For pistol and rifle ammo, the process is pretty much the same. Except that for pistols you tend to bell the case mouth a little to allow for better bullet seating and crimp. I personally do neither for 9mm which happens to be my most used handgun caliber. But that is another story.
A cartridge has four basic parts. The primer, powder, case and bullet.
Naturally primers come in different varieties and from different makers. For rifles they are broadly Small Rifle, and Large Rifle. Within each there are multiple grades, I use the ones under. I use the Standard ones for ammo I dont expect too much accuracy out of, for example .222 Rem that I will be shooting in a friends gun. I generally use the bench rest primers for my accuracy cartirdges since they are supposedly the most consistent. I also use the Magnum primers in my 6 BR typically with high density loads of Varget Powder.
Here we have unused and used rimer side by side, and trust me getting the anvil out of either would take quite some doing. I wouldnt even try it with an unused primer.
Not surprisingly bullets come in a wide variety as well. Below are from L-R, the 105 grain Lapua Scenar, 105 grain Berger VLD, 90 Gr Lapua scenar (HBn coated), 77 Grain Lapua. These are what I tend to shoot in my 6 BR.
Powders also come in several varieties, but I didnt feel like taking a picture of multiple bottles. Sorry.
This is the interior of a neck sizing die, and it is the pin that pushes the primer out. Btw the reddish stuff is not rust but residue from walnut media used to clean cases. What it does tell me is that I need to clean the die.
So the first task is to seat the primers. So I put the primers in the tray.
And then seat them by hand. It gives me a feel for the primer pockets, and when the case is close to becoming unusable the primer seats with very little effort.
-- Fri Apr 09, 2010 17:31 --
The next thing to do is to wegh out the powder charge. The thing behind the pan is a powder trickler which quite literally lets you add 1 granule of poder at a time. I typically use an automatic elctronic podwer dispenser, but since I am only loading a small number of cartridges decided to do it manually. Powder is also loaded by volume, something I tend not to do. My loads are typically under 0.1 grains in variance.
Once that is done, it goes into the case and the case into another tray. That way I know which cases have powder, and does help me prevent double charges etc when loading larger cases. It isnt possble to double charge a 6 br case.
This is a seating die, that allows me to be able to adjust the seating depth to 0.001 inches.
The case on the press, with a bullet placed in the neck.
Pull handle
Voila
Finally measure OAL to ensure that it is where you want it.
It is a fairly straight forward process, and extremely safe when done with common sense.
Questions?
