Luke E.

I agree and as far as I know the Lee progressives that are in question aren't useless but they are plagued with numerous finicky flaws that someone with loading experience and some mechanical know how, can find fixes for. I haven't been convinced that there is a complete fix for it's priming woes,,, might can make it tolerable though. I won't be rolling the dice on it with my money I don't think.

Makes sense. I'll probably hold of until I get the upper complete and then order a spare. I'll just cross my fingers that I don't break a bolt in the time it takes to receive it. I would hope that the brand new bolt that comes with the barrel would outlast the wait time for a new one. Thanks for the heads up!

   Do you know if this is the bolt that Shilen sends out with their barrels?

   Not sure what to make of this.

   Usually I leave my folks place the day after Thanksgiving and take a route that adds 20 minutes to a 40 minute trip just so i'm certain to miss the madness. If my wife wants to do some Christmas shopping I may take your word and go Saturday like you suggested. Just know that if I sit in traffic for hours or get trampled, i'm holding you responsible!  :rofl: Everyone says i'm a grumpy old man in and 32 year old body.. One day my body will grow into my inner grumpy old man-ness. I guess for some folks there's a rush to be had from it all but I don't care for crowds and I don't care for idiots so I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be.  I live in Murfreesboro so Bass Pro is out but there's an Academy, Dicks, Walmart and so on close by, what are your suggested places to try?

 As much fun as I always think it would be to go to some of these big box stores the day after Thanksgiving and watch the imbeciles trample each other, the almost certain anguish that I think I would feel just dealing with traffic coming and going always keeps me up on the hill a plenty safe distance from the idiocy. 

   Pretty "interesting" stuff huh.

 As has been mentioned above, a progressive is an awful lot to keep an eye on if you're green! I started with a Lyman turret press and pretty well had it all down before ever getting near a progressive press and then I placed bullets for a buddy while he ran his Dillon progressive for 2,000 rounds or more before I actually ran it myself. I thought after watching him do the same thing over and over that I would have no problems but when I jumped behind the wheel I realized that he was doing a heck of a lot more than placing a case and pulling a handle. You're watching to make sure a primer feeds, a primer gets pressed in, powder dispensed, powder level, primer level ect... all at once and every time you pull the handle. Not to mention you learn best to gauge what feels right and what feels wrong on a single stage or turret because if something feels off, you know it was the sizing die or seating die or what ever it may be because there's only one die in play at the time. Knowing what each die should feel like or what each feels like when something is wrong on it's own will come in real handy when you have 4 or more stations in play at the same time. I'm going to be picking up my Christmas present soon which is a Dillon 650 because I shoot quite a bit and cannot devote every night of the week to loading on a turret or going to use a friends press not to mention I don't know when I would do my casting and brass prep but I count my blessings that I didn't go out and buy a progressive press right from the rip. You may very well get a single stage or turret press and really do a ton of learning and loading over the next 6 months to a year and decide that you want to go ahead and buy a Dillon but by that time you will have seen what myself and others have described play out and you won't be sorry that you whent the single or turret direction first. Also like others have said, if you have or buy a rifle or handgun that you want to get the most accuracy out of, you will head back over to ol' trusty and take your time making some top notch ammo for so if you ever decide to buy a progressive don't sell your single stage to help fund it because it is not a replacement when it comes to consistent ammo. 

10-4

   I've never owned or even used any Redding dies, What purpose do the different bushings serve?

   I've never owned one but hope this one shows up soon. 

   I looked at the Lapua brass and Alexander brass and both showed out of stock today. I've got 100 pieces of brass primed, 100 Lapua 123gr Scenar bullets and Hornady dies already. Now I just need to find powder and i'll be able to load test rounds. I have found some more Lapua brass and bullets local to me if I decide to go ahead and pick up more. Price is higher but it's partially offset by the shipping from Midway. I still lack gun parts and glass but plan on completing the upper before I start on the lower so that I can at least start working through the break in while I gather parts to build the lower the way I want. There is a chance that I may be making a career change and taking over a gun shop so that has me in a little less of a rush to by the non Grendel specific parts right now since parts would come much cheaper at that point.

       Good to know we're not the only ones waiting for that barrel huh.

That would far to logical man.

 I'm not about to get on there and enter any of my personal information and i'd strongly recommend the rest of you to do the same. Lets say some identity theif or the like doesn't get on there and access your info, whew you say? That to me would be the very best that could happen because the fact is, everyone that goes on there and fills out their "paperwork" even if they don't buy anything is now on a list of folks to track down when the site is fixed. Also they are using the number of folks that sign in to get a quote to mislead the uneducated into thinking that all of them signed up and purchased insurance through the site which only serves to make them look uh hum... "better". There are many more reasons that visiting the site is a terrible idea but the fact that it serves the Obamacare camp numbers that they can turn around and use to harm us is enough reason for me to steer clear.

Like the others, The Outpost Armory. I'm in their quite regularly.

I picked up my primers today. I may prime them while watching Scadel with the wife.

OS, today I got the answer to our question as to whether or not Drago would include a return label for the defective case. Evidently I get to keep the case because after searching the box and behind the label on the outside I have found no return label. Either way, their customer service was top notch but them not asking for the old one in return is a definite bonus. They never even asked for a purchase receipt which is a good thing since I never received one. I bought it from a vender at the pro/am 3gun match at Rock Castle as a cash deal so I handed them the cash and they handed me the case with no receipt. Has yours been satisfactory?

   Exactly my thought!

 Pretty much what Mike said, they already have enough rope to hang themselves from but figure if they get enough slack they might can tie some loops to grasp onto so they don't hang by their necks. If only we had a media that was willing to do it's job. If we had that one thing... we would be in a totally different situation. Not only would Obama never have been relected but his lies would have been uncovered and broadcast during the beginning of his first term limiting what he would have been able to get done. There's a lot of things that would make our situation better, hell almost anything would be better but I think a non partisan media is at the top of that list. They are supposed to be our link and without that we are steered where ever they want us. This deal should never have been allowed to happen.

   I received my permit and had it in my pocket in 13-14 days! Okay now that i've flaunted that in front of you i'll tell you that I took the class some time ago, If you have taken the class, shown up at the DMV with proper paperwork and had fingerprints done then there is nothing to my knowledge that you can do besides waiting. I had a friend a short back that had to wait about 1 1/2 months for it to show up so that may give you some idea. I don't have any 1st hand knowledge on the online status check but I do know that things like that can make a wait seem 100x longer so my advice is to forget you ever saw the website unless you hit the 2-3 month mark and still haven't received it. just my opinion though.

 I would steer clear of Illinois with a loaded gun no matter what. My father and I drove to Wisconsin to pick up a bike we bought on eBay back in early spring. I had driven to East TN the night before and didn't get much sleep so Dad took the first driving shift while I took a nap. I figured we'd have to have gas before we got to Illinois and that I would wake up when we stopped and unload the gun before we got into IL. Well I should have mentioned my plan to my Dad because I "may" have slept though the gas stop and a good portion of IL. When I started waking up we were passing an exit sign that said Champaign... I almost pooped myself! I reached into my tote bag and proceeded to most likely break every unloading speed record. I don't get to worked up about much so I tell you this show how serious I am about not having a loaded pistol in IL.. I will never make that mistake again. 

   I'd say you do have a good women! I consider myself lucky as well. I've been around a group of guys griping about their wives and had them say things like "what, you scared she's gonna find out you were griping about her?" I am fortunate enough to be able to answer by stating that No, i'm not scared, it's just that not only does she not give me much reason to gripe but rather she tends to give me an awful lot of reasons to brag on her. About an hour ago she caught me looking at a Dillon 650 press and started asking me about it. I was a little confused because she cares nothing about learning anything to do with loading ammo. I told her that one day I would like to have one of them but that I know it won't be anytime in the near future. She looked at me and said that I should go buy it for myself! I said I we didn't need to spend our money on that right now but she said it could be my Christmas if it made me feel any better about it.   I was just throwing 10,000 rounds out there as a number to make a point. I don't have enough supplies to load 10,000rds of each caliber I shoot. I don't have nearly as much as I did last year at this time because i've been holding out for supply prices to come back down which they have been coming back down some so i've been buying a little more as money allows. Like you though, even when prices were high and I wasn't out like a lot of folks I was still buying anytime I found something reasonable. If that defines a hoarder then guilty as charged but at least when the president and his merry band of idiots makes another unconstitutional moved, i'll still be shooting. It's all about perspective I guess huh.

   Hey it's awful cold to be swimming but i'm finding out that it may very well be easier and quicker to make the swim in this cold than it is to try and track Grendel stuff down any other way. 

   Are they sold out already? I need to order a few mags and a few other "small" items and had decided that I was going to order another batch or two when I did. They had Hornady on clearance when I picked this up so if you're wanting to go ahead and order some you might check that. Just note that the hornady clearance price looks unbelievably low and that is for good reason... They are sold in lots of 50 cases rather than 100 like the Lapua as well as the cases I bought that Lapua makes for AA.      If you are talking about the Reloaders Bench, they were sold out when I checked the day after you were there for the powder.