Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles I thought I was going to start reloading.

I'm in the same position. It seems to go in waves. Primers are fairly easy around here now. For bullets you can go on Midway or Midsouth and set it up to send you a notification email when the ones you want come in stock. Powders the hardest to buy online since you're probably looking at 1 lb cans. Hard to justify paying the hazmat fee for 1 lb. Find a few local places and call them every week or so to see if they've gotten any powder in. If you go out of town, take a few minutes to call gun shops in the area you're going to and see what they have. Seems to be getting better around here.

Before buying powder I think your best and safest bet is to buy a reloading manual. From my experience I feel safe recommending the Lee manual. read the how-to and safety sections in the front (maybe more than once) and then go to the reloading sections for the calipers you want to load. Find the bullet weights you want to use and see which powders will give you acceptable (not necessarily the fastest) performance with both caliber sand bullet weights. Start looking for that powder while you prepare brass and gather other components.

Of course if you already purchased and read a loading manual feel free to disregard this post.

Best of luck. Reloading is fun and a great way to spend more time shooting.

Ron

clark,

You can also fit reloaders in your area and maybe split an order with them and then only pay 1/2 of HAZ cost. For me I pay a little more for my powder so I can use my LGS range for free.

I agree with a poster that said buy powder that works in two rifles but often times that does not work and each rifle will not always shoot good with a certain powder. You find out which powder shoot best in a rifle by trying different powders until you find on that shoots pretty good. But with this method you will always have powder on hand.

Try Ramshot Hunter with the 80TTSX and the 85 TSX.

Its out there just keep on the hunt and buy it any chance you get

Good advice in any case. I have looked some at a freeby manual with very limited loads. Know however that if anything I will over study before setting off rounds. I am a meticulous type personality.

Funny thing happened while looking over powder and primers. I bought a Kimber Montana 7mm-08. It was there and presented itself so it got bought. I will still get a good set up but now I know where I can get components aplenty. Only problem is I will need to build up my fun fund again first. LOL

My thanks to everyone for all the help and great advice. I will be back pretty soon to ask some dumb reloading questions.

I'm shooting the 80 gr TTSX out of my 243 using Ramshot Hunter at roughly 3415 fps. Deadly accurate and deadly on the whitetails and antelope I've used it on thus far.

Look at the reloading data center on www.imrpowder.com
They've got tons of free data.

Hodgdon owns IMR and Winchester powders also so data for all three is listed on that website. I'm gradually drifting towards Hodgdon's Extreme powders in all my rifles. I used to use a lot of RL powders but with RL22 and RL25 I got some wild pressure swings during the summer, the hodgdon powders are supposed to be more temperature stable. The summer heat and humidity is brutal on shooting down here, it's almost impossible to keep a rifle cool after a couple of shots.

I'd agree with the others that if you could score some H4350 and H4831 you'd be set for the calibers you mention. The key to finding powder is to check in with your local gun shop a couple of times a week. I've made it a habit of swinging into my LGS almost every time I go past there and in the last few months have scored a bunch of Varget, H4350, and Retumbo as well as CCI450 primers I needed. I could have had 4831 and a bunch of others but I don't use them. The powder is out there and showing up regularly but you have to troll for it and grab it before it gets snatched off the shelf. A shipment of Varget will be gone in two days from my LGS, but I've been able to get my share.

H and IMR powders seem to be coming in now as are Winchester primers. Yeppers 4350 and 4831 will be hard to best but I shoot 100's in my 2-4-3. Welcome to the brotherhood.... read the manuals don't hurt yourself.