After all these years with a rinky dinky Texan press, I finally upgraded to a Mech Jr press only to decide that wasn’t enuf. Today I stumbled across a deal and came home with a Dillon SL900 12 gauge reloading press. WOW! what a machine, its the rough equivalent of my Super1050, but for shotgun shells. Once tuned up, this thing will be able to make them faster than I could shoot them.
Guess this means the 870 and I will need to spend some time together.
Found a good deal on some optics I wanted to try, and then managed to find This bag of 100 Hornady Rifle Bullets in 308 for blackout reloading!
20 $ per 100 is NOT bad, so I picked up a few bags to refresh the inventory.
Well, another night of loading messes.
Just got a shipment in from Dillon, lots of spare parts that I’ve needed. Got parts installed on the 1050 and got some loading in!
In a load of brass that came in “Cleaned and sorted” I managed to find it a little less than advertised.
In the 75 rounds I loaded tonight, I ran into 2 more 45GAPs, one of which struck and set off the primer (45GAP uses small pistol primers, and when you try to stuff a Large Pistol primer in a small pistol primer pocket, bad things happen.
Also found, hiding in 45ACP brass (that I missed) 1 380acp, 1 40sw, and one 9mm brass.
Designer Ernest Durham
Designed November 2002
Produced 2003–present
Bullet diameter .451 in (11.5 mm)
Case length .755 in (19.2 mm)
Overall length 1.070 in (27.2 mm)
The .45 G.A.P. (often called the .45 “GAP”) pistol cartridge was designed by Ernest Durham, an engineer with CCI/Speer, at the request of firearms manufacturer Glock to provide a cartridge that would equal the power of the .45 ACP but was shorter to fit in a more compact handgun, and with a stronger case head to reduce the possibility of case neck blowouts. G.A.P. is an acronym for “Glock Automatic Pistol”, and the .45 G.A.P. is the first commercially-introduced cartridge identified with Glock.
Got the whole works gummed up and lost my groove today while loading some 45acp on the RLSuper 1050. Not only is it slightly shorter, it also uses small pistol primers…. Not sure how it slipped into my brass bucket.
.45 GAP
Rough report
| Load | Bullet Weight | Low | High | Average |
| My Reloads | 125gr | 1978 | 2129 | 2062 |
| Remington | 115gr | 2259 | 2313 | 2294 |
| Gunn Ammo | 130gr | 2067 | 2093 | 2080 |
As we can tell, my loads came in 3rd in speed. Just barely behind Gunn Ammo’s 130 grain. And 232 fps behind the Remington.
It looks like I could turn it up a little if I wanted to, but next to load more and check for 100 yard accuracy. Maybe next week…
Got a delivery from the mailman today with some parts to fix 500B#3, which has been used as a parts machine over the past year or three. Finally sat down and emailed Dillon precision with my requests and, as usual, received a pleasant response with notice my parts were on their way.
Spent Saturday getting that press cleaned up, and new parts installed to make it run. I’m considering setting it back up for 30 carbine and doing a run of those (till I run out of brass).
Thought I’d post a pic of the current setup.
I really need a new bench, as I’m only able to utilize 3 of my 6 presses given current bench space. Next bench build I’m going for an 8 foot table, I think. I have a design I’m playing with already, More width, less depth.
I’ve had one of my Dillon 550bs set up for 38 special for a long time. It was one of my most loaded calibers in my life. People often ask for 357, But I hate to do the change and have to re-adjust everything to do so. Along comes this product, one so simple one askes “Why didn’t I think of this?” by pulling the pins and a shim, I can swap from 38 to 357 (or 44 special to 44Mag)
I liked the idea so much, I bought two. If you like the idea too, email dougwilliams at embarqmail dot com, He replies quickly, and will accept 64 and prior silver coins as payment. (which I have, but was to lazy to do)
I’m eager to be able to quickly switch over to 357, several people have requested that I load some 357s.
Here is a video of how it works
My Crimp Die came in on Friday, so that was all I needed. I got 50 new brass loads done, as well as 20 once fired reloads complete this am.
My current load uses 17.0 grains of H-110, at least as a starting point.
Got a bunch of 300 AAC Blackout loaded today on one of my spare 550s. Ruined a couple in the process, but have a few samples to test with the chrono next range trip.
As is typical with 2 die sets, there is no crimp die. As usual with no crimp die, I’m not happy with my loads.
So, I ordered this:
The Lee Factory Crimp Die is designed to give reloaders the perfect crimp on reloaded ammunition. The Factory Crimp Die crimps the bullet more firmly in place than any other die with more uniform pressure. The Factory Crimp Die features a collet that squeezes the case mouth into the crimping groove for a firm hold. It is nearly impossible to buckle the case as with regular roll crimp dies. Lee’s testing has shown that using a Factory Crimp Die provides a more uniform pressure curve, increasing the accuracy of any bullet.
Now that I have all the parts, and most everything is set up. The last decision still looming is the choice of powder for these. Of the twenty-some various powders I have on hand, I have no reloading data for the 300 Blackout for any of them. I’d think it would be fairly close to the 223, but I guess not. Only publication that I have with data is Hodgdon Annual Magazine.
I guess I’ll run up to the shop and get some H-110.
