Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Shooting off odds and ends - Call it spring cleanup

Who has reloaded cartridges that would be thought of as odds and ends? Stuff like the following:

Licorice all sorts. 13 of this. 9 of that. Leftovers in plastic boxes.
11 loaded cartridges in a box in with 39 never fired, prepped brass too.
The infamous coffee can with assorted cartridges put in there to free up plastic boxes. "I'll shoot them off next time I'm at the range." (But you didn't.) It's Maxwell House: Good to the last shot.
Sheit, no tag in the box. What powder did I load?

I got 88 unfired 22 Hornet.
173 unfired 223 Rem.
60 unfired 222 Rem.

It must be old timers, because I don't remember loading most of it.
Tags in the plastic boxes dated from 2005 to 2011.
A mix of home made (22 RF jackets) and factory made bullets.

I also have a bunch of 45-70, 44 Mag, 357, 303 British, 303 Epps and 308 Win/7.62x51mm cartridges too. All odds and sods. The brass needs recovering. The oldest is some 303 Epps cartridges dated 1998. I don't know why I didn't find and shoot this stuff at some point in the past 10 years.

It's time for spring cleanup.

There's a 264 Win Mag in there, I don't own nor have I ever owned one...

Very true.. The other day I came across a bunch of .223's I loaded and stuck in a Horn. box for .30 cal bullets.. don't remember loading them or what I wanted them for.. Half 55gr. HPBT and half FMJ.. Wonder what that project was??? Many are labeled but as you say loaded a long time ago.. Bunches of .30-30's I loaded when I was in that "faze".. Also came across a box of half shot .264's, but I did have three .264's.. Maybe that is a sign.. Also found 7 bx. of 280 brass an loads.. Only had one of those thank goodness.
Still more .358 win. brass, reloads and a bunch of new factory.. Maybe I should locate a short 700 action.. Building a .300 Savage because I have about 20 boxes of ammo about 2/3's loaded.. Besides I do need a short barreled deer rifle..

I just used up a bunch of 1/4-3/4 full cans of powder..stuffed them all in 223's..figure its good enough for mini 14 plinking and such.



I've been running low on 17 rem ammo, so when 25gr vmax finally became available again I decided to crank some out,but couldnt find hardly any of my brass.

started digging and found them..all loaded with 25gr vmax's..chit, and for the last year i was conserving 17rem cuz i couldnt find those 25's.

But yes, I too have odd ball loose rounds all over the place.

I find that I end up with a lot of powder cans like rosco1 with about 10-20% of the powder remaining. Mostly these are powders for rifles but still see some pistol powders taking up shelf space and I'm stuck without a good solution.

I've moved mostly out of the plastic ammo boxes that hold 50 or 100 and gone to the larger plastic storage boxes with good sealing lids.

I like that solution of loading up a run of 16 or 31 or 22 rounds of .223 with some bulk 55g FMJ and go out plinking with the AR.

a lot of times I disassemble it and return the components to the powder container ( as I have it marked on the accompanying 3 x 5 cards) and return the bullets to the boxes.

I keep a zip-lock labeled "misfits & morphodites" as a home for unwanted cartridges, odd ball brass and leftovers of loads no longer used.
Somehow the bag never seems to get empty, only fatter.

That's what a pasture full of spring gophers ( ground squirrels) is for. I just shoot them all up.

I shot trap and 5 stand with a grab back of shells I had laying around for years. Everything from 7/8oz #8.5's to 3" #4's. Made for very interesting doubles....