The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post

Gewehr98 · September 28, 2000, 11:12 AM

SK, you nailed that one right on the head! Horribly vicious circle! One fella asked me at the range if he should get into reloading to save money. I told him no, he'd just shoot more, and more often. Lessee, suck things: Case trimming, outside neck turning (Especially for wildcats and obsolete conversions on modern brass, that RL-1200 don't quite cut it there), cleaning dies in the Square Deal B and RL-550, cleaning the presses themselves, tumbling brass in shifts, buying a 50lb bag of corncob media at the pet store and explaining why you want so much, the moly-coating process, having 19 bullets left in the green Sierra box when you need 20 for the match tomorrow, loading several hundred rounds of Rainier plated swaged 7.62x39 bullets only to find the bullet shape won't feed in your Kalashnikov or your VZ-52, making it a single-shot each time, so there goes your cheap plinking ammo idea! Buying Starline brass for your 7.62x25 Czech CZ-52, and trying to find that brass in the next county after the pistol's brisk ejection. Loading for a cartridge that there's NO published data for! Your chronograph doesn't like the battery it had last week, or the sunlight is bothering it's "eyes". Then it tells you that you're several hundred fps shy of what the load book's data said you should be getting. Having a Midrosoft Access database for your handloads so you can flip right to the last time you made .30-30 and remember what worked and what didn't. Then a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which details how many rounds of which chambering you have on tap, reminding you that you've gotta make a bunch of .223 sometime before the next High Power meet. Ok, now the good things: Those spreadsheets and databases make for an excellent documentation trail, which in all honesty prevents duplication of "bad" loads and is a nice safety factor. The ammo inventory is probably anal-retentive, but it's a good quick-look for me when I print it out once a month and put it on the safe door. The moly coating, case trimming, neck turning, and load development all come into play when you centerpunch an evil golfball at 500 meters with your 6.5-06 Interdiction Rifle during a tactical match. Or, 5 rounds of your own 168gr Match .308 loads go into less than 1/4" at 100 yards. That goofy 7.62x25 Tokarev round in your CZ-52 screams over 1600 fps into the steel plates at 50 yards, flipping them back like they were struck by lightning. That vintage 1906 Remington Model 8 in .32 Remington barks in the Wisconsin woods once more, bringing home a nice whitetail for the freezer. You get all sorts of questions at the firing range when you pull out that ancient 7.5x55 Swiss Schmidt-Rubin or 6.5x53R Dutch Mannlicher Cavalry Carbine, and proceed to feed it beautiful ammo, making nice tight groups at 100 yards, a big grin on your face as you hand it to the next person to let them experience those days of hand-fitting and old-world craftsmanship. Those are some of my favorite pluses.

September 28, 2000, 11:12 AM	#22
Gewehr98 Senior Member Join Date: June 30, 2000 Location: Token Creek, WI Posts: 4,067	SK, you nailed that one right on the head! Horribly vicious circle! One fella asked me at the range if he should get into reloading to save money. I told him no, he'd just shoot more, and more often. Lessee, suck things: Case trimming, outside neck turning (Especially for wildcats and obsolete conversions on modern brass, that RL-1200 don't quite cut it there), cleaning dies in the Square Deal B and RL-550, cleaning the presses themselves, tumbling brass in shifts, buying a 50lb bag of corncob media at the pet store and explaining why you want so much, the moly-coating process, having 19 bullets left in the green Sierra box when you need 20 for the match tomorrow, loading several hundred rounds of Rainier plated swaged 7.62x39 bullets only to find the bullet shape won't feed in your Kalashnikov or your VZ-52, making it a single-shot each time, so there goes your cheap plinking ammo idea! Buying Starline brass for your 7.62x25 Czech CZ-52, and trying to find that brass in the next county after the pistol's brisk ejection. Loading for a cartridge that there's NO published data for! Your chronograph doesn't like the battery it had last week, or the sunlight is bothering it's "eyes". Then it tells you that you're several hundred fps shy of what the load book's data said you should be getting. Having a Midrosoft Access database for your handloads so you can flip right to the last time you made .30-30 and remember what worked and what didn't. Then a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which details how many rounds of which chambering you have on tap, reminding you that you've gotta make a bunch of .223 sometime before the next High Power meet. Ok, now the good things: Those spreadsheets and databases make for an excellent documentation trail, which in all honesty prevents duplication of "bad" loads and is a nice safety factor. The ammo inventory is probably anal-retentive, but it's a good quick-look for me when I print it out once a month and put it on the safe door. The moly coating, case trimming, neck turning, and load development all come into play when you centerpunch an evil golfball at 500 meters with your 6.5-06 Interdiction Rifle during a tactical match. Or, 5 rounds of your own 168gr Match .308 loads go into less than 1/4" at 100 yards. That goofy 7.62x25 Tokarev round in your CZ-52 screams over 1600 fps into the steel plates at 50 yards, flipping them back like they were struck by lightning. That vintage 1906 Remington Model 8 in .32 Remington barks in the Wisconsin woods once more, bringing home a nice whitetail for the freezer. You get all sorts of questions at the firing range when you pull out that ancient 7.5x55 Swiss Schmidt-Rubin or 6.5x53R Dutch Mannlicher Cavalry Carbine, and proceed to feed it beautiful ammo, making nice tight groups at 100 yards, a big grin on your face as you hand it to the next person to let them experience those days of hand-fitting and old-world craftsmanship. Those are some of my favorite pluses.