L Ross
Well-Known Member
After spending a couple of rainy days in reloading room cleanup I finally got the area clear enough to get to my Lyman 55 and the drop tube mounted next to it.
Filled the 55 up with 1 1/2 fg Swiss and went to fiddly town. Good grief, I forgot how tedious it is loading good quality BPCR ammo. Thank goodness I had Sandford's Hidden Prey on the Blue Tooth speaker. Having just been up on the Iron Range for a funeral the book was all the more vivid in my mind.
I have 76 rounds of .45-70 loaded with 69.5 gr. of Swiss, with .085" compression, the Lyman 457677, and a Mike's hard laminated paper wad. After about 15 rounds I remembered to align the index marks on the bullet noses with the notch filed in the case rims.
I'll probably load until I get at least 100 rounds ahead, then confirm the numbers from my notes written in 2008. I have a bunch of .40-70 SS loaded but apparently I bought a new MVA Soule sight in 2016 and put it on the .40-70 and have no notes about it at all, none. I cannot remember if I have even shot the combination. What happened as I recall is I started shooting good cast ammo in the .30-06 then picked up a couple of .308s. None of my shooting friends wanted to mess with black powder and we fantasized we were going to compete in the CBA Military Matches and never did. Then the .308 loaded with the Gold Medal X dies performed so well and I put good glass on the .308s.
Then my buddy and I went off on a .22 rim fire tangent with a couple of highly accurate .22's.
Then my other buddy moved closer to me and to two large flowages on the Wisconsin River and I started to teach him how to fish and......
Filled the 55 up with 1 1/2 fg Swiss and went to fiddly town. Good grief, I forgot how tedious it is loading good quality BPCR ammo. Thank goodness I had Sandford's Hidden Prey on the Blue Tooth speaker. Having just been up on the Iron Range for a funeral the book was all the more vivid in my mind.
I have 76 rounds of .45-70 loaded with 69.5 gr. of Swiss, with .085" compression, the Lyman 457677, and a Mike's hard laminated paper wad. After about 15 rounds I remembered to align the index marks on the bullet noses with the notch filed in the case rims.
I'll probably load until I get at least 100 rounds ahead, then confirm the numbers from my notes written in 2008. I have a bunch of .40-70 SS loaded but apparently I bought a new MVA Soule sight in 2016 and put it on the .40-70 and have no notes about it at all, none. I cannot remember if I have even shot the combination. What happened as I recall is I started shooting good cast ammo in the .30-06 then picked up a couple of .308s. None of my shooting friends wanted to mess with black powder and we fantasized we were going to compete in the CBA Military Matches and never did. Then the .308 loaded with the Gold Medal X dies performed so well and I put good glass on the .308s.
Then my buddy and I went off on a .22 rim fire tangent with a couple of highly accurate .22's.
Then my other buddy moved closer to me and to two large flowages on the Wisconsin River and I started to teach him how to fish and......