Hello All, I just entered your forum as a new member.

[Torsten]

Please give me recommendations about reloading:
I want to involved with reloading but I have neither experience nor equipment.
Most likely, literature needs to come first and care in measurment and documentation.
Please give my your advice on what equipment is needed first.
The main items seem to be a press and accurate scale. When I am looking at presses: are the additional components interchangeable with other marks, or do I have to get everything from one producer?
I think over the time there will be coming more items.
How much do I need to invest? Can you recommend any supplier and producer? In Finland the equipment is quite deary, so I guess I will purchase from USA.

I own a Blaser R93 with .243Win and 9.3x62 mm kaliber. Do you have any recommendations, or are there any tricks necessary for these calibers?

All your recommendations are highly appreciated, only you do not need to mention to be careful, and not to somoke etc.

Many thanks

 

[sakofan]

Welcome!

I would recommend this: Kit

This kit gives all you probably will ever need, less your caliber specific dies. I would recommend Forster or Redding dies. Lee collet dies are OK too.

Well, I'll let the rest of the gang say hello and give their .02. Reloading is a VERY rewarding, frustrating, hair pulling...Sorry. I meant to say it's a lot of fun!!...sakofan..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Brown Dog]

Torsten,

I've owned 2 R93s in the last few years and am very familiar with their design (I bought the second to demonstrate that I had a horizontal learning curve following all that went wrong with the first. It had the same problems but to a lesser degree /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif.).

I believe, but would stand correction, that because of the 'collet' style locking mechanism of the bolt head you should reload ammunition for the R93 in the same manner as for a semi-auto; ie; full-length resizing and not just neck-sizing so that your reloaded ammo is always returned to factory dimensions. Because of the nature of the collet's lock up under pressure (it allows the cases to elongate slightly), you will have to pay particular attention to ensuring that the case shoulder is returned to factory dimensions. If you allow the cases to 'grow' the R93 will start to fail to fire due to light primer strikes.

Hope that is of help /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Out of interest, does your R93 occasionally fail to fire factory ammunition due to striking the primer with insufficient force- my first one did 10 percent of the time, the second did 2 percent of the time?!

 

[Bob S.]

I 2nd the rockchucker kit, good starting point and nothing wrong with the RCBS dies to get going.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[Torsten]

Hello Browndog,
thank you for your recommendations.
There seems to be exactly the same situation in USA like in Europe: R93 haters and lovers...
I use until now SAKO ammuniton. Not only related to the price but also to fine tune my rifle I intend to start reloading.
My R93 has seen less than 300 shots and I never had any problem. May be I will get them when I start as well. I collected all cartridges and will use them for a while. I learned that I need to calibrate the cartridges. When they expnad, is it enough to just shorten it to the original length or do I also need to reform the parts below the shoulder (here you see that I just intend to start and don't know anything yet)?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Brown Dog]

Torsten,

Glad you're having success with your R93 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Because of the peculiarity of the R93 bolt head (I can't think of any other design (except maybe the HK G3 etc series of assault rifles) that allows the bolt face to move back slightly whilst the round is fired. The critical length that changes (in the R93) is from case head to shoulder. It is this 'case head to shoulder' length increase that will cause the R93 (again, because of its unique locking system) to start to strike light.

The OAL of the case is not the critical dimension to prevent this (ie trimming the case mouth will not address the problem).

You will need to ensure that you 'bump' the case shoulder back to factory spec.

Bottom line is to return your ammo to factory dimensions; if you just neck size, or fail to bump the shoulder when full length resizing, the R93 will start to light strike your ammo after 2 or 3 reloads

Hope this makes sense!

PS I'm a Brit! I've been to Finland a couple of times working near Rovaniemi at Rovajarvi (spelling?!) Had a great time. I seem to remember that Thursday nights were particularly hard on the liver /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif!

 

[sniper2]

Welcome, get you a reloading set up and get started!!Good luck!