07-07-2022, 01:43 PM
Going to try to organize my thoughts here. First off, what with brass being a scarce commodity, doing practical things to it to prolong its life becomes real important. Needed to say that.
Reloading breaks down into a few repeatable processes.
1. cleaning
2. Resizing
3. trimming
4. load primer, powder and bullet, to desired OAL.
Folks get real complicated or real OCD, and that's fine for them, but what about the regular guy who wants to find good loads for his rifle? For me, a good load is consistently 1 moa or less at the bench... that way I figure it will be <1.5 moa in the field. You want to define what your goal is, that's what I'm saying here. Then adjust your reloading to achieve that.
My processes are basically do 1 step at a time for all the brass you're doing on this go-around. All the cleaning, then all the resizing, then all the trimming, etc.
1. Cleaning - at some point in a gas gun and even in bolt actions the brass can get pretty dirty. Again, trying to prolong brass life, you'll want to do some cleaning and probably after each firing but for sure after every 2 (sometimes I "cheat" and do bolt actions every 2... only once in a while though but I digress). Several methods, from using some hot water, dishwashing soap and lemishine, to walnut or SS in a dry tumbler. I do the walnut/tumbler route. There's also the liquid or ultrasonic but for me that's a little overkill. Read up on some internet reviews on these various methods. You'll want to do some kind of cleaning especially when your brass gets to 3x or 4x fired. Maybe not super-crucial for 1x or 2x brass but the time will come.
2. Resizing - an rcbs press and shellholder/dies and some lube for the brass or it WILL get stuck in there and you won't be able to get it out! But not too much lube. For the press I'm using the rock chucker, there's also a smaller rcbs that should be ok for you. I don't use any of the Lee or the bigger, more expensive presses but you can go there if you want. Lee IMO has too many reports of too much slop, so I avoid them. On the lube there's hornady 1-shot which is the best IMO all-around, it doesn't get too much on there and it also gets some into the neck area which you definitely want. There are other ways but this is simple and straightforward, and not too much $$. Spray them in a dedicated casing holder tray (spread a towel underneath), then let them dry 2 hrs+ or overnight. Dies - for the 6Arc the hornady's custom dies are just fine. You need a shell holder- well 2 of them - this can be either rcbs or hornady just don't mix them, use 2 of the one shellholder kind or the other. when I was looking all I could find was the #6 hornady but that was fine. Rcbs might be #32 but I'm going from memory, I got the hornady ones. 1 shell holder for the press, one for your primer seating tool in the phase below. We can caoch you on how MUCH to resize, basically you can resize/set back the shoulder by 0.003-0.004" and the brass will last longer than if you set it all the way back to "factory", that stretches and eventually weakens the brass to where it doesn't last as long.
3. Trimming - the resizing eventually will stretch the brass out too long for the chamber so it needs to be trimmed - maybe not every time but for this you will want a nice digital calipers - they go for around $15-20 so not expensive but they are a must for the measurements you need to make. shooting/resizing is a game of thousandths - 0.001's. Frankford has one that I use. AG3 or 357 style little batteries. Best little precision guy in your toolbox.
Trimming requires a trim tool, I just have the rcbs trim tool and my calipers. O, and nominate 1 brass casing to be your "model" because when you need to trim, you set that one in the tool and size fir it, then put it back in the resizing die box. Trim to some where down close to the min saami length. For 6Arc that's 1.480-1.490 is saami, so close to 1.480 is where you want your little case model to be. Mine is 1.483 I think. If the fired brass measures > 1.490 then you need to trim, if it's under 1.490 then you can skip the step if you want to. Some guys trim every time regardless, which is (kind of OCD but ) fine of course. To measure for that before trimming set your caliper to 1.490 and lock it down, then if a case goes thru the caliper it's less than max, if not, then trim.
After trimming do a "VLD" chamfer on the inside and a regular chamfer on the outside because trimming leaves some flashing both to the inside and on the outside. VLD for inner b/c it makes flat-bottomed bullets seat easier. boat tails seat well also.
See how useful your calipers is gonna be?
I'll cover priming, loading and seating after my morning work-conf call.
Reloading breaks down into a few repeatable processes.
1. cleaning
2. Resizing
3. trimming
4. load primer, powder and bullet, to desired OAL.
Folks get real complicated or real OCD, and that's fine for them, but what about the regular guy who wants to find good loads for his rifle? For me, a good load is consistently 1 moa or less at the bench... that way I figure it will be <1.5 moa in the field. You want to define what your goal is, that's what I'm saying here. Then adjust your reloading to achieve that.
My processes are basically do 1 step at a time for all the brass you're doing on this go-around. All the cleaning, then all the resizing, then all the trimming, etc.
1. Cleaning - at some point in a gas gun and even in bolt actions the brass can get pretty dirty. Again, trying to prolong brass life, you'll want to do some cleaning and probably after each firing but for sure after every 2 (sometimes I "cheat" and do bolt actions every 2... only once in a while though but I digress). Several methods, from using some hot water, dishwashing soap and lemishine, to walnut or SS in a dry tumbler. I do the walnut/tumbler route. There's also the liquid or ultrasonic but for me that's a little overkill. Read up on some internet reviews on these various methods. You'll want to do some kind of cleaning especially when your brass gets to 3x or 4x fired. Maybe not super-crucial for 1x or 2x brass but the time will come.
2. Resizing - an rcbs press and shellholder/dies and some lube for the brass or it WILL get stuck in there and you won't be able to get it out! But not too much lube. For the press I'm using the rock chucker, there's also a smaller rcbs that should be ok for you. I don't use any of the Lee or the bigger, more expensive presses but you can go there if you want. Lee IMO has too many reports of too much slop, so I avoid them. On the lube there's hornady 1-shot which is the best IMO all-around, it doesn't get too much on there and it also gets some into the neck area which you definitely want. There are other ways but this is simple and straightforward, and not too much $$. Spray them in a dedicated casing holder tray (spread a towel underneath), then let them dry 2 hrs+ or overnight. Dies - for the 6Arc the hornady's custom dies are just fine. You need a shell holder- well 2 of them - this can be either rcbs or hornady just don't mix them, use 2 of the one shellholder kind or the other. when I was looking all I could find was the #6 hornady but that was fine. Rcbs might be #32 but I'm going from memory, I got the hornady ones. 1 shell holder for the press, one for your primer seating tool in the phase below. We can caoch you on how MUCH to resize, basically you can resize/set back the shoulder by 0.003-0.004" and the brass will last longer than if you set it all the way back to "factory", that stretches and eventually weakens the brass to where it doesn't last as long.
3. Trimming - the resizing eventually will stretch the brass out too long for the chamber so it needs to be trimmed - maybe not every time but for this you will want a nice digital calipers - they go for around $15-20 so not expensive but they are a must for the measurements you need to make. shooting/resizing is a game of thousandths - 0.001's. Frankford has one that I use. AG3 or 357 style little batteries. Best little precision guy in your toolbox.
Trimming requires a trim tool, I just have the rcbs trim tool and my calipers. O, and nominate 1 brass casing to be your "model" because when you need to trim, you set that one in the tool and size fir it, then put it back in the resizing die box. Trim to some where down close to the min saami length. For 6Arc that's 1.480-1.490 is saami, so close to 1.480 is where you want your little case model to be. Mine is 1.483 I think. If the fired brass measures > 1.490 then you need to trim, if it's under 1.490 then you can skip the step if you want to. Some guys trim every time regardless, which is (kind of OCD but ) fine of course. To measure for that before trimming set your caliper to 1.490 and lock it down, then if a case goes thru the caliper it's less than max, if not, then trim.
After trimming do a "VLD" chamfer on the inside and a regular chamfer on the outside because trimming leaves some flashing both to the inside and on the outside. VLD for inner b/c it makes flat-bottomed bullets seat easier. boat tails seat well also.
See how useful your calipers is gonna be?
I'll cover priming, loading and seating after my morning work-conf call.