Reloading Addiction Group

[WAB]

The scale on the left is very accurate and fast. Brand Cole builds each one with his own hands. You will have a year plus wait to take possession. If you are shooting one caliber and a lot of volume it is worth the price of admission.

The scale on the right is my auto trickler with an A&D FX 120i. I have changed the setup a little and now running the Ingenuity precision powder trickler paired with the auto throw. It pretty impressive from what I have seen. Was able to throw 150 powder charges in 1 hour with no issues. Like you said every one of them within 2/100 of a grain.

From my experience, neck tension plays a bigger role on your SDs than a couple kernels of powder. How are you annealing your brass?

Old school, stand it in a tray of water and tip it over at the appropriate moment. I’ve been laying in Lapua brass 100 at a time of the 6.5 PRC. I’m going to continue shooting unfired brass until I have 1,000 once fired and then begin to cycle through. Lapua is annealed. I am going to look to upgrade my annealing once the lapua gets enough cycles to need it. Ideas are appreciated.

 

[Inline6]

Old school, stand it in a tray of water and tip it over at the appropriate moment. I’ve been laying in Lapua brass 100 at a time of the 6.5 PRC. I’m going to continue shooting unfired brass until I have 1,000 once fired and then begin to cycle through. Lapua is annealed. I am going to look to upgrade my annealing once the lapua gets enough cycles to need it. Ideas are appreciated.

Don't mess around buy an AMP and be done with it. I anneal every time no questions asked. The brass is in the same condition everytime I reload. It does cost more than the others. The peace of mind knowing it is 100% annealed correctly is worth it to me. When you see your first string of 10 rounds under a 5fps for an SD you will forget about the money spent on the machine.

 

[Inline6]

I also run a Präzipress, that might help with the concentricity of my ammo too.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Hi,

My name is Chris and I have an addiction. When I was 16, I bought my first loading press.... Fast forward 15 years and my stockpile of loading stuff would take a whole ryder truck just to move. You know you're addicted when:

1. You pick up brass at the range compulsively, most of which you don't load for but you just CAN'T. HAVE. ENOUGH!

2. You get more excited when you see an RCBS Rock Chucker for sale cheap than almost anything else.

3. You buy WAYYYY more brass and bullets than you could possibly need right now. (I have over 300 PREMIUM bullets for a .375 H&H. I shoot about 5 a year.

4. Your brass is sorted into calibers, then sorted into subcategories based on its brand, cleanliness and stage in loading. ( I have 5 different containers just for 9mm. "Dirty", "Clean", 'Clean & Resized", "Clean Primed", "Clean primed and flared".)

I could keep going.... Anywho I thought a thread to get out all your reloading enthusiam would be a helpful way to cope.

Don't worry, you're among like minded individuals.

@ChrisG
My mate Greg was given a reloading set up years ago. It languished in the cupboard for years as he thought you needed a university degree in rocket science to use it.
Fast forward to 5 or 6 years ago when I met Greg and introduced him to the black art of reloading. He now has more brass, projectiles and primers to outfit a third world army. He has great pleasure working up loads for all his rifles even with projectiles he eill never use off the range. BUT it's fun to him playing with all the possible combinations of bullet, powder, seating depth etc. Even if his load groups less than half an inch he has to play more to work up more lads just because. Even tho he has over 1,000 308 projectiles he had to buy another 400 in a different brand just to try them.
I have created a monster.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Being the most likely inheritor of @Shootist43 reloading collection I will vouch for his extreme addiction to reloading and shooting supplies. You have an extreme addiction when you believe, if one Dillon press is good three more would be better, after all changing dies on a "Quick Change" press is so inconvenient. If you or a family member buys factory ammo and it's based on case quality first and bullet quality second, you have an extreme addiction. If you spend more time at "Shooter Supply" than on the shooting line during your yearly trip to the National Matches at Camp Perry Ohio you have an extreme addiction. When you buy powder by the case because its a good price and have two unopened cases of the exact same powder on the shelve at home, you have an extreme addiction. If you visit your local gun shop and complain that you have more powder on you shelves than they do, you have an extreme addiction. When you move and it takes more time to relocate your reloading equipment and supplies than is does any other room in your house, you have an extreme addiction. If your reloading storage room (That's right his presses are in a different room, 10x30 is just not enough space) looks like an organized episode of "Hoarders Buried Alive" then you have an extreme addition. If you have trouble using "Word" and "Excel" and you buy "Quickload" to help tune your loads to match your the barrel whip, you have an extreme addiction. If the Police Chief of your metropolitan area Township says to you "Hey if need arises could we borrow a few thing" you have an extreme addiction. So @ChrisG, yes, you do have an addiction but it's not what I would call extreme.

For those of you that think an intervention is needed you can stop those silly thoughts right now. As I said at the beginning of this post I am the most likely inheritor of his reloading collection and thanks to Dad and his extreme addiction my children and grandchildren will never have to buy reloading supplies or equipment but they will have to own a large home to store it all.

@Art Lambart II
Mate he has all the gear yet still can't load your 35 Whelen with loads that make it perform, like a nice 250gr speer @2,700fps. I think dad needs to load you up some nice Whelen loads before you take over the reins.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Can someone help me understand why I need so many different brands of 180gr 30cal bullets

Also, why do I have bullets and brass for calibers I don't own?

@Pheroze
You got them just in case like my mate Greg. You never know what will work and what won't.
The brass and bullets you have for what you don't own are for when you decide to buy another rifle/ handgun your set to go.
Forward planning my son, Forward planning.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I received a Lee Hand press in the mail today so I could reload in the downtime while turkey hunting. Fairly excited to play with it along with the 6X45 dies I received a week ago... and the 6X45 I picked up from the gunsmith today!
ITs on a plastic stock for now but will have a nice piece of wood soon.

@hunting Gold
Those little Lee hand presses put out a lot of leverage for their size. I gave mine to a mate and got a Lee C frame press, mounted it to a piece of 4X2. I take it to the range with a G clamp to develop loads at the range.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Spooksar, you got me beat. I have four Dillons and two Single stage presses. But I don't load for as many calibers as you do. Smallest rifle I load for is a 30 cal. carbine, the largest is a 416 Rigby. Pistols go from .32 up to 45 Long Colt but there are a couple of rifle calibers for a Thompson Center Contender.

@Shootist43
Art you need to load up some Whelen loads for your son with CFE223 and 250gr speers so he can have some fun. You could stoke up some 310s with H4350 to 2,400 fps for the marauding elephants that get into his strawberry patch.
Bob

 

[Ray B]

got a Lee C frame press, mounted it to a piece of 4X2. I take it to the range with a G clamp to develop loads at the range.
Bob

I tried loading at the range, which is outdoors and had difficulty with the powder scale. there is always at least a breeze and sometimes, a real wind. About the only way I've been able to do it, and it was not worth the bother was to have the scale in the car, windows up, scale on the center console or dash. Anything outside was affected by the wind to the point of making accurate measurement impossible.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Anyone who buys or builds a rifle that REQUIRES you fireform your own brass has got the reloading bug pretty bad. I would say that even though you don't reload as many cartridges, the fact that your fireform your own stuff has earned you a seat at the table.

@ChrisG
I tried the shotgun powder with half a square of dunny paper topped off with a plug of wax to fire form for my 25.
3 metres of 90mm storm water pipe blocked at on end with an an old towel. Other end with the barrel in it and another towel around the barrel. This was to quieten it down. Bullshit, blew the towel out of the far end, about 20feet across the yard and sounded like a 22 mag going off. To avoid shit from the neighbours the rest were fired at the local range.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Everyone is different...but if I could not handload, I believe I would lose out on 80% of the fun of shooting/gun ownership.

I started handloading immediately upon buying my first centerfire rifle when I was 16. I have loaded for every rifle and handgun I've owned since.

DO IT!

@tarbe
I got told when you started reloading it was half a handful of ffg black powder down the muzzle topped off with a bit of cloth and a chunk of lead.
I'm not implying you are old or anything.
Just very experienced.
HA HA HA HA HA
Bob

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I'm just a social reloader. A box or two of 30-06 once or twice each year for special occasions - hunting trips to Montana and Africa. I recently splurged and bought dies and components on line for the 404 Jeffery I decided to build on an impulse. Found everything I needed but primers. At a gun show in May I found a vendor with magnum primers for $20 Canadian per 100. I resisted temptation and bought only one box. All I'll need ... probably for the rest of my life. 404 is not a plinking gun.

 

[steve white]

I have reloaded the 22 lr experimentally- just to see if I could do it. It worked but it was not worth the trouble. Even Bullseye was too fast, priming the fired cases was crucial and dangerous, and crimping the bullet was a problem. But when I hear people say that the 22 lr can't be reloaded, I don't know the meaning of can't.

An acquaintance in E Texas tried reloading 22 WMR...the barrel flung off the gun with a cartwheeling motion. He just calmly scrapped both the idea and the rest of the "reloaded" shells!

 

[Art Lambart II]

@Art Lambart II
Mate he has all the gear yet still can't load your 35 Whelen with loads that make it perform, like a nice 250gr speer @2,700fps. I think dad needs to load you up some nice Whelen loads before you take over the reins.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Bob

I'd take some 225 grain barnes at 2750 fps for my 2024 spring black bear hunt.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

View attachment 257308

@PeteG
Primers would have been a better investment. In AUS they have gone from 60 bucks pet 1,000 to $340/1,000 in the last 12 months. Brass has remained pretty reasonable.
If you wanted to invest in powders that would have been even better. Recently a 2 pound container of shotgun powder sold for 2,000 dollars.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I’ve been reloading since I was 21 and I’m now 62. I’ve always shot a lot but since I retired a couple of years ago... well, I couldn’t afford to shoot this much if I didn’t reload. But more than that, I get the satisfaction out of developing the load that is best for the gun, game and bullet.
Am I addicted? Heck yes and darn proud of it. When scrounging range brass, it’s rare not to pick up something I don't load for. 41 rifle and handgun cartridges, plus three gauges of shotgun and counting.

@meigsbucks
When I started reloading it was mainly a summer time job. To decap my military 303 brass I had to use a hydraulic decapper. Water went every where and after a couple of hundred cases you were pretty wet so not really a job for cold winter days. Thank God for boxer primers.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I'd take some 225 grain barnes at 2750 fps for my 2024 spring black bear hunt.

@Art Lambart II
What's wrong with a nice 225gn Woodleigh PPSP at 2,950fps for black bear. Should work real well, over 4,000 fpe of muzzle energy and flat shooting as well.
Bob

 

[Rare Breed]

Don't mess around buy an AMP and be done with it. I anneal every time no questions asked. The brass is in the same condition everytime I reload. It does cost more than the others. The peace of mind knowing it is 100% annealed correctly is worth it to me. When you see your first string of 10 rounds under a 5fps for an SD you will forget about the money spent on the machine.

I love your thinking…I am just trying to swallow the high cost of an annealing machine. I welcome your thoughts and expertise my friend

 

[Inline6]

I love your thinking…I am just trying to swallow the high cost of an annealing machine. I welcome your thoughts and expertise my friend

Well, it really depends on your goals. Brass life will be extended, your SDs will decrease, if you are capable your grops will shrink. It really depends on your goals. If you load 100 rds a year for 4 or 5 rifles. It might not be worth it. If you are shooting distance and require the lowest SDs possible. You will not find a more scientific option at this point in time. You can check the boards for a Mark I, lots of people were upgrading to the MarkII. I have a Mark I it has Aztec, it fits my needs, I'm not shooting like I was.

I also realize most on here are happy shooting 300 yards, some like putting a 1 in front of that and a few others put a 2,3,or 4 infront. Not many people shoot true ELR.

Anything that might need clarification, please let me know. I'll do my best to get it answered or help find the answer if I don't know.

 

[WAB]

Well, it really depends on your goals. Brass life will be extended, your SDs will decrease, if you are capable your grops will shrink. It really depends on your goals. If you load 100 rds a year for 4 or 5 rifles. It might not be worth it. If you are shooting distance and require the lowest SDs possible. You will not find a more scientific option at this point in time. You can check the boards for a Mark I, lots of people were upgrading to the MarkII. I have a Mark I it has Aztec, it fits my needs, I'm not shooting like I was.

I also realize most on here are happy shooting 300 yards, some like putting a 1 in front of that and a few others put a 2,3,or 4 infront. Not many people shoot true ELR.

Anything that might need clarification, please let me know. I'll do my best to get it answered or help find the answer if I don't know.

Extremely helpful, thank you! I have reloaded for ‘prairie dog’ accuracy for 45 years. However, this is realistically a 450 yd game at the outside. I am now playing at much greater distances and am stepping up my equipment/processes accordingly.