Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What got you into reloading your own ammo?

I was always conscious of picking affordable cartridges for my hunting and shooting purpose. Being able to find ammo widely available and reasonably price was at the forefront of my mind when purchasing firearms.

It didn't make sense to me to buy some nifty firearm in cartridge/caliber that I couldn't afford to shoot and practice with. Thus my choice of 223rem and 308win rifles.

However, the cartridge that push me into finally into reloading my own ammo was the 44mag. It's a great cartridge but there'd be no way I could practice with it to become profecient with this handgun. It was simply too expensive.

So, I owe my jump into handload/reloading due to the 44mag.

I'm curious to hear what got you into reloading?

Same cartridge. Liked to shoot it more than I could afford. I have saved money reloading, but only with handguns and magnum rifles. With the 06 or other common guns it takes a fair bit of shooting to pay for a decent reloading outfit

I bought a 7mm08 and then found that I could only get 140gr bullets in loaded ammo. More choices now, but you are still better off loading for the 7mm08. miles

I started saving brass when I started shooting in the early 80's. By 2000, I had quite a collection. I started seriously thinking about reloading about 1998, and finally pulled the trigger on the project in December 2000, buying a RCBS Rockchucker Master Reloading Kit at the recommendation of folks on shooters.com.

What drove me to do it?

1) I read somewhere way way back that I could manage recoil. I was never a puss when it came to recoil, but if I could get nearly the same velocity with much less kick, I was in.
2) Cost. I could shoot more for less $.

My first attempt was some 44 MAG. It was a horrible failure. I sent the expander die about a quarter way down the case. I still have them somewhere.

My first 30-06 load was an off-max 165 grain Hornady SP over IMR4895 that shot better than any factory load I'd ever bought. It also did well in every 30-06 I owned at the time. I switched to H4895 at some point a few years later, and it still remains my favorite deer load. Funny, but the first time I tried to shoot a deer with it, all I got was a click. That's been the only bad primer in 14+ years. The next morning I shot a nice doe with the same batch of ammo.

Economics, Mine started with A 243 and ...........


avalanched into MORE cartridges & rifles.

Same principle as 'hoarding', an incurable disease.

So much for saving money.

44 Mag. Same reason as above, loved to shoot it but ammo, even back in the day, was pricey. Moved to 30-06 shortly after and never looked back.

Funny thing was, after loading up my first batch of 44 ammo, I loaded one round in the cylinder, cocked it, held it out with on arm, turned my head and pulled the trigger. Dud primer. I about jumped out of my skin when the hammer fell and it didnt go off. Every other round worked just fine.

My father bought, from a temporarily strapped-for-cash local gunsmith, a sweet little wildcat rifle, based on a Rem Mohawk-600 action, that the smith had built for himself.

Having already had said gunsmith previously make for him the exact same wildcat, though his based on a Rem 700 action, dad gave the rifle to me, along with a couple of boxes of hand loads. By that time, early 1980s, though, it was no longer a wildcat, officially, by then, the 7mm08 Remington.

That little rifle shot the hand loads amazingly well, but factory offerings not so much. So, I did the research, purchased the necessary equipment and supplies, and carefully reproduced the hand loaded ammunition that it shot so well.

Economics: I didn't really save any money; I actually spent more... but I shot more...which is like saving money over factory ammo.

Pick My bullets: I could load what I wanted and when I started hand loading the best game bullets available were not loaded by the factories.

Consistency: My hand loads, back when I started,were "better" than factory.

Convenience: When I bought a new rifle, I never worried whether the ammo I wanted was available from the factories. I bought dies and brass and was ready to go.

Confidence: I could trust my ammo on hunts. A few thousand rounds a year meant I knew the rifles,kept them zeroed,and knew them well from so much shooting. This paid off on hunts.

It was a simple choice.

Accuracy.

Whatever hobby I get into, I tend to go in whole hog. So it was inevitable that if I stuck with shooting I'd get into reloading. A store chain was going out of business and I picked up a press, scale and I don't recall what else. Then of course I needed dies, a primer seater and odds and ends. I believe the .308 was the first round I loaded for, followed by the .44 mag.

Of course the natural progression was a curiousity with various platforms and wildcats, i.e. a t/c contender and various barrels and chamberings, a 35 whelen ackley, 458 lott, 480 Ruger... Followed by getting into bullet casting...

I've pretty much moved away from the wildcats and obscure cartridges having scratched that itch on more than one occasion. Now I'm looking to make the most of what little free time I seem to have. Mrs. Claus got me a Dillon 550B for Christmas which has yet to be set up due to a recent move and no work bench, yet

Some of my earliest CF rifles were chambered for cartridges that were considered "obsolete" or "European" and ammo was generally expensive and frequently hard to find if you didn't load your own.

218 Bee, Winchester 43
219 Zipper, Marlin 336SC
25-20, Remington 25
25-35, Winchester 94
250-3000, Savage 99G
7x57, Sporterized FN 24/30

It was economics for me. I was shooting a Winchester 94 32 Special and buying ammo for it. I liked to shoot it but it hurt a little every time I bought a box of ammo on my very tight budget back then. I guess I knew I'd be reloading for it and had saved the brass from every box of ammo. I bought one of the Lee Loaders, some 3031, a couple of boxes of primers and a couple of boxes of bullets. I wasn't spending any less money but I was getting to shoot a whole lot more.

I started casting bullets for my dad in jr high, got my first rifle , a Mark X 257 Roberts, in 1976 with a box of shells which are still the only factory loads I've shot threw it. 117gr Sierras and H4831 still work great, 40 yrs later.

Was mostly shotgun guy at the beginning, this was the 70's. It was not uncommon to shoot up a case of shells at skeet on a good weekend, and reloading saved a ton of money that I didn't have in those days. Sometimes I would win a keg of REd Dot or 700x, and would be in the big time.
Somewhere in this mix I discovered copper shot was remarkably effective on pheasants, and darn near impossible to buy.
Moved into pistols, and the 357 & 44 magnums were prohibitively expensive to buy, and I liked to shoot, a lot, still do. Again, economics were the driver.
Then along came centerfire rifles, and it seemed a natural extension. It has been a rare occasion for me to hunt with factory loads.
Today the economics are probably reversed, especially for shotguns, but over the decades I learned to love the reloading process. Maybe it's my therapy.

Truth! I both shot a whole bunch more, and spent a whole bunch more. It's so easy to convince yourself you should try something new when you load your own ammo.

Wanting to shoot accurately at longer ranges.

Economics. Started with a Lee loader. It didn't cost much to start loading in the '60's.

When I was 12 my Dad bought me a Mod 70 .243. He set me up with dies and components and taught me how to load my own ammo. I am 59 now and still at it. I still have that .243 too.

I finished up several boxes of Remington Core lokt ammo for my .30/06 that I had been using to hunt deer. I bought a couple more boxes of the same load (150s) and I don't know what Remington had changed but instead of 1.25" they shot 3-4" groups. I bought some 165's and the groups shrunk back to 1.5" or so and I went hunting. I had bought a basic reloading press and kit a few years before but had never found the time to use it. Well, during the off season I took that stuff, bought some dies, bullets, primers and powder and went at it. I quickly discovered that my rifle that would shoot most factory loads (except that one batch of Remingtons) into 1.25" to 1.5" would actually do 0.5" to 0.75" with carefully loaded ammo.

I still shoot some factory ammo in that rifle and others, mostly because of time issues. However, I do enjoy loading my own. In addition to all the advantages you guys have mentioned like working up loads, economics, shooting more, etc. The thing I love most about it is that when I sit down at the loading bench and load ammo, I can't do anything else. I can't think about work, or bills, or responsibilities. You have to totally focus on what you are doing. I find that incredibly relaxing.

Economics when i start in 1971, first round i loaded was the 6 mm Remington, Sierra 100 gr with Hod 4831