero flip correctly right? I'm certainly not ready to compete so as long as it's fixable I'll be happy.
I'm just really not a fan of the reticles in Nightforce and S&Bs. If this one doesn't work out I guess I'll try US optics. Anyone coming Fri have an T-pal I can peep through?

Don't worry about it man. There's lots of brand favoritism that goes on around here. Just shoot the scope and have fun. Premier has had a few problems just like EVERY other scope mfg out there with the exception to probably NF. The reason people trash Premier though is that their CS isn't quite up to par with the likes of company's like USO or Vortex. The truth is that USOs, S&Bs, Luepys, and most all other scopes have their problems too. I've personally seen someone have problems with every single one of the mentioned scopes. 1yr ago most of the USO fans here on the board were turning their noses away from USO but have decided to give them a shot after learning of USOs willingness to build the scope however you want it and their attention to the CS side of things. They are honestly no better with regards to quality then a Premier, S&B, or any other scope out there. They cater to CS though and that means some extra brownie points for them.

I own a Premier 5-25 and have been very happy so far. I'm scared to use it and worry it will eventually fail. The thing has honestly never given me a reason to dislike it though. Randalls saying that i blame its shifts on my guns poor performance lately. I would buy that if i noticed it making patterns with separate groups or tracking/return to zero problems but the truth is that it always returns to zero and i've never noticed it making separate groups as if its shifting. The groups went from 3/8" circles to 1" circles. There's no patterns of stringing or anything like that. The groups just opened up plain and simple but i attribute it to my barrel being shot out. I will try it on my .22 when i return from vacation and do a full test of it since my 260 is out of commission at the moment. I'm not attached to my scope one bit. I just can't find anything else i trust more other then a NF and those lack the features i want. I need to buy something else soon and I would like both of my scopes to match for familiarity purposes. I doubt i will buy another Premier. When something comes out that is better (NF FFP 5-22) then i will sell the Premier and buy 2 matching scopes. Until then i'll just keep shooting it until it gives me any problems. It is a little known trend though that the 5-25 Premiers tend to have less problems then the 3-15s. Go have some fun with yours and try not to get caught in all the hype!!

bcrich · Post by **bcrich** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:58 pm

I'll join you guys too!

Gateguy · Post by **Gateguy** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:44 pm

I'll be out there tomorrow the 25th for a few hours before turkey feed bag time, i'm going to set some orange clays out at the 600 yd berm. i will leave some untouched for ya'll to play with on friday. i might get out on the 26th also but work might call. sucks being the 24 hour emergency guy but the coin is good.

264Charlie · Post by **264Charlie** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 8:10 am

evo wrote:Really? They seem to have a good reputation. What are the issues you've seen with them?

Yeah, I have owed two of them. They both made two trips back to PH for major failures. James is the only person I know that has not sent is PH back.

They are not a bad scope when they work, but my past tells me they will go down.

evo · Post by **evo** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:47 pm

264Charlie wrote:
Yeah, I have owed two of them. They both made two trips back to PH for major failures. James is the only person I know that has not sent is PH back.

They are not a bad scope when they work, but my past tells me they will go down.

Well so far I really like everything about it except the weight. It's super clear, the knobs seem to be very solid, and the double detents make changing elevation very fast. The reticle is very fine, which is great at 10-15x and still visible below that but not quite as easily, I've got good eyes so it's a reasonable trade off. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Experiences over at Snipers Hide and Long Range Hunting seem to indicate they've gotten their customer service worked out better now, they're even upgrading some older scopes for free.
Time will tell.

Post by **AR15barrels** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 9:49 pm

evo wrote:Well so far I really like everything about it except the weight. It's super clear, the knobs seem to be very solid, and the double detents make changing elevation very fast. The reticle is very fine, which is great at 10-15x and still visible below that but not quite as easily,

My biggest dislike about the premiere's is how hard they are to get behind.
When you compare how it is to jump behind a nightforce or a USO to the Premiere, you will see the difference I am talking about.

evo · Post by **evo** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:30 pm

It was cool meeting a few of you out there today. As far as I can tell the scope is working out, once zeroed I busted 3 or 4 of those clays left on the 600Y line. The Premier seemed very easy to get behind to me Randal, the eye relief is wonderful, and I didn't have any issues with shading at the edges. Next weekend I'll try the 10 dot target and see if everything's still kosher, I should also try some sort of box test to make sure it's tracking properly. I am still interested in looking through a USO and F1 though.

K_Labs · Post by **K_Labs** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:45 pm

Great shooting with alot of you guys today. I met alot of cool people and gained alot of knowledge. I'd like to thank Ben for helping me figure out some hard dope. I learned alot today.

Does anybody have the conditions for today so I can add that to my dope card? around noonish

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:56 pm

For what little it's worth, my phone shows the high today was 65*. Today was beautiful. I haven't seen Angeles that wind-free for a while.

To the CaPRC crew on the far left, sorry we couldn't hook up. The Ranchside Cafe (our usual breakfast spot) opened late this morning and so we got to the range a little late. By the time we got to Angeles we were lucky to get whatever benches we could.

I have only a few pics from today. Four groups with my new handloads:

That's three different loads. The group in the lower right looks like a three-shot group, but it's a five-shot group:

Then I fired another five groups:

That's the same three loads spread over five groups. I was bummed because that one shot out of the group on the top right was the last shot I fired out of the nine groups. As you can see, I have this really bad tendency to have four clustered and one out. It's really hard for me to keep it together for five shots.

I had some rounds left, so I loaded 10 rounds into a magazine, took a big gulp, and went for the CaPRC dot drill:

Man, this target is really tough. The dot is smaller than my crosshair, so aiming is really difficult through my 10X scope. Add the mind job from the time pressure and it's worse. I still shoot way too fast. I have to learn to pace myself. This should be an excellent target to gauge my improvement (if any) over time.

Even with the poor showing on the CaPRC dot drill, I was pleased with my new handloads.

264Charlie · Post by **264Charlie** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:19 pm

evo wrote:It was cool meeting a few of you out there today. As far as I can tell the scope is working out, once zeroed I busted 3 or 4 of those clays left on the 600Y line. The Premier seemed very easy to get behind to me Randal, the eye relief is wonderful, and I didn't have any issues with shading at the edges. Next weekend I'll try the 10 dot target and see if everything's still kosher, I should also try some sort of box test to make sure it's tracking properly. I am still interested in looking through a USO and F1 though.

3x15 is better than the 5-25... I let Conner shoot my 5=25 just because it is so hard to get behind. I can't ever seen to get and edge to edge site pic with the 5-25. The NF, March and USO is soooo easy and forgiving.

The PH will serve you well and Ryan and I both said they are almost are the perfect scope (that's why I picked up two). They just fail in the reliability and eye relief dept.

S&B - Questionable reliability, poor reticles, not serviced in the US.
NF - No FFP 20+x, so-so reticles, (fixed a big issue with the new 10 mill turrets)
USO - Big, questionable reliability,
PH, poor eye relief "box", questionable reliability, questionable tracking.

They all have issues man... If it has a issues send it back tell it's correct and you will be GTG.

evo · Post by **evo** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 9:48 pm

264Charlie wrote: They all have issues man... If it has a issues send it back tell it's correct and you will be GTG.

That's the plan, how are the March's, any reports out on reliability?

DirtRacer151 · Post by **DirtRacer151** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 9:53 pm

evo wrote:It was cool meeting a few of you out there today. As far as I can tell the scope is working out, once zeroed I busted 3 or 4 of those clays left on the 600Y line. The Premier seemed very easy to get behind to me Randal, the eye relief is wonderful, and I didn't have any issues with shading at the edges. Next weekend I'll try the 10 dot target and see if everything's still kosher, I should also try some sort of box test to make sure it's tracking properly. I am still interested in looking through a USO and F1 though.

Its because different scopes cater to different people. Everyone always raves about S&B glass but i personally think my Premier was 2x better!! Charlies March is the closest thing i have seen to my Premier but then again i'm used to it. I'm sure if i spent some time letting my eyes adjust to a S&B i would like those too! Spend a few matches behind any scope and you will learn how to get behind it. I really never had a learning curve for mine. It was %99 better and easier to get behind then any other scope i've used.

Really after having my Premier for almost 1 yr I only have a few gripes.
1- The knob detents are spaced to close together.
2- The parallax knob needs to be marked so you know where the heck your at (the newer ones are marked and i even painted dots on my scope to help me)
3- Its a heavy scope
4- I'm worried about it
Considering those minor things i must say that its a very well rounded scope. Just shoot yours and enjoy it. When/if mine goes tits up i might add a few gripes to the list

PRYDE · Post by **PRYDE** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:30 pm

264Charlie wrote:

3x15 is better than the 5-25... I let Conner shoot my 5=25 just because it is so hard to get behind. I can't ever seen to get and edge to edge site pic with the 5-25. The NF, March and USO is soooo easy and forgiving.

The PH will serve you well and Ryan and I both said they are almost are the perfect scope (that's why I picked up two). They just fail in the reliability and eye relief dept.

S&B - Questionable reliability, poor reticles, not serviced in the US.
NF - No FFP 20+x, so-so reticles, (fixed a big issue with the new 10 mill turrets)
USO - Big, questionable reliability,
PH, poor eye relief "box", questionable reliability, questionable tracking.

They all have issues man... If it has a issues send it back tell it's correct and you will be GTG.

S&B has been serviced in the US since 2009, they also have a wide selection of good reticles if you order off the Euro types. Many reticles are not available in the US unless you special order them.

Post by **Gnzrme** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 11:57 pm

as aways john, nice photo's...that 10 dot drill is not easy....I think the best I every did was 6/10...I ended up taking the Brother in Law (future) to A Place to Shoot today, was hitting the buff on the top of the hill standing...No why couldnt I do that during SCPRC....hit targets standing/kneeling....?

Anyway, looks like your loads are settling in nice....What is the load...?

K_Labs · Post by **K_Labs** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:18 am

I've been trying to match my hard/soft dope changing velocity and bc but I can't get more than 2 numbers to match. 200 and 300 yards are the only ones.

Post by **AR15barrels** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:45 am

K_Labs wrote:I've been trying to match my hard/soft dope changing velocity and bc but I can't get more than 2 numbers to match. 200 and 300 yards are the only ones.

Worry more about the longrange and midrnge numbers matching.
The closerange numbers will line up when you get your scope height right.

DEMjunior · Post by **DEMjunior** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 11:53 am

Where were you guys shooting at Angeles? I was at last bench on the 600yd side from 8:30-1:00 and didnt seem to see anyone come down that way. True, I haven't actually met any of you guys before so I wasn't sure who was who, but I am guessing none of you were one of the two kids shooting with an AR next to me. There was one fellow about 3rd or 4th bench from the end with a BEAUTIFUL RRA Garand and a single shot 50 though.

shooter65 · Post by **shooter65** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:45 pm

we were abot 8 benches from the clay thrower.

DEMjunior wrote:Where were you guys shooting at Angeles? I was at last bench on the 600yd side from 8:30-1:00 and didnt seem to see anyone come down that way. True, I haven't actually met any of you guys before so I wasn't sure who was who, but I am guessing none of you were one of the two kids shooting with an AR next to me. There was one fellow about 3rd or 4th bench from the end with a BEAUTIFUL RRA Garand and a single shot 50 though.

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 5:52 pm

Gnzrme wrote:Anyway, looks like your loads are settling in nice....What is the load...?

Those nine groups were shot with a mix of 44.0, 44.5, and 45.0 grains of Varget. The other pieces of the recipe were:

beater American Eagle cases (full-length resized with minimal shoulder bump)
CCI BR primers
Lapua 155-grain Scenars
2.850" COAL (bullet just barely touching the lands in my Arctic Warfare)

I'm not good enough to discern any accuracy difference among these three loads, or my first batch of 100X rounds that was composed of five different loads (starting at 42.6 and going to 43.6). All eight loads I worked up seem to "shoot just fine" for me. They all seem to recoil the same as well; at least I can't tell any difference. After yesterday, I fell into the "more is better" trap and decided on the 45.0 grains of Varget and I'll run with that load a while and see if my cases hold up.

I'm going again next Sunday to practice for the forthcoming 12/18/10 match and also gather some dope for my new load.

Post by **AR15barrels** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 6:01 pm

johnlee wrote:
Those nine groups were shot with a mix of 44.0, 44.5, and 45.0 grains of Varget. The other pieces of the recipe were:

beater American Eagle cases (full-length resized with minimal shoulder bump)
CCI BR primers
Lapua 155-grain Scenars
2.850" COAL (bullet just barely touching the lands in my Arctic Warfare)

I'm not good enough to discern any accuracy difference among these three loads, or my first batch of 100X rounds that was composed of five different loads (starting at 42.6 and going to 43.6). All eight loads I worked up seem to "shoot just fine" for me. They all seem to recoil the same as well; at least I can't tell any difference. After yesterday, I fell into the "more is better" trap and decided on the 45.0 grains of Varget and I'll run with that load a while and see if my cases hold up.

I'm going again next Sunday to practice for the forthcoming 12/18/10 match and also gather some dope for my new load.

155's tend to shoot better the faster you push them.
Try a few more with an extra 1/2gr to 1gr more powder and see if they tighten up.
More importantly is to shoot some 200yd groups.
The 100yd groups all tend to be quite similar in size, but the further away you can shoot your groups, the more you will learn which ones are better...

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:16 pm

AR15barrels wrote:155's tend to shoot better the faster you push them.
Try a few more with an extra 1/2gr to 1gr more powder and see if they tighten up.

Everyone says that about the Scenars so I wanted to try a higher propellant charge. I also "felt" the 45.0-grain load was the most accurate. The groups weren't any smaller because I'm not consistent enough to test by group size, but I had many more of those jedi moments were the trigger break felt perfect and the bullet hole went exactly where the crosshair was when the shot broke with my 45.0-grain load than with the others. At least it felt like this happened more with the 45.0-grain load. It's really hard to say for sure.

But I'm afraid to go higher than 45.0 because I'm showing slight signs of pressure. Extraction is no problem at all and is just as "easy" as normal. And there were no ejector smears on the case head that I could see. However, the fired cases showed two slight signs of pressure that my rookie eyes could pick up.

The primers were flattened very slightly. The primers weren't "square" at the edges or anything, but the radii at the edges of the primers were tighter than when the primer went into the case. If you looked at the primer from straight back, the primer looked "bigger" than normal and if you looked at the primer from an angle, the light glinted off the primer edges in such a way that you could tell it was flattened very slightly.

I wish I had taken pics of the primers. Sorry.

The second pressure sign was that some of the cases were snug going into my Sinclair priming tool. The Sinclair tool uses the Lee Auto Prime shell holders and my particular Sinclair tool has one of these Possum Hollow shell holders in it:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?p ... ber=751956" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This shell holder is a tighter fit on the case heads than the Lee Auto Prime or Redding standard shell holders, so it shows more if the case head expanded even slightly. And many cases were snug going to the shell holder. They didn't just fall in like before. Rather, I had to "snap" them lightly into the shell holder. (During priming of my fired cases, all 100X of the primers seated normally with good resistance.)

I'm a rookie at all of this handloading stuff, so I'm not sure how serious these pressure signs are. Things might be different if yesterday were Palms Springs Afrika Korps hot, but it was only 65* yesterday and I still had some slight pressure signs with 45.0 grains of Varget. I hear Varget is very temperature-insensitive, but my rookie ass is still afraid that if my 45.0-grain load is "warm" in this cool weather, will it show major signs of pressure when the ambient temps are super hot or if the ammo bakes out in the sun?

What do you think? Based on the foregoing, do you think I have some wiggle room for a little more propellant in my loads?

AR15barrels wrote:More importantly is to shoot some 200yd groups.
The 100yd groups all tend to be quite similar in size, but the further away you can shoot your groups, the more you will learn which ones are better...

I shot at 200 yesterday in the morning hours, not knowing the entire day would be calm. The groups looked like the 100-yard groups, but bigger. I did my usual four shots in about a 1" or 1.5" cluster with a single shot out of the group. (I do this quite a lot.) But even at 200, I couldn't really tell any difference among the loads. I'm sure a better shooter could, but I'm just not consistent enough to tell.

Here's a 200-yard UPS target:

That was my sad attempt at a ladder test with my previous five loads. Ignore the top shot, at it was shot with my 300-yard dope by mistake.

The left group was my first group of the day with five different loads. You can see some vertical stringing with a fifth shot out of the group. OK, I thought. That's just the way it'll be with the different propellant charges. Or so I thought. So I very carefully scoped out the target after every shot with my spotting scope and logged each hole into my log book to make sure I would know which hole was from which load. It took forever.

Then I fired the group on the right. That's five different loads and four of them went into the 1" paster and of course my usual one shot was out. (I was pissed too that I pulled that one shot because all five shots in the paster @ 200 yards would have been a "career" for me.) As I fired more and more groups that day at 200 yards, I realized that all five loads were firing into the same group. And then I tried shooting several different groups with the same load. I'm not a good enough shot that I could discern any kind of elevation or accuracy differences among the five loads. So I just fired a bunch of groups at 200 yards and 100 yards and called it a day. All the groups shot "just fine". And I got similar results yesterday with my 44.0, 44.5, and 45.0 loads at 200 and 100 yards. I really couldn't tell them apart.

Yesterday the 300-yard line was open, but of course I was too lazy to walk out to 300 yards.

Post by **Gnzrme** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:40 pm

John,

If you are seeing pressure signs at 45.0 gr's, then you should stop and back off a little from there...also, try different powders. I am using IMR 4895 and Bill at A Place to Shoot was recommending H-4895 from Hodgon...I also tried RE15, N133 from Vita Vhouri and I was going to try N550 also from VV but havent done so yet...Just remember, more velocity will burn out your bbl faster....

As far as a ladder test, I am trying to organize a group trip to Desert Marksman which is halfway out to The Spot that has 600 yard targets with pit service in the near future, so that would be a good distance to do a ladder test and we can drive out to the targets or just post someone in the pit with a radio...I will let you guys know when we can do this...

264Charlie · Post by **264Charlie** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 8:18 pm

PRYDE wrote:
S&B has been serviced in the US since 2009, they also have a wide selection of good reticles if you order off the Euro types. Many reticles are not available in the US unless you special order them.

I understand they only service some bits in the US, many scopes are forward oversees. I guess reticles are a preference thing.

PRYDE · Post by **PRYDE** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:43 pm

Charlie, Well according to S&B usa, last time I called, they can do everything in their us facility with a turnaround time of about 3 weeks so I'm not sure where you got your info.

John, you need better brass to handle higher pressures, the sweet spot for 155 scenars is about 2850-2950 fps and with varget and an ai chamber at your barrel length you would need about 47.5 grains. Switch to 4895.

264Charlie · Post by **264Charlie** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:55 pm

PRYDE wrote:Charlie, Well according to S&B usa, last time I called, they can do everything in their us facility with a turnaround time of about 3 weeks so I'm not sure where you got your info.

John, you need better brass to handle higher pressures, the sweet spot for 155 scenars is about 2950 fps and with varget and an ai chamber at your barrel length you would need about 47.5 grains. Switch to 4895.

Umm... Good to know. About six mounts ago I emailed them when I was up in the air about the March. I was told (by S&B) only some items are serviced in the US.

Post by **AR15barrels** » Sun Nov 28, 2010 12:42 am

johnlee wrote:But I'm afraid to go higher than 45.0 because I'm showing slight signs of pressure. Extraction is no problem at all and is just as "easy" as normal. And there were no ejector smears on the case head that I could see. However, the fired cases showed two slight signs of pressure that my rookie eyes could pick up.

The primers were flattened very slightly. The primers weren't "square" at the edges or anything, but the radii at the edges of the primers were tighter than when the primer went into the case. If you looked at the primer from straight back, the primer looked "bigger" than normal and if you looked at the primer from an angle, the light glinted off the primer edges in such a way that you could tell it was flattened very slightly.

I wish I had taken pics of the primers. Sorry.

The second pressure sign was that some of the cases were snug going into my Sinclair priming tool. The Sinclair tool uses the Lee Auto Prime shell holders and my particular Sinclair tool has one of these Possum Hollow shell holders in it:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?p ... ber=751956" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This shell holder is a tighter fit on the case heads than the Lee Auto Prime or Redding standard shell holders, so it shows more if the case head expanded even slightly. And many cases were snug going to the shell holder. They didn't just fall in like before. Rather, I had to "snap" them lightly into the shell holder. (During priming of my fired cases, all 100X of the primers seated normally with good resistance.)

I'm a rookie at all of this handloading stuff, so I'm not sure how serious these pressure signs are. Things might be different if yesterday were Palms Springs Afrika Korps hot, but it was only 65* yesterday and I still had some slight pressure signs with 45.0 grains of Varget. I hear Varget is very temperature-insensitive, but my rookie ass is still afraid that if my 45.0-grain load is "warm" in this cool weather, will it show major signs of pressure when the ambient temps are super hot or if the ammo bakes out in the sun?

What do you think? Based on the foregoing, do you think I have some wiggle room for a little more propellant in my loads?

Your instincts are dead-on.
Follow them.
You are just at a nice spot with the primer starting to get larger and the case head expanding, but no swipes.
Watch them closely when the weather turns warmer again.

johnlee · Post by **johnlee** » Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:11 pm

Thank you.