new to reloading

Originally posted by merlin
Ok, a caliper and case length trimmer. Is the trimmer used for hand gun brass or just for rifle? and as for the caliper, digital or dial? I tend to agree about how the round chambers, It just seems that a round would have to seat and be held by the extractor. Seems a bit on the flimsy side but there may be a clue as to why an extractor breaks unexpectedly. Thanks for the tip on powders, sheesh! I guess I could have figured that one out. How about this, might be a dumb question but here goes....what do you think about these auto primer mechanisms and are they applicable to a single stage press as opposed to a hand primer? Thanks again and I really appreciate all the feedback! Don't have any loading buddies around hear and the closest gun shop is 50 miles away so this is great!!! Thanks:usa:

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I am not a gunsmith so here goes. Everything I have read says the 45ACP chambers on the case mouth and in fact if you field strip your pistol, put a round in the chamber, and look down the barrel you can see the case mouth contacting the end of the chamber at the sholder where the barrel and chamber meet. Having said that, i suppose if the round were slightly under length, the extractor could keep the round from properly head spacing, however, it seems that this would also cause a lot of misfires (if the round were grossly under length) since there would be nothing to keep the round from being moved forward when the firing pin contacted it. On the other hand, if the case were too long the case mouth would contact the sholder where the barrel and chamber meet before lockup which could cause case failure, gas blowby, and other nasties since there would be nothing supporting the rear of the case (I am not sure this isn't the case with proper lockup as I have never looked down the magazine well with the pistor loaded so see how much the rear of the case is supported when the action is properly locked up( prefer my view to be from behind the damn thing) :>0 In any event I try to keep my 45ACP cases right at the maximum length per spec and that seems to work for my 1991A1.

As for the trimmer, you can use it for both pistol and rifle all you need are the proper collets (I think they are called, not real sure of nomenclature).

I am not into seeing how much lead I can get in the air at one time so I have never been concerned with setting up a reloading operation that lets me load hundreds of rounds per hour. That having been said, I use a Hornady hand primer as I like the feel it gives me about how the primers are seating. I have thought about an auto primer feed for my single stage press but have never tried one. You can buy them fairly cheaply and if you don't like them you haven't lost much. In fact, given the way some of the morons on ebay don't like to lose bids if you listed it you might get more for it than you paid.