Handloading, what is fun and what sucks?

[Clark]

I like loading a small experemental quanity. 30 rounds in 30 minutes. .1 gr steps.


I hate loading 1000 rounds all the same. Clean for 2 hours, resize for 2 hours, trim for 2 hours, seat and crimp for 2 hours.

[labgrade]

Yah, me too. I'm still loading on an old Rockchucker & mass quantities (especially pistol) suck.

I have found that .5 grain increments is suitable and that seating depth (for rifles) makes more of a difference than does the finely-tuned powder charge.

[Hutch]

Before I got the Dillon (smug grin), I used to run my RCBS Junior pretty hard to keep up with IHMSA, Hunter Pistol and bowling pins. In order to achieve any thru-put, I'd use 2lb butter tubs for the "before" and "after" operation. If you try, you can do the ol' "dentist office transfer" trick, whereby you remove the sized (or whatever) case from the shell holder with 2 fingers, and then immediately insert the next case with the same hand. As the ram goes up, pitch the sized case in the finished tub, and grab another case to operate on. Goes fairly quickly.

[Mikul]

I hate setting up the power measure for a new charge. Sometimes it takes a minute, but usually 5. The powder measure can be really screwey sometimes.

Otherwise, reloading pistol ammunition on a Dillon is a pleasure.

[DaMan]

Case prep of military 5.56mm range brass! Cleaning, removing crimp, sizing, trimming .... now THAT'S tedious crap!

Regards! DaMan

[Hard Case]

I hate reloading with No. 5 and accidently dumping a powder charge into the progressive mechanics. The stuff is as fine as sand and locks the dang thing up. I have to dismantle the whole setup and run it under tap water to get it all out. Water is good for steel right? I considered going out and buying an air compressor just because of this.

[mcshot]

Reloading is very theraputic for me until I have a stuck case. Especially with those little .223 rims. I use the spray lubes as the lube pads and me have never gotten along.
Love looking at the gleaming finished product and finding the magic combos.

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"In my opinion, anyone pushing through anti-gun legislation is a bloody traitor and should be sent up for treason" N.H. Stuart

[El Rojo]

I too have thought of buying an air compressor to air out the RL 550B after powder spill and the residual powder drop. Instead, I went to Office Depot and bought some of their keyboard cleaner for $6. It has a little tube attachement and cleans the powder and brass slivers right off of the press. I have had my press for a year and have only bought three cans for a grand total of about $20. In another 5 years I might have to get the compressor cause the cost will catch up to me, but till then, that compressed air works really good and I bet it could be found even cheaper. Anyone that knows, please let me know.

[ArmySon]

What's fun is experimenting with a new load and finding out it's a keeper. What's great is knowing your reloads shoot much better then 95% of factory ammo.

What sucks,
cleaning the dies
cleaning the press
cleaning anything!
cleaning out my bank account buying bullets, primers, powder, more guns so I can reload new calibers!

[Nukem]

I've got all the crappy stuff for .223 out of the way with a Dillon 650, case feeder & rapid trim. All except swaging the primer pockets, yuk! Maybe I should have bought the 1050.

[Fred]

What DaMan said...

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Regards - AZFred

[taco]

What sucks is trying to load 25ACP. I tried... once. I have a friend who loads 25ACP all the time on the Dillion 550. He does have skinnier fingers than mine.

[PDshooter]

Trimming Brass, Big time SUCK!!!

[HandloaderJohn]

First off, let me say that I love reloading, but of course it has times of SUCK.
The suck thing would have to be a stuck case in the old die, that sucks, my fault for under lubing, but it still sucks.
Little sucks are things like dropping 100 primers on the floor.
Un-suck things are shooting a tight group , or dropping a nice Buck with one of your handloads.
By far the un-sucks out weigh the sucks, what really sucks is talking to someone who will vote for gore, now that sucks.

[mcshot]

Ditto the Gore voter thing as really suckingly sucking sucksville.

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"In my opinion, anyone pushing through anti-gun legislation is a bloody traitor and should be sent up for treason" N.H. Stuart

[This message has been edited by mcshot (edited September 26, 2000).]

[dongun]

As Homer Simpson would say, "Those sucks are the suckiest sucks that ever sucked."

I reload rifle rounds with a Rockchucker. I don't do handgun, so I don't find myself doing a 1000 at a time (which would suck). The most I do at one time would be prior to prairie dog hunting where I do a couple of hundred (in several different calibers). Usually I reload for hunting or experimenting to tighten up my hunting loads, which usually means about 20 at a time.

The most fun is kicking my buddy's butts with a really tight group. Second is taking a finished round out of the seating die and admiring my handywork. The worst thing is trimming and deburring.

May you all be blessed with 1/4 MOA groups. Good luck this hunting season!

[fed168]

The fun part is that the load is accurate. Only accurate loads are interesting. I enjoy reloading, my pet peeve is the case prep for rifles. Prepped about 200 rounds of Match brass this weekend, now my hands are sore. Wah.

[LIProgun]

Oh, boy, DaMan took the words right out of my mouth. I love just about every bit of reloading EXCEPT 5.56mm case prep. I HATE trimming! Removing primer pocket crimps sucks too, but became easier when I got the RCBS Case Mate (?) power tool.

Hopefully, now that I have gone to an RCBS X-die my future trimming days will become fewer.

[El Rojo]

Trimming does not have to be as bad as you make it sound. Everyone should have a Dillon 1200 Case Trimmer. It is a motorized case trimmer that uses size/trim dies for a variety of common calibers. I set up my regular size die on station one, pop the primers out and size, rotate and eventually on station three, they get trimmed. All you ahve left to do is chamfer and debur, and I do that with a chamfer debur tool that fits on the end of my Lyman trimmer. Trust me, the Dillon Case Trimmer is worth the money. You will never trim with anything else ever again after using this machine from the Heavens.

[PJR]

And from a shotgun reloader, what really sucks is when you aren't paying complete attention and a quantity of #8 shot scatters across your cement floor.

That truly sucks.

[Sisco]

It's a vicious circle. Reload, shoot, clean guns. Reload, shoot, clean guns. Wait for payday to buy more supplies, reload, shoot, clean guns.

[Gewehr98]

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.

[Casey]

I have only been loading for a little over a year, so some of the things you guys have mentioned I have yet to experience.

The best feature of handloading (rifle or pistol) is bettering what you could do with factory, cheaper than you shot with factory loads. I bought my Remington 700 in 22-250 cheap because it wouldn't shoot. Recently, using my loads, it shot 1/4 moa three groups of four.

The worst feature would have to be the hours spent hand preping the rifle brass. The pistol rounds are loaded on a Dillon SDB, so there is little other than checking the brass for failures (almost nonexistant with the .45) and length. The rifle brass is much more work, and measuring each powder charge sucks. (But the results don't!)

Casey

[DAL]

I'll have to agree with PDshooter, trimming brass is tedious. But I know it's necessary, so I put up with it. What other choice do I have, short of buying factory ammo?
DAL

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Reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand, should be required of every politician and in every high school.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined."
--Patrick Henry, during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788)

GOA, JPFO, PPFC, CSSA, LP, ARI, NRA

[Clark]

My handloading area looks like it got hit by a huricane.

I don't know how to make it look organized.