Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles How should I build my reloading bench

There are some really nice benches and reloading rooms in this thread. I built my first bench to fit one wall in our spare bedroom in my previous house and gave it to a buddy when I moved.

I found a screaming good deal on a Craftsman bench that fit between the lowest shelf and the wall on one side of the master closet back in 2007. I finally built a shelf to fit on the bench this week since I generally have crap stacked all over the place.

I suck at brass organization but I am getting better, I started using the ice cream buckets but I may switch to the shoebox style plastic tubs that were posted in the brass thread.

Some day I hope to dedicate a room for an office/reloading/checkering space and get this junk out of the bedroom.

I built my bench at the old house in an L-shape, 6feet on each leg. L-shaped made stuff down at the other end of the bench handy to reach from the main work station in the middle. I used 12/4 mahogany for the base (hey, I got it $6 bd/ft back then, which was only $1 bd/ft more than white oak) and recycled bowling alley lanes for the top. The bowling alley material was 2 1/2" thick maple made of 3/4x2 1/2 sticks glued face-to-face. Because I was a yacht carpenter at the time I went a little crazy and built it with mortice-and-tenon joints and half-lap joints, no nails or screws just epoxy. It was sturdy though- you could've parked a Volkswagen on it.

Since the divorce and moving into a tiny apartment, I had to scale down the bench size. This one's just 5ft.x2ft. (mahogany again) with simple shelves underneath for storage. Because it's in my apartment I finished it like a piece of furniture (which it is) Several large wooden chests serve for additional storage.

Frankly, if I were starting out all over again I would build a bench that sat as an island in the middle of the room, providing access all around it.

Don't limit yourself to 2x material and plywood from the big box store. If there's a hardwood dealer local to you, spring for some nice dry white oak, or maple, or even mahogany. Pricing it may surprise you in being not a heck of a lot more than a pickup full of 2x's at Home depot- and a heck of a lot drier, stronger, and heavier, all good attributes for a loading bench.

My dad built this one off the end of his utility room. We live about 1/4 mile apart on our farm, so we share the room. The room is actually a 6' x 10' closet. Solid core door for the bench top with shelves above and plenty of support below. The opposite wall has inexpensive cabinets and shelves available from any Lowes, HD, Target, etc. The second picture doesn't show all the shelves and cabinets below, but you get the idea.

Did I misinterpret, or did Swampy say he is in the closet. Swampy, come out of the closet already.

I used to load on a more conventional setup on a bench pushed up against a wall. Always wished I had access to all sides of the bench and learned the press is best mounted over the vertical uprights. This is what I built.

thats a sweet little set up.

That's exactly the design I would copy if I were to build yet another one. Nicely done.