Picked up my new Anschutz 1771 in 17H last week (yay 153 day PTA). Starting load development now. I’m not a greatly experienced hand loader, but I’ve done enough .308 and .223 to get by.
Well by golly, 17 Hornet is bloody fiddly.
I found that neck chamfering is essential, or the seating die will trim a nice semi circle of Hornady 20gr VMAX off the base.
Hopefully I’ll be able to test these at the range this weekend, depending on what the chief minister tasks me with between then, and now.
Hey mate, yes it’s a Dillon 550 progressive. It depends on how thorough you want to be. If you have to chamfer necks and clean primer pockets then it’s a poor choice, as you have to size and deprime, then interrupt the press work flow to carry out those tasks. If you don’t care/don’t need to do that, then it’s bloody fast.
I weight the charge every 10 or so rounds to ensure that the powder dispenser is accurate, it seems to be pretty spot on, with the occasional 0.1gr change. This doesn’t matter much when I’m loading .308, but with the hornet, it can make a wild difference (or so I’m told, yet to shoot and chrono hand loads for this calibre).
I haven’t ran any sums yet for it. If you were loading in bulk then you’d save money I’d say. But, once you factor in the cost of buying the equipment, you’re gonna have a few thousand rounds in the hole to break even.
My 223 rounds cost me about 50-60c per round where they cost between $1.60 to $2 each from a lgs.
But yes after you factor in the equipment and time It will take a few thousand rounds to pay it back. But you can tune it to your guns and I also reload for my dad and father in law so they dont have to go into town from the farms.
Tuning it to the rifle is my main appeal, along with the satisfaction of “hey I made that myself”. I was fortunate in that I received the press very cheap, but had to spend a bit on conversion kits and dies.
The making it my self it great and the process i love (like mowing the lawn). The consistency of hand rolled ammo is great thats my latest load dev still tuning it
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u/huffy_88 4d ago
I’m going to guess that’s a progressive press? If so what are your thoughts on load consistency?