I am routinely on the lookout for hollowpoints, cast or jacketed, for testing handgun bullets in water jugs or wet newsprint to determine if they had any potential for expansion in predators or deer-sized game. One of the first hollowpoints to be tested back in the early 1970s was the Speer half-jacketed semiwadcutter that was sold in solid or hollowpoint designs, but neither seemed to have much potential for expansion when fired from my .38 Special with an impact velocity of less than 900 fps. The other observation was that the bullet seating punch in my Lyman reloading dies did not fit the nose of the Speer bullets correctly, resulting in rounded edges, e.g., somewhat squashed and/or misshaped noses, especially the hollowpoints. The amount of distortion depended mostly on the degree of force required to seat the bullet in the case mouth. ...Read More >

A brass cartridge case holds and contains a primer, propellant and projectile in a durable near-waterproof, compact package. It aligns the bullet with the bore, provides a seal for high pressure gases when fired, acts as a heat sink to reduce the amount of heat transferred to the barrel steel, and then recovers after firing to permit easy extraction. The brass case is not only the basis for a round of factory ammunition; a fired one provides the ability to reconstruct another shot. A new component case lets the handloader assemble his own recipe from scratch without the expense, chamber throat erosion or time required to find, purchase and shoot a factory round. A brass case can be resized, reformed, blown out, work-hardened, annealed, shortened, reamed, trimmed, turned, chamfered, weighed, measured, sorted and polished. ...Read More >

Q: Based on your articles in Rifle Magazine and Handloader it is obvious that you have extensive experience with Marlin rifles. I have a Marlin Model 1894 chambered in .44 Magnum that I purchased new about 15-years ago. The first thing that I did was ship it to Brockman (Brockman Custom Gunsmithing, 2165 South 1800 East, Gooding ID 83330) for an action job and to lighten the trigger pull to 3-pounds. I thinned the fat forearm and installed an X-S aperture sight and white stripe post front. Using Speer and Hornady 240-grain jacketed bullets pushed with 21.5 grains of Accurate No. 9 powder with CCI #300 primers (a load that I got from you) I often get groups measuring around 1½ to 2-inches at 75-yards. It is a ton of fun just to shoot offhand rolling cans and rocks, but I have also taken two Kansas whitetail deer with it, both with a single shot. ...Read More >

To my way of thinking, guns, shooting and handloading should not be just something to do, but fun. Fun of the “Where did the day go, we just got here” type. ...Read More >