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My dad bought me a mec 650 to reload 20ga shells when I was 15 years old. I use to shoot a lot of skeet when I was a kid. A year later I got a Texan Progressive 12ga loader. A few years after that I started loading for a 240 Weatherby that I bought from a friend. Over the years I would load for what ever I was shooting at the time.

Fast forward about 50 years. I haven't loaded any ammo in almost 10 years. I do not shoot anywhere near as much as I used to. There is good accurate factory ammo available today. I know what each one of my rifles shoots best. So that's what I buy. It's just the easy button for me now. My rifles will shoot sub moa if I feed them what they like.

Factory ammo has come a long ways since since the early 60's...most of it was pathetic back then. When I was 17, I chipped the mortar off of about 20,000 used bricks, to give me enough to buy a pushfeed Model 70 .308 and a 4X Weaver. Deeply disappointed with accuracy, I was on the high school ROTC rifle team and had some idea of what to expect, I then bought a Lee Loader...the difference in accuracy was astounding. 3 1/2 moa to 1 moa. Only factory I buy now is for the brass, even though the accuracy of some modern ammo is good enough.

I started handloading at age 14. It was the only way I could afford to shoot much. I had a RCBS Jr press and a Redding scale. However the dies were from Herters and therefore the ammo was really crooked.

My rifle was second hand M70. I didn’t know a thing about the value of rifles. I bought it from a neighbor for $35. It was a transition model Super Grade 257 which I had rechambered to 25-06. I had 100 military cases. I loaded 100 grain Sierra bullets with IMR 4350. I lived in Southeast Idaho and there were more jackrabbits than you can imagine. In the morning I would go out and shoot until I ran out of ammo. Then I would get a ride home, load all the cases, and go out again for an evening shoot.

There wasn’t much rifling in the 12” in front of the chamber but I could still get many rabbits.

Been hunting all my adult life. 62 this September. Never got the bug to reload. Probably sitting on lifetime supplies of factory ammo for all my
Hunting rifles. I doubt I will take up the skill at this point. I don't really consider myself a recreational shooter.

Dad reloaded shot shells for skeet and trap but saved all his brass. I started loading metallics after learning to reload shot shells. I have take about half my deer with reloads.

Very similar. My dad was a machinist in the Navy and an industrial arts teacher who taught drafting and machining. I don’t ever remember him hunting with factory ammunition as he loved to load his own ammunition. I have only done so on rare occasions. I recall hunting with some 180 core lokt stuff out of a 300 win mag back in the early 90’s and the only other factory ammunition I shot was 200 grain 35 Whelen a couple years ago. Shot one deer with it and just wanted the brass.

I shoot factory ammo when it makes sense to do so. For example 12 and 20 ga. promo loads cost about the same as the components. Same with 9mm pistol range ammo. I still pick up factory centerfire rifle ammo, both to shoot and to obtain the cases to load.

When I began handloading 60 years (!!!) ago, I could easily beat the quality of available factory ammo. As another poster in this thread said, factory ammo 30-06 groups were maybe 3.5" but I could get groups to an inch or so by neck sizing with a Lee Loader, carefully metering/weighing powder charges and seating bullets with the in-line seater (again with the Lee Loader, using the same principles as an arbor press) to insure straight bullet seating. Premium bullets, such as Nosler Partitions, were only available as components. Back then, pretty much all factory rifle ammo had swaged cup and core bullets.

Factory ammo is much better today with cup/core bullets and also a wide variety of premium bullets are available in factory loads. Handloading is a separate, but related, hobby to shooting. Sometimes it comes down to how I want to spend my time. Beautiful weather? Let's go somewhere! Miserable outside? Maybe I'd rather spend time at the loading bench.