Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Was your Father a Shooter/Reloader

My reloading story is a bit unique. I was introduced to reloading by my uncle. He was one of the first, in 1958, to purchase a first production Wby MK V chambered in 257 Wby. He purchased the dies directly from Mr. Weatherby. The gun shipped in to Houston at Glen Slade's Gun Shop. My uncle showed me the way it all worked at age 12 after my father died in 1970. By age 15 I purchased my first reload press and began loading for my father's 38 Special. Been loading since & have always cherished the memory of my uncle taking the time to show me the ropes.

Most of the patriarchy in my family were sportsmen and none ever invited me along save that one uncle. I was the black sheep of the family......that's a story for another time.

My dad was a pretty good shot but not a "shooter" when he was young (as we'd call them a "shooter" today.) He grew up in the Depression and shot small game and some deer to feed himself and the family. That was in the 1930s He went to war in 42 and got home in December of 46. After the war he bought a Winchester pump 22, and was given a Savage 99 as a wedding gift in 52. When I was a young boy those were the only 2 guns in the home. They were simply called "the 22" and the "deer rifle" or sometimes "the 300".

I got into reloading when I was 12 years old and I was the one that taught my dad to do it. I started with the 270 and we added the 300 Savage after that. A few years later I was also loading 45 Colt , 44 mag and 12 gauge.

Once I was in my mid teens and all through my 20s and 30s my dad became a shooter of 22s but not much larger.
He and I would shoot brick after brick of 22s especially after I got out of the Marines, but even in my time in the USMC I'd do a lot of shooing with my dad when I'd come home on leaves.

We did burn a LOT of 22s. We'd buy 22 LR ammo from Sears, Western Auto and Coast to Coast Hardware by the pallet load. 5000 per case, 8 cases per layer and 4 layers tall. The largest purchase we ever made was 5 pallets and we sold just short of 3 of them to friends and buddies, but he and I shot up 2 + a little more of those 5 pallet loads from that purchase. 160,000 rounds per pallet.
Most times we'd buy 1 pallet and a few times 2. But we'd shoot 22s probably 5 days a week.

We did shoot a LOT of 22 ammo in our rifles rifles and handguns. By the time I was in my 30s we had 9 Colt, Ruger and S&W 22 handguns, and also 6 different 22 rifles. 3 Winchesters, a Ruger, a Walther and a Remington. All got a lot of rounds put through them. How many we never counted exactly but from the time I was a teen until I was about 40 it would add up to over 1 million rounds.

I self-started my reloading, such as it is even now ( not done any in 10 years or so - getting back into it just a little), with a $19 Lee Loader kit in 1975 or so. Slow, but a danged good deal!

My groups with a R77V 25-06 went from about 5 inches factory ammo to MOA with my hand loads. IIRC, it was 57 grains IMR 4831 behind a 120 grain Speer. The caribou hated it!

No it wasn't- it was 47 grains - got it written down right there in the original Speer manual I used, and just happened to have handy.

So much for memory from 50 years back...

Man, that thing would have been hot with 57!

Nope, most of my bad habits came from an uncle.

I had to teach myself to shoot. My dad was a very good shot but didn’t do it for recreation. His pump 270 killed just about every deer it was pointed at. They were always running because we held deer drives.
His advice for me as a young man was. Don’t shoot at them-shoot them! Edk

Dad liked guns, seemed to have shot up all his bullets before I was born. He didn't have any loaded rounds for his 243 for 20+ years. Hunting and fishing weren't really his thing, but I was ate up with it. I found my grandfathers old Lyman press and had 2 buddies help me get started going down the hole of reloading. Funny now 20 years later my dad has more guns and 10x the bullets he did when I was growing up. He enjoys shooting with my nephew.

My (paternal) grampa was born 1893.
Served in WWI and was a rig builder during the Kilgore (TX) oil boom when oil derricks were wooden.
During the Great Depression, he worked for the Gov't building US Hwy 84 between Rusk, TX and Palestine, TX.
Most of the construction was done with horse drawn equipment.
Whoever was willing to stay and tend the livestock over the weekend earned an extra fifty cents for each day.

When they weren't tending the livestock, they were shooting up bricks of .22LR ammo.
I've still got grampa's old Rem "Target Master" single shot rifle.
He and my dad (1920-1981) were both "hunters", but they weren't "shooters".
Both were sudden death with rifle or shotgun. I've heard grampa's hunting companions say that he could kill 7 birds on a covey rise with his Win M12!
If either one burned any gun powder, there HAD to be game.
Grampa "never" bought a box of rifle (.30-30) ammo. He would go to Babcock Bros down on Spring Street and buy 7 shells. That's all his Marlin 336RC would hold. Seven shells would last him three years. Two deer per season.
When I started reloading for a .41 Rem Mag handgun I had purchased, my dad thought I was crazy for burning through ammo and considered reloads as dangerous and untrustworthy! 😖

I bought a Lee Loader and basically, became a "self taught" reloader.
The guy that sold me the Lee Loader also became my mentor and I learned with his RCBS "Jr.", C frame press loading .270 ammo.
Again, pop thought I was crazy for shooting so much.
Neither dad nor grampa tried to teach me the basics of wingshooting, so I never became much of a wingshot.
I still reload, WHEN I can find components.
I've shown both my kids (both LEO's!) how to reload, but they really couldn't care less about the process.
They'd rather buy their ammo.

I did all I could do!

Dad loved hunting and fishing. We hunted most of the western states for deer and elk. However, I think he favored bird hunting, especially pheasants. He was the best all-around fisherman I've ever met. Trout, salmon, bass, and everything in between. He was not a shooter or reloader. I learned that on my own and still learning.

No one in my family was a shooter. My Dad hunted moose and grouse but never did shoot for fun. The only gun I ever saw him fire was his 22LR head shooting grouse.

I got into this on my own accord after I married and moved to the other end of the country. I always liked guns but got a lot more serious after I got married as I needed a hobby better than drinking beer with the boys. I taught myself how to handload from manuals before the internet happened. I didn't know another person who loaded their own ammo.

My Dad was, by far, the best wing-shot I ever saw or heard of. His passions were "bird hunting" (quail hunting), and dove and duck hunting. He taught all four of us kids how to hunt and shoot, including my sister. He always bought high-brass and 2 3/4" magnums for ducks and occasional goose hunting, but for doves and quail he mostly reloaded, both 12ga and 20ga, on a couple of MEC 600jr's and taught me how to do it when I was 10 or so. But he also always bought a couple cases each of 20ga and 12ga field loads every year in case he ran low of reloads. Dad normally shot a limit of 20 doves with 20 or 21 shots. Once, it took him 23 shots and he was quite aggravated with himself. He wouldn't shoot skeet or trap because it was "too easy and not a challenge", but he encouraged me to do it, especially if I brought home all the AA, RXP, and Fed Champion hulls that I could...

He taught all of us to shoot 22's and handguns. We had a ragged old Marlin 1893 .30-30 with a rusted out bore that wouldn't stabilize jacketed bullets and a Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1 that my grandfather had sorta sporterized and it shot remarkably good groups. We had a bunch of surplus .303 British ammo, and when I shot up all of that I had to start buying my own. I had a friend the next ridge over whose dad reloaded rifle and pistol. He had a genuine "Chicago typewriter" Thompson .45ACP machine gun with several of the drum magazines and a pile stick mags. He would let my friend and I shoot it all we wanted, but we had to provide our own ammo. His dad also taught us how to reload for rifles and handguns. So we would ride our bikes to the nearest store that sold reloading supplies (across the river in Florence, AL) and buy powder, primers and bullets. My friend mowed yards, raked leaves and such and I did the same, plus had a large paper route, so we were able to finance quite a bit of shooting. When I was 11 y/o (1966), I saved my money and bought an RCBS Rockchucker, Ohaus 10-10 scales, powder measure, Lee powder dippers, RCBS .303 British and .45ACP dies and all the other stuff to start reloading myself at home. Dad gave me an area on the workbench in his shop to set up my equipment. I still use that equipment today.

My friend and I would sit up on Friday night loading .45ACP on that Rockchucker until we got too tired to do it safely (both our dads had drilled reloading safety into us), then we'd get up on Saturday morning and go somewhere and shoot it all up in less than two hours usually. That old Thompson barrel was probably about smoothbore, LOL. His dad required that we clean and lube it after we shot it, so the next time we'd shoot it, I always looked forward to getting it hot enough that the grease and oil would start smoking and cooking off of it.

Dad was never much interested in learning metallic reloading, but he did find my Lyman and Speer reloading handbooks interesting. He watched me reloading for the Enfield one day, asked a bunch of questions, and was satisfied that I knew what I was doing. So he never watched me again. His only advice was "Son, please be careful. Your mother's already worried about all the powder we've got down here." We got our first deer season in 1968, for shotguns only. Our first rifle deer season was in 1970. Dad wouldn't take me because he didn't want to waste a day of bird hunting trying to shoot a danged deer. It was my dream to be able to go "big game" hunting. So, in 1971, one of his buddies took me. I killed my first deer the second day, using the Lee Enfield and my reloads with Hornady 150gr spire pt, IMR 4895 powder and CCI primer. Killed my first seven bucks with that rifle and load.

In 1997, at age of 71, Dad finally relented and went deer hunting with me. I put him on a ground stand in the woods overlooking a draw that the deer travelled. For the first time ever, he got to see, close up, a flock of turkeys fly down and start feeding around him, and to top that, when the turkeys suddenly alarmed and flew and ran off, he had a bobcat come easing past him about 4 ft away, at closest. When it got about 7ft past him, it winded him and turned and looked at him and they locked eyes. The bobcat knew he was had, and dropped into a low crouch and sloooowly belly crawled another 12ft to a big rock and ducked behind it and hauled butt running away. Dad was hooked. He didn't get a buck that year, and the next year, he was paralyzed and partially blinded on his right side by a stroke. He partially recovered but was never able to hunt again. I cherish every trip we ever made together.

No my dad wasn’t an outdoorsman at all. Once dad got out of the army and back home from overseas he said he didn’t have any interest in hunting. I remember a comment that dad made once when I was young, something to the effect of he never wanted to “kill” anything ever again. I never followed up on that and to this day I’ve left the topic alone.

Despite dad’s predisposition for the Waldorf or Ritz and good meals in nice restaurants dad ALWAYS nurtured my love for all things outdoors. Dad took me “pheasant” hunting for the first time (he just walked the fields with me) and dad took me fishing for the first time. Dad didn’t want anything to do with “roughing it” but he allowed me to find my own joy.

My grandpa (maternal) was my partner in crime and one of the finest men anyone could hope to know. Grandpa and I spent countless hours fishing and hunting together but grandpa didn’t want to kill anything anymore so he let me do the shooting.

I was almost completely self-taught. I read everything I could and I absorbed the information like a sponge. I’m 52 and have been hunting since I was 8 when I finished hunters ed with a score of 99%. At 8 I had the highest score in the class. I loved hunting so much and I craved being around guys that hunted so the following year I took hunters ed again just for the fun of talking guns and hunting…plus I figured they’d hand out new updated reading materials and gun catalogs. 😀

I’ll forever be grateful to my dad for nurturing my love of the outdoors even though it was uncomfortable and foreign to dad. My grandpa was my best friend growing up and he fueled my fire and stoked my passion for fishing and hunting. Those early memories are magical and I know how blessed I was/am to have the family I have. Out of 5 kids I’m the only outdoorsman in the family….I’m not just someone that likes being in the wilderness I’m someone that NEEDS to be in the wild places.

My Dad didn't hunt or reload. He did like to fish and took me on many a fishing trip. When he got older I was the one taking him fishing. I still remember the last time we went fishing together. He passed at 87. From as far back as I can remember I wanted to hunt and shoot. Dad got me a subscription to Outdoor Life and the first thing I read was Jack O'Connor's column every month. My first rifle I bought was a Sako Finnbear in .270 Win. A friends father got me started in reloading and a neighbor took me hunting.

My dad and his family were hunters. He started me at 12, which at the time in PA is when you could start.

Him and his brother were champion trap shooters, both 27 yard line in ATA. Many championships between them, including my father winning a couple state handicap championships.

My father only reloaded shotgun shells for his trap shooting, but that did give me the bug to reload.

I am a self taught reloader. Been reloading rifle loads since 1980.

Thanks for all the replies, enjoyed hearing your experiences all

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My dad was a good hunter according to my uncles, he enjoyed hunting small game and deer mostly. He passed away back in 1962 in his 40's so I never got to hunt with him.

My biological father was a f****** asshole. He hunted, but that gains him NO elevation in my regard. If he had a grave I'd piss on it.

Nope. He hunted some with my mother’s brother after the war, but after h took off for Florida he got into boats and fished as an excuse for the boats.

Once he asked me how many guns I had and was aghast that I couldn’t tell him off the top of my head. I still can’t, though I can list them all, just never bothered to put a number to it.

I am certain that it’s almost, but not quite, enough……😜

I was born into a hunting, shooting and hand loading family

Yes to both. He taught me to shoot. He taught me to hunt, He taught me to reload. He taught me how to work on cars. He taught me to enjoy a cold beer. He taught me to be a man on my word. He taught me what honor means. Cancer took him in 2013 and I still miss him. RIP Pop.

No one in my immediate family shot or hunted other than my maternal grandfather who occasionally coon and fox hunted. He passed when I was 10 and had been in poor health for awhile. All I can remember doing with him was fishing once on the Tombigbee River. I guess I broke the mold though. I've been reloading for almost 50 years and have about 35 different sets of dies. I guess I'll be a one and done in the family though. All three of my kids enjoy hunting and/or shooting occasionally, but none have been truly bitten by the bug. All of the grandkids live too far away for me to really get my hooks into them. They're all too gung ho into sports and music. Can't complain to much about that though, they are all following their obsessions into college and, hopefully, careers.

Really wish I had some hunting and reloading buddies though....