The Bench of Evil got quite a workout tonight, now that I have all the things I need to go to town. I reloaded 40 rounds of 6.8 Rem. SPC and loaded 50 rounds of .223.
 
Started off loading some .223 rounds. This is starting with fresh Winchester brass. I’m using CCI small rifle primers. Sierra 55gr Spitzer boat tail bullets, and 20 grains of IMR-4198 powder. Going is slow at first as I get used to everything. I spilled some of the powder all over the table, and had to do cleanup. Put one primer in seated backwards, and thought better of trying to decap a live primer from the business end.
I managed to do the 40 rounds of 6.8 Remington SPC a good bit faster than the .223, but that’s not counting the decapping, resizing and cleaning I did prior to tonight. I’m using Sierra OTM 115gr bullets, and 22 grains of the same powder.
The real reward will be firing them out of the rifle without anything blowing up. I’m a little disappointed it took me all night to reload probably 30 minutes worth of ammo at the range, but I figure I’ll get faster. My next purchase will be a reasonable electronic scale.
…But did you get any powder in your carpet?
Haha, you’ll get better as time goes on. I’ve done all that, too. Accurate No. 9 as a fine ball powder is a huge pain in the arse to clean up, but it meters great. I am almost surprised it doesn’t leak…
I’m also thinking a tumbler would be nifty. I got the liquid cleaner, but I’m not to keen on having to wait for the cases to dry.
Yeah, tumblers are nice. Lots of reloading goodies fall in the “nice” category.
Glad to see everything worked out (so far) pretty well. I’ve never used 4198 but 20 grains of anything reasonable* under a 55 grainer sounds really mild. Err… just looked it up. Looks like it’s a mid-range load, around 3k fps.
Oh, do you have a pair* of calipers? (what is the proper term for a unti of calipers? caliper? pair, set?) That, along with a “bullet comparator” of some sort is really nice to have to adjust your seating die. (distance to the lands is what usually matters for accuracy, and bullet overall length can vary enough to not be particularly reliable–of course, if you’re loading to mag-length for .223, it won’t really matter, and I don’t know if you can reach the lands with a mag-length 6.8spc) And, if get really serious some time, get one of the gauges that lets you measure the distance from bolt face to lands.
*20 grains of bullseye, for example, would be highly *NOT* recommended.
I do have a caliper. I found it to be pretty useful for adjusting the seating die. I noticed bullets were + or – 0.004 in overall, without adjusting the die. I’m not sure how precise you can really get it.
FYI, midway has “blemished” 6.8 bullets on sale for $11 something per 100.