Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Back Into Reloading

After about a 25 year hiatus. The first thing I did since getting back into it was to load up some .45 Colt brass, went to the range, loaded it again, went to the range again, and loaded it up again. Pretty cool to be able to reuse such an expensive to manufacture part of a cartridge. I wonder how many times I can do that.

This week, though, I loaded up all the old .357 caliber bullets I found from my old stock (probably like 30 years old), which wasn't much. I had some 148 grain wadcutters and some 125 grain JSPs, so those were what got loaded (in .38 Special brass). I shot them both today at the range.



Here's a 10 yard group shot off-hand, quick double action, using the wadcutters out of an old S&W Model 19.



The fact that I made the loaded cartridges myself increased the fun of shooting.

That's it for .357 bullets. I'm all out. I ordered 500 more lead wadcutter. Should be here within a week. Can't wait to load up some more.

There's a handgun reloading forum at the 24HCF too:

Handgun Reloading

Board officer one board officer one there’s a violation on the top floor.

Repeat. A violation on the top floor.

Good shooting. I love the checkering on those old S&W’s. Pretty walnut is great but it’s the checkering that shows the craftsmanship and attention to detail.

If you will anneal the brass every 2-3 reloading cycles your brass will still be around when you're out of bullet/primers/powder and maybe years.

Been doing that with all my brass and haven't chucked a split necked case in many, many years.

😖 Gotta get my reloading equipment set up again!
I miss reloading. I find it relaxing.....and I enjoy the end result!
It satisfies my OCD side.

That and going easy on it. I’m not a fan of full house .357 Magnum rounds but moderately loaded cartridges are fun. Even better IMO are hot 44 Special/moderate 44 magnum and 45 Colt loads. A 240-250 grain bullet at around 1100 FPS.

Wow.

A thread about shooting and reloading?

What a refeshing change and the OPs all right in my book.

A skill of significant importance! Re-familiarize yourself and stock up on components, they’ll be needed……likely soon! memtb

https://www.missouribullet.com/index.php

The Hi-Tek coated bullets have been good.

Cool. How's that done?

I like those too. Especially the 255 grain Keith style .45 caliber bullets.

I’ve never annealed a straight walled pistol/revolver case, and it is very rare I’ve thrown one away. I’m still reloading 38 Special brass headstamped Super Vel, S&W, and Peters. They’ve been around a while!

Googlefoo can be your friend. 😁

I use a propane torch with a low flame. Small finish nail held with pliers and spin the case with my fingers. Flame on the case mouth, stop when a) the case head gets hot to touch, or b) when uniform dark coloration appears where the flame touches the brass. DO NOT HEAT UNTIL THE BRASS GLOWS RED.

Short learning curve = long brass life, straight wall or bottle neck.

Cool. I've heard that before. Hickok45 said the same thing about still reloading straight walled handgun rounds from many years ago, and he's lost count as to how many times.

A friend gave me a 3 lb coffee can full of .38 spl brass that belonged to his father. There's no telling how many times they were reloaded before I got them and I've ran them through quite a few times. Many of them are the type with a cannelure. But they've been ran through a carbide sizing die so many times that the cannelures have been almost completely ironed out of them.

They were stretched out a bit when I got them so I spent quite a bit of time trimming them back to proper length. More often than not they've been loaded to +P+ level since I got them.

Never had a problem with my straight wall peestol
cases that I'd loaded

The only problem I've had was with factory white
box Winchester 44mag that I'd bought that split
down the side on a couple, and one that split all
the way down into the case head and primer pocket.
I was fortunate to be using a rifle at the time that
handled the gas ok without anything coming apart

I'm still using pistol cases that I've had since I
first started. The pockets will get loose and they
get retired

I have never annealed pistol or revolver brass and have run a lot at high pressures with heavy roll crimps.

As the OP is just getting back into reloading he might skip annealing until he loses a couple cases.

I'm using my old RCBS single stage, but just for giggles I decided to look at the price of a basic Dillon progressive press (complete starter set), and it's $764.00. Damn! Seems like just a couple of years ago, their basic model set was $400.00.

Decades ago I started backing off on the amount of bell mouthing I was doing due to split mouths. After that my brass held up much longer, about 40 years longer.

Being muti skilled or self sufficient has benefitted me & all my hobbies greatly. But reloading is at the top of the list.