So, why start a new thread when continuing an 11+ year old one will do?
Anyhoo, I think I have have finally got my Tok reloading for the CZ-52 to a state where I am happy with it. I have a decent XTP hollowpoint load, which was easy, and now I have the plinking ammo situation in hand. Up until recently, not much had changed in the 7 years since I last posted in this thread. XTPs, and FMJs from both Hornady and Sierra were available (maybe not so much at the moment), but none of them are really priced such as to be good projectiles for plinking ammo. I found the one maker of a Tok specific cast bullet that I think I linked previously, but they didn't have a web store, and further research indicated others had experienced spotty customer service and long delivery times (and even non-delivery of paid orders) from them. No off the shelf molds were really suitable either... Lots of people managed to make various Lee molds designed for other cartridges work, about like I could get the .30 Mauser mold from RCBS to sort of work. Oh, and at some point PRVI FMJ projos became available, but for some stupid reason they are sized to .3065" diameter and not the .308 bore diameter that they should be.
That's where it sat. Every once in a while I would do some searching to see if anything had changed, and a few months ago, I found a reference to
Accurate Molds having a bullet that would work on another forum. Found it on their website, specifically the 31-087B designed for Tokarev. A flat nose bullet rather than round nosed, but with only one lube groove down low, and a crimp groove higher up where it needs to be. Still a custom mold, but at least the bullet was one of their stock designs and I didn't have to try to design one myself.
They offer their molds in different sizes and materials, and they take Lee commercial handles which you have to source separately. I had themmake a 3 cavity mold out of aluminum. It works, but I kind of wish I had gone with cast iron now. It takes a while for it to get up to a good casting temp, which I theorize is due to there only being 3 cavities of relatively small size, and the comparatively large mass of aluminum carries the heat away too quickly. But once it does get up to temperature it works fine.
Here is one of the new 87 grain flat nose bullets from the Accurate mold on the left, and one of the 85 grain 30 Mauser pills from the RCBS mold on the right. Note the position of the lube groove and crimp groove. I ended up casting these out of some hardball alloy supplied by Rotometals since I have nearly exhausted my supply of wheel weight lead.
Accurate mold with a couple of the finished cartridges. I ended up using the same 6 grains of Unique as before, and seating to 1.365" put the crimp groove where it needed to be.
And the Czech Canceler. For shits and grins, I looked around to see what these are going for these days. Turns out if you missed out on them back when they were still being imported, you'll have to pay prices comparable to a that of a new, modern pistol now if you really want one.
Part of the reason why this caliber had been a low priority was because I had to load them on a single stage press. There is no conversion available for my SDB, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. Enter the Dillon XL750 that I bought back in April... I found that I could either buy the 7.62x25 kit for it, or a 9mm conversion (which was a lot easier to find) and a 30 carbine powder funnel. The 9mm kit didn't come with the right casefeed adapter but it turns out to be the same as the one for 40S&W, which I already had. The case head diameter of normal brass is the same as 9mm and since I am also running 300 Blackout, I have the 5.56 shellplate for loading brass which is re-formed from 5.56/.223.
Turns out I had quite a lot of that which I had re-formed at some point before I packed up my reloading gear and moved, so I had plenty of brass to use with the new cast bullets. I found that I hadn't bothered expanding the case necks after forming, so I put a Lyman "M" die in place of a resizing die in Station 1, which not only expands the necks, but also flares the case mouth a little to avoid shaving. I also found that I can't run the press as fast as I am used to since the tiny bullets are a bit awkward to handle and place on the case neck, but it was still lots faster than loading on a single stage press. The electric case feed is also a little slower to fill the tube, but since I can't run the press as fast anyway, it works out.
Only thing that sucks is the 7.62x25 case is short enough that I can't use the Honey Badger power trimmer on the Dillon press to form and trim in one operation, aided by the electric case feed. As it is, you need a shorter than normal tool head to form/trim 300blk (which is 10mm longer) on the press.