Should You Start Reloading?

Most hunters will not save money by
reloading, but that is not the only
reason to reload. Customizing ammo
to fit your firearm or hunting situation
can be an important part of
your hunting experience.

The recent rise in the cost of ammunition, and the scarcity of some calibers, led one friend to ask if I thought he should start reloading. Since he is still using the same box of .30-06 ammo he bought three years ago, and he only shoots 4-5 rounds a year, I told him that I thought he’d be OK staying with factory ammo.  Then I got the same question from someone else I know. Reloading is a great hobby, but not for everyone. Let’s take a look why.

What is Your Motivation?

Reloading can offer a number of benefits, but if those benefits don’t apply to you, there is no reason to reload. Forget what I do, or your neighbor, or some guy at the range. If it doesn’t help you, it’s a waste of time and money. Remember that saving money may not be the best reason to reload.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish?

The “pound” in that old saying refers to British money, and reloading can be a great way to spend dollars to save pennies. It all depends on volume. I started reloading decades ago because I was shooting a lot of handgun ammo and couldn’t afford to shoot as much as I wanted (that hasn’t changed over the years). I was able to ‘pay’ for my reloading gear with money saved on ammo in the first year. Unfortunately, I didn’t really put that money in the bank. Overall, I’ve just shot more, and spent more money on other guns and additional reloading gear. You will find that you will either become overwhelmed, bored, and find reloading too much trouble, or you will gradually get more involved, start loading more calibers, and need more gear.

Do The Math

After you start reloading you will discover that there is
a plethora of additional gear that is helpful, necessary,
or good to add to your process. This can result in
you spending more money, and reduce the amount
you save on ammunition. 

If you think you will save money, first put a pencil to paper. A very basic starter kit, plus supplies and one set of dies, will run you $500-$700. A decent setup with some additional gear will add $300-$500. So let’s say $1,000 to get going (and you will spend more in the future). You can expect to save 30-70% over factory ammo (perhaps even more right now, with the recent shortages and price increases), depending on the cost of primers, powder, and bullets (and whether or not you have to buy brass), but let’s say you can save 50%. Let’s assume factory ammo is $1.00 a round. At a bare minimum you’d have to reload 2,000 rounds to make the breakeven point. A serious shooter can do that, but I know a lot of hunters who won’t shoot that much in a couple of decades.

Other Reasons to Reload

When you reload you will be able to
select components to achieve
specific performance objectives
 from your firearms.

But don’t be discouraged, because saving money is not the only motive for reloading. You can fine-tune your ammo to produce the most accuracy possible from a particular rifle, produce ammo to meet specific performance requirements (very light or very heavy loads, for instance), produce ammo for hard-to-find calibers, or have the satisfaction of using ammo you manufactured to take that trophy animal. You can use different powders and different weights and styles of bullets to make your deer rifle suitable to take anything from varmints to elk, and you will receive an extensive education on ballistics.

Is Your Personality a Match?

A single-stage press can produce perhaps 50 finished rounds an hour. Do you have the patience and attention to detail to do the same thing, exactly the same way, hour after hour? You have to be careful, precise, and methodical – there is no margin for error. If you leave the powder out of one case, fail to properly seat one primer, or double charge one round, the results can range from problematic to catastrophic. You must keep careful records, compare loads, examine spent cases for signs of stress, and fully understand what you are doing, and why you are doing it. All of this will take a lot of time. You will also need a clean, dry, well-lit area in which to reload, with a solid, secure bench where you can bolt the reloading press. Make sure you can safely and securely store components when not in use. Be honest with yourself – if this is too much for you, stick with factory ammo. If this is a good fit for you – then get some catalogs, save some money, and start reloading.

A Different Way To Shoot Ammo

A Different Way To Shoot Ammo
By Jeff Davis

These images are of some .338 Federal rounds, for a story in Whitetails Unlimited Magazine. They were shot on a piece of black Plexiglas, and lit with a small soft box on the right and an umbrella providing some fill on the left.

During the time I was shooting, I just kept moving around looking for different ways to show the ammunition. I always try to have a selection of both vertical and horizontal images so the page designer has a selection to work with. It's surprising how a small change in the position of the camera, or a change in the direction, balance or intensity of the lights can make a huge difference in the photo.

When I was setting up the shoot I had a couple of rags and some metal polish and I was polishing each round (when you look closely at ammunition  you will see a layer of oxidation on the brass, copper, and lead). Someone walked by, stopped, and looked again. They asked what was I doing, and I replied, matter-of-factly, "Polishing my ammo," with a tone of voice that implied that was something that everyone does everyday, and why in the world would anyone ask such a question. "You're not one of those people who never polish their ammo, are you?" I asked. They shook their head and continued on down the hall. And I wonder why people groan when I walk into a meeting.

Caliber Confusion: Some Myths and Misconceptions About Ammo

 

Caliber ConfusionBy Jeff Davis

Any time you get more than one person talking about guns you will get disagreements. At the very least. There are many myths, misconceptions, and legends about various guns and ammunition, and it seems like everyone who know anything about firearms considers themselves an expert. One of the problems is that the language of firearms has evolved with few rules, and as a result there is  lot of confusion. This won’t solve everything, but here are some things I’ve learned, when I was looking up other things.

Caliber vs. Gauge

Gauge is a measure of the inside diameter  of a shotgun barrel while caliber generally refers to the diameter measurement of rifle and handgun bullets. Except shotgun slugs (a solid bullet shot from shotguns) retain their gauge designation, and the .410 is the caliber of a small shotgun (and never called a 67-1/2-gauge). The gauge designation was developed hundreds of years ago, before accurate measuring devices allowed for precise, repeatable  measurement.

Caliber

Caliber refers to the diameter of a bullet, and can be expressed in either metric (7mm) or English (.284) measurements, depending on where it was developed (Europe or the U.S.), or the whims of the marketing department of the company that first designed the bullet.

Numbers Aren’t Always Exact

Remember that just because a number exists, that does not necessarily indicate an exact measurement. The .38 Special and .357 Magnum are both 38-calibers, but the bullet is actually 357-thousandths of an inch in diameter. The .30-30, .30-06, .300 Winchester Magnum, .303 and .308 are all different, non-interchangeable rounds that are all .30-caliber. However, 30-caliber bullets are .308-inch in diameter. I once saw a customer go ballistic (pun intended) because he wanted to hand load for his .30-30, and the clerk gave him bullets that were .308-inch in size. The clerk was right.

Those Other Numbers

So if a .30-30 and a .30-06 are both 30-caliber rounds, that are .308-inch in diameter, why do they have those extra numbers? In the case of the .30-30, it meant that there was originally 30-grains of smokeless powder inside the case. Same with the .45-70. However, in the case of the .30-06, the -06 has nothing to do with powder, but rather that was the year, 1906, that the round was adopted by the U.S. Army as the standard rifle round, to be use with the 1903 Springfield rifle (and don’t ask what the Army used in that rifle between 1903 and 1905). There are other cartridges, such as the .30-378 Weatherby Magnum that is 30-caliber (.308), but it used a necked-down .378 case. And then there are rounds like the 7.62x39 and the 7.62x51, where the 7.62 is the metric equivalent of the .308, but the 39 and 51refer to the length of the case.

Never Assume

A .22 LR (long rifle) is much different from a .220 Swift, a .22-250 or a .22 Hornet. A .300 Winchester Magnum will not work in a .300 Weatherby Magnum, and you can’t buy a spacer to make a .300 Super Short Magnum work in a .300 Short Magnum (someone asked me that once). I was once loudly ridiculed by a friend when I told him I wanted to buy a .44 Magnum rifle, because everyone knew that the .44 Magnum was a handgun cartridge. The joke was on him, as there are a number of rifles chambered to shoot handgun rounds (including the .44), and a few handguns that shoot some rifle cartridges. It’s a big world out there.

Other Language Problems

Language is constantly changing, and the rules can change as popular usage changes. It drives me nuts when a gun’s magazine is called a “clip.” However, I often use the word “bullet” to indicate an individual round or cartridge, even though the bullet is actually just one component of that cartridge. I call revolvers “pistols” which drives my son nuts, but then I sometimes do that on purpose (a revolver is a revolver, but a semi-automatic handgun is more accurately termed a 'pistol'). And then there is tradition. The Army still tells soldiers to “Lock and Load” on the range, which never made sense to me, as we were loading, but not locking. The phrase goes back to the loading procedure of breech-lock rifles two hundred years ago, but caries on to this day.

Why So Many?

Looking through a reloading manual I found bullets with actual diameters of .257, .264 (6.5mm), .277, and .284 (7mm). Do we really need so many bullets that are so similar, but actually different sizes? Well, I don’t need them, but someone does. Ever look to see how many different kinds of mustard are available? I like two kinds, but someone is buying all the other variations. The basic answer is that the bullet diameter is only one variable in the performance of a particular round. The case size, and shape, as well as the kind of powder and primer, all have an effect on the downrange performance.

To each his own.