Toy Store Score, Part II

Some inquiries with other reloaders found me a potential source for small rifle primers. Said source is willing to trade their small rifle primers for either large rifle or large pistol primers.

I called my pusher last night and had him set aside a couple boxes of large rifle primers. Went down this morning and picked those up. While I was there, I noticed that he still had a set of RCBS .223Rem dies on the shelf ... so those came home with me. Midway pushed back the backorder date on the dies I had ordered, so I'll cancel those. I also found a second reloading tray so I can work on 100 rounds at a whack instead of 50. And, last but not least ... he had bulk packs of CCI Blazer .22. $20/per, but "a little more expensive" beats the hell out of Walmart's "empty shelf". Three of those came home with me.

Dear Wife and I shoot Appleseed several times per year - we're currently scheduled to instruct two more (this month and next), plus Dear Wife is doing an all-women Appleseed in Iowa at the end of this month. I expect we'll add more as the year goes on and our time-off schedule is sorted out. In any case, instructing at an Appleseed means having an extra brick or two of .22 for the shooters who run out (for sale, not donation), and shooting an Appleseed weekend means just shy of three bricks for the two of us.

I also managed to score yesterday - one of several places I'd been keeping an eye on for ammo had cases of Federal XM193 for $399. I grabbed one. It sold out between my order and six hours later. No shock.

Confirmed that my pusher has ready availability of the powder I will be loading .223 with. I have brass. I have about 600 bullets. Have one pound of powder for working up loads and will buy a keg when that's running low. I need to order some heavier bullets if I can find them in stock - 55gr is a fine plinking round, but out beyond 300m or so it's not going to shoot so well. Midway had stock on Barnes TripleShock 72gr, which will be fine for nuisance deer hunting, but I'd really like to find some 62gr BTHP at a reasonable price. I may grab a box or two of the 75gr and 80gr match bullets to see how far I can really stretch this AR...