airedale

When it comes to reloading I do not think you can ever have too much information. The Lyman 49 manual you have is a very good one, I started out with a Lyman 43 myself and have several other Lyman editions including the 49 that you have. The reason I favor Lyman manuals is they are not a bullet or powder manufacturer themselves, so when they develop their load data they are not so to say restricted to using their own brand. They use a good cross section of all the manufacturers bullets so one has a bit more to choose from. I think if a person was going to have just one manual the Lyman would be a good choice. Now that being said the reloading hobby has a way of taking hold of you and can kind of become obsessive in the search for perfection. And of course the way one gains more info about about a wider selection of bullets and powder is to obtain more manuals. For me personally over the long period of time I have been at this I have ended getting manuals from most of the major players and have picked up gems of useful information from them all. Today you have these computer program that WJ and Shawn are using that reveal just about all there is to know. So the sky is the limit and if one has a bad case the reloading bug you certainly have plenty of options. Al

Hey Pygmy, if you have a cartridge collection this thing works pretty good and does display them nice, kind of a pain to set up but not too bad. I picked it up on Amazon. It is called the MTM Cartridge Display Board. Al

Gave my reloading room a makeover to have some sort of order where I know things are. Cleaned one drawer that had all of my master shells that I used to set my seating dies and decided to try out a bullet board to store them on along with some other shells that I had at one time or another. I kind of like this thing, it worked out pretty well, got a lot of extra spaces, I guess I need to buy some more guns. Starting at the top from left to right. Second Row Third Row 17 HMR 30/30 32 ACP 22LR 30/06 9 MM 22 Mag 338 Win Mag 357 Mag 22 Hornet 35 Rem 44 Mag 223 Rem 45/70 222 Rem Mag 458 Win Mag 410 22/250 7.62/39 Russian 28 GA 220 Swift 20 GA 243 Win 12 GA 6mm Rem 25/06 284 Win 280 Rem 7mm Rem Mag

The scope normally sells for around $270 the rings can be found on Amazon for just under $60. I purchased the scope off ebay for $200 used. You will never go wrong with Leupold products, the scopes have a lifetime guarantee, even if you buy a used one you are covered. Al

I have spent much of the winter redoing my gun room-reloading room-man cave. Been going through my firearms with a bunch of what I hope to be some improvements in performance such as trigger work, action work, refinished some stocks along with some scope changing and mounting. So I have quite a bit of sighting in to do and I am looking forward to it. I plan on a bit of fishing also and have been going through that stuff too and getting it ready. As for "The Walking Lead Mongers" they are on my ignore list. Al

Don't know what kind of time schedule are on for selling, the Syracuse Gun Show is just around the corner and there are plenty of buyers there. Al

It is a beautiful mount for sure. Al

The thing that jumped out for me was the confiscated muzzleloaders which the felon apparently was using for poaching. The more relaxed rules that the black powder community has for purchasing and owning that type of equipment is based quite a bit on the premise that nobody ever commits any crime with those sorts of weapons. I would not be surprised that there will be some legislator that will see this and try starting a push for some tighter regs. Al

Yes it can be shipped to an FFL and I know anything I find will not be cheap but with the prices I have been seeing along with the shipping and the FFL guy's cut what I have found so far is totaling way too much. I would make my own out of the 204 Ruger cases before paying those kinds of prices. Al

It has been out of production for some time now and is really tough to come by these days. I have done many internet searches for a long time, about the best I can come up with is an online auction once in awhile. Any ammo from out of state can not be shipped so that eliminates just about everything I find. I was hoping maybe someone here might have some laying around. If worse comes to worse I can make it out of 204 Ruger cases but I would rather just obtain the regular 222 mag factory cases if possible. Al

If anyone has or knows of a source to obtain either empty cases or even loaded ammo in 222 Rem Mag I would be interested in buying them. Al

WJ I had an old timer turn me on to MRP many years ago, he too had a 280 and the gun it was chambered in was of all things a Remington Model 4 auto loader. He loved the Nosler 160 partition bullet and he ended up settling for his final load using 62 grs of MRP and was getting slightly over 3000 fps with absolutely no sign of overly high pressure. Man I thought he was crazy until I saw it all at the range in person and believe me I was standing back when he touched things off. For me I ended up settling for 60.5 grs and the 150 partition for slightly over 3000 fps, again the cases fall out of the chamber with zero signs of overly high pressure. The load worked fine on everything I tried it on and I still use it today. By the way Natchez also carries MRP and I just picked up a couple of pounds myself. Al

WJ I am a big fan of MRP powder, it was almost like gold at one time and very hard to come by. I use it mostly in a 280 Rem and have seen some amazing MVs produced by that stuff along with wonderful working pressures. Al

Thanks for the compliments guys, one more thing I can't wait to give those Leupold quick detachable rings a try to see how they hold zero. Always used conventional type rings this is my first set of this kind and I have always wondered how well they would work. Al

The bottom line is with the gun hating administration we have along with all the other gun haters and animal rights groups out there and there are a lot of them with resources, if there was the least and I mean the "LEAST" amount of traction they could get by using the excuse that hunters are lead poisoning themselves along with their families there would be a full court press to push for the ban of lead bullets. The media would jump on it in a heartbeat and the blitz of any propaganda they could prove true would be unrelenting and monumental. Believe me do not think for one moment this has not occurred to them, the reason it has not happened is simple. There is no concrete evidence that hunters eating a deer that has been taken with a lead bullet is poisoning people to the point of any significant consequence. Al

That little Leupold really makes this rig right, it fits the gun, it does not weigh hardly anything and has huge eye relief and nice big field of view. I picked it up used on ebay and saved $70, from the looks I do not think it was ever mounted. That being said I still liked that receiver sight an awful lot. Al

There is a huge difference between smoking cigarettes and a person eating a deer shot with a lead core bullet. The hard evidence was insurmountable showing millions of people through the years having lung cancer, heart problems emphysema, so on and so forth and dying. An idiot could see the tobacco companies were lying. You show me hard evidence that millions of people eating millions of tons of deer and other game meat for several hundred years that have been shot with a lead bullet that has been properly butchered and prepared that are sick from lead poisoning? Al

When one starts to get a little age on them you tend to start looking and thinking light weight. I picked up this little Marlin 44mag a few years ago, it has the 16 1/2 inch ported barrel. It is amazingly accurate with some ammo I purchased about 20yrs ago put out by an outfit called Top Notch. 300 gr Noslers that will all group touching at fifty yards. I had a Williams receiver sight on it and I had no problem putting them in there on target in decent daylight. But I had it out hunting a couple of years ago and had a doe meandering around in front of me at about sixty yards when the daylight was fading early with all the leaves still on the trees. With no intention of shooting I lined her up in the sights and had a very hard time seeing her clear enough where I would take a shot. If that had been the big one in her place I would have been in trouble. Now I really loved that receiver sight because it contributed to the overall handiness of the rifle but I had to get real, I knew that I needed a scope in the above conditions. So keeping with the theme of the rifle I looked up the lightest most compact scope that Leupold makes and found their Vari 2 2,5 lightweight. I also got some quick detachable Leupold rings and got this gun set up right I think and hopefully will get a chance to try her out and kill one this coming fall. Al

For the record I use steel shot where I have to, because my shotguns were purchased before the late eighties and not proofed for steel I had to incur the extra expense of purchasing another shotgun so I could hunt waterfowl. I have also loaded some copper bullets and tried them out but in my case they did not perform as well as I would have liked accuracy wise when compared to conventional bullets. I am not a rich person but I have a taste for double shotguns, it took awhile but over many years I scraped and saved enough money to get myself several. Because I can not use steel shot in them it costs me a small fortune to obtain non toxic ammo so I can use them for certain types of hunting. It raises my hackles when the holier than thou tell me "tough crap", retire those guns and buy yourself something you can use. easy to say when you are not the one left holding the bag for several grand in shotguns! I have no problem switching to and hunting with non toxic shot in my doubles, I would just like to see a more concerted effort by the ammo manufactures to produce non toxic shells at a reasonable price for the hunters with shotguns from the late eighties and back. Al

There is no dispute about the harmful effects of lead on human health, the dispute is how much lead is being consumed from game that is killed with a lead core bullet. I maintain that the amount of lead consumed from a properly butchered deer would be insignificant to a person's health over their lifetime. Al

I don't bet my life on what some retarded kid does, how about you, if your life depended on it would back the tall tale you came up with? More likely than not that kid was purposely trying to harm himself and did, I do not know of any hunters that claim eating lead shot is perfectly OK and will not cause some harm, Like I pointed out earlier if that kid had swallowed a handful of non toxic shot he would have still more than likely clogged up his appendix. had it been non toxic shot I doubt the photo would have ever been posted! I do not know any hunters that find any lead in the game they take and purposely leave it there to be eaten. Standard procedure 101, butcher your game properly, remove all bloodshot meat and any bullet fragments and discard. Fire up the grill and enjoy your venison. Al

The "Walking Lead Zombie Apocalypse" that is what some seem to being trying to imply. Humans have been eating game shot with lead bullets for hundreds of years. Millions and Millions of tons of meat shot with those lead bullets have been consumed, can anyone show me any incidents of people getting lead poisoning from eating game harvested with a firearm using lead. Where are all these sick and dying people because by the way some represent lead bullets there should be thousands of them? The picture of a retarded kid's appendix who swallowed a handful of shot and the corny speculated story to go along with it has no sway with me. Every stinking thing we eat these days seems to have somebody coming up with something in it that is bad and will kill you. The least of my worries is eating a deer I killed with a lead core bullet!! I will butcher properly and enjoy with zero fear! Al

Like guns you can't have too many scopes Al

Waste from any game animal or farm animal I butcher is buried, What I consider to be good bones are given to my dogs. I would not consume any bloodshot meat regardless of the type of bullet that is used be it copper or lead, it is cut away and discarded. Al

What I am saying is place the blame where it belongs, "lousey butchering", not taking the time to cut away any questionable meat around the wound area where there may be some lead. Al