I got the rockchucker supreme kit for christmas. Yesterday the wife was off on erands all day. In the morning I bedded two actions. Then I built a reloading bench, and set things up.
The press:
Press was exceptionaly easy to set up. Bolt it down, attach handle.
Redding Dies:
Extremely easy to set up, no problem.
Powder measure:
Required a thorough degreasing. Took me a minute to figure out the adjustment screw fell out the feed tube. I used varget, for a 223. I set the drop about 27.3, then trickled to 27.5. Seemed to throw consistent charges. One could probably forego the trickling. I didn't see much correlation between the numbers on the adjustment screw, and the amount that dropped. Just in the neighborhood.
Hand priming tool:
There's a little shelf inside the tool the push rod hung up on. Took me a minute to figure this out. The redding shell holder didn't fit. There's a chamfer on the bottom of the shell holder. The redding's chamfers are smaller than the rcbs chamfer. I opted to buy rcbs shell holders, as I wasn't sure if they were the same thickness.
Once I got it put together, it worked very well.
Scale: Couldn't get any easier than this. The magnetic dampening is very nice. I was able to set the charge on the scale, and trickle up to 0 without a pause.
I didn't get the first batch finished until after dark, but I had to try them. Off I went, with target and little brother to hold the spot light. It was raining sideways. I set the target at 100, rested on a coat over the hood, and squeezed the first me- made round off. Maybe just a tiny flinch (I've never been so aware of the proximity of a chamber to my face!!). 50 grain v- max hit about a 1/4 high. Next shot hit about a 1/4 low. Then I settled down, squinted at the rain, and put the next three in the same hole! Didn't measure, but maybe 1/4".
Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Time for some ladder tests. Anybody do ladder tests for handguns? Or are the barrels short and stiff enough to make this pointless?
The press:
Press was exceptionaly easy to set up. Bolt it down, attach handle.
Redding Dies:
Extremely easy to set up, no problem.
Powder measure:
Required a thorough degreasing. Took me a minute to figure out the adjustment screw fell out the feed tube. I used varget, for a 223. I set the drop about 27.3, then trickled to 27.5. Seemed to throw consistent charges. One could probably forego the trickling. I didn't see much correlation between the numbers on the adjustment screw, and the amount that dropped. Just in the neighborhood.
Hand priming tool:
There's a little shelf inside the tool the push rod hung up on. Took me a minute to figure this out. The redding shell holder didn't fit. There's a chamfer on the bottom of the shell holder. The redding's chamfers are smaller than the rcbs chamfer. I opted to buy rcbs shell holders, as I wasn't sure if they were the same thickness.
Once I got it put together, it worked very well.
Scale: Couldn't get any easier than this. The magnetic dampening is very nice. I was able to set the charge on the scale, and trickle up to 0 without a pause.
I didn't get the first batch finished until after dark, but I had to try them. Off I went, with target and little brother to hold the spot light. It was raining sideways. I set the target at 100, rested on a coat over the hood, and squeezed the first me- made round off. Maybe just a tiny flinch (I've never been so aware of the proximity of a chamber to my face!!). 50 grain v- max hit about a 1/4 high. Next shot hit about a 1/4 low. Then I settled down, squinted at the rain, and put the next three in the same hole! Didn't measure, but maybe 1/4".
Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Time for some ladder tests. Anybody do ladder tests for handguns? Or are the barrels short and stiff enough to make this pointless?
