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

Thanks for the replies. More opinions are appreciated.

With new brass, I check the length, bump the out-of-round ones over the depriming rod, , look to be sure the flash hole has been punched, and chamfer the inside of the neck.

Dale

The only PPU brass i have reloaded was 6.5x55. The primer pockets were real "square", causing the primer to hang up, I used my chamfering tool to break the edge. Never had to do that before but it seems like decent brass. YMMV

Bought a 358 BLR.No ammo available where I live.
Morphed into rolling my own for every CF I own.

The price of new ammo got us into reloading. Thought we could save money by reloading. Didn't really shoot enough back then to offset the costs of the equipment purchases.

a long time ago, i was able to get 38special wadcutters through the sheriff's department for about 1.50 a box. And about that time i bought a super redhawk and found out what 44 ammo cost.

then i didn't have acess to that cheap ammo. I found out casting and reloading solved the issue.
Then i got into a lot of old mill/surp calibers, and it was just easier to insure you had a supply by doing your own.
The costs are only one time for the equipment, and after 40 years of reloading it's nothing compared to the cost of factory ammo. I snicker walking into cabella's and seeing the price of ammunition.

50+ years ago when I was just a little fellow, Dad & Grandpa and my uncle taught me to reload. For the longest time I thought all shooters and hunters loaded their own ammo.

I've never stopped loading my own ammo, except when I was deployed overseas.

Mostly I load target shooting ammo for real basic cartridges: .308 Win, 5.56, and .45 ACP. The .308 stuff shoots very well, and I'm very pleased with it. The others do just fine for my purposes.

Also load my own hunting ammo.

Regards, Guy

The purchase of a 338-06 rifle was the major reason I started reloading, that and the fact I was at a point in my life where I had a little more disposable income and wanted to purchase more rifles and handguns.

I had wanted to reload for many years but I took the 338-06 to make me jump in.

I already owned a remington 722 in 300sav. At a gunshow my dad found 99 300sav in good used condition with a set of dies and 100+ rounds. $450 for all of it got me into reloading.

I had a misguided youth apparently compared to most of you guys I guess! I had no family that hunted or fished and all of my family were city folks! Once we moved to the country, I was exposed to REAL PEOPLE that realized all meat isn't grown in the back of a grocery store! lol

I quickly got a single shot shotgun and a 22 rimfire for all my fun and hunting! Never had a need for a centerfire. deer hunting was shotgun only at that time in my neck of the woods.

Then once I graduated high school I kinda quit hunting and fishing for many decades and replaced it with chasing women and parties! I wish I could remember most of those days!

A few decades went by and I've always heard that "When wine, women and song get to be too much, quit singing!" SO I quit singing! It didn't help me much but all my friends appreciated it! AND women! Well ya can't live with em and ya can't kill em! SO I finally gave up chasing all of it and wouldn't ya know my interest in hunting and fishing returned big time!

I bought my first centerfire rifle in the early 90's and quickly realized that all ammo shot to a different POI! Then I ran into a benchrest guy who told me that with little effort I could produce better ammo than factory and could tune the loads for each rifle! I was hooked! I have to admit, I love loading every bit as much as shooting!

I started loading at around 12 YO just because I wanted to. Got me a Lee Loader. That thing was a major contributor to the carpal tunnel syndrome I had to deal with surgically in following years. Then I got a really simple Lee press (no automatic anything) and thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. It wasn't until I got my first centerfire handgun at age 18 that the real savings started to be realized. Actually, I got the RCBS JR3 press and 45 Colt dies so I could load "Ruger & TC ONLY" loads in that Blackhawk 45. The next major step was casting my own slugs from scrounged wheelweights. At that point I was loading my 45 ammo for about $2 per box of 50 rds. I hunted deer for 40 years and never killed one with a factory load. I don't load shotshells any more. They are cheap enough at Wally World. Still load everything else though, except rimfires.

I started reloading in 1978, I wanted my ammo to be better then the factory stuff, after the learning curve and the investment in all the reloading equipment, I finally got the accuracy I wanted.
I remembered that back then there was always plenty of components, the shelves were full, you could get what you wanted.I don't think I would make that investment these days.

I borrowed Dads 30-06 to deer hunt with. Went to the store and got a box of ammo and left thinking never again will I pay $8.00 for a box of ammo.

And.....it is very likely that you kept your word.

^^These^^

Except I don't know that my dad ever bought a metallic cartridge that I can recall other than rimfire. We had loads of mil surp '06 brass and powder, and would make most of our cases from LC Match brass, including .243 Win., all on a Herter's turret press. We also had a Lyman TruLine Jr. for neck sizing.

My first job was to iron shotgun shells, which led to my first reloading injury about the age of 5 when I grabbed the shotgun shell iron to see if it was hot. It was.

I think the first box of factory ammo I bought was .44 Mag after I got my M29 in the late '70's, and that was to get the brass. Well, also so I could shoot the thing as soon as possible. Same goes for a few other calibers, although I've resorted to a box or two of factory ammo recently for various reasons.

Dad gave up on shotgun shells when shells got cheap enough, we were shooting a lot, and the old Texan couldn't keep up. I've given up shotgun shells for the same reason, that and I don't shoot shotguns all that much now.

Casting became necessary given the amount of shooting I was doing when I started.

I've ended up with more reloading stuff than necessary as I can't pass up good deals whether I need them or not.

Started with shotgun shells because I was shooting (or trying to) competitively (Those $6.95 16 gauge shells were EXPENSIVE!) Bought Mec 600 after I won an 8 lb keg of Unique. Then expanded to 12 gauge because I could get the hulls for free just by picking them up. Winchester AA's and Remington Blue Magics were the bomb back then.
Turned 21 and bought a S&W 19-6 and to shoot more (that $5.95 box of 357's was EXPENSIVE!) I borrowed a friends Rockchucker press. Bought the dies and went after it.
Expanded to my 25-06's then my Dad's 30-06, then the 30-40 Krag, then ...
I now reload for every firearm I own save the rimfires.

You guys are making me feel better regarding buying components, etc just because I could get a deal on them, lol!

I bought my 44mag dies the same time I bought my 44mag Redhawk not knowing if I'd even keep the Redhawk. Afterall, we heard stories of how terrible the recoil of the 44mag. Took it to an indoor pistol range to shoot. The clerk said he'd never buy a 44mag as they're too expensive to shot. I thought to myself, why don't you reload???

So now instead of buying more firerams that I'd probably don't need or use, I've decided to focus on buying reloading components. My timing is definitely bad for that, lol!

yep,44 magnum got me into it ,too.

When my Dad started shooting High Power matches, you could not buy accurate enough ammo for any price, especially for 600 and 1000 yard matches. When I started shooting in the matches, it was only natural that I handloaded. Except for milsurp, I never fired a factory round.

Later he hunted in Africa and loaded .300 Wby because you could not get them with Nosler Partitions.

Later, I hunted in Africa. I loaded .375 and .458. You could not get North Fork solids in .375 (or any other flat points) and .458 factory loads were loaded to 2040 fps by the factory. I could get 2200 easily with handloads.

At one point I had a 6.5x54mm M1903 Mannlicher Shoenaur. You simply can't buy ammo. Further, this rifle had excess headspace and I had to fire form cases.

Finally, I shot matches with a 6XC. I had to fire form cases from 22-250s.

After all this stuff, I can say that no factory round has ever polluted most of my barrels!

Now I shoot mostly shotgun. I only reload 28 gauge because you can buy 12 and 20 cheaper than I can reload them.

Accuracy and a friend who reloaded.

In 1975 I moved to BC big game country and bought a 30-06 to improve on my 30-30. A new friend there is a superb hunter who reloaded to gain accuracy and better bullets than he could get in factory at the time. I was impressed and followed his lead exactly.

At first I did my reloading with his tools, a Lee loader combined with a powder scale to make each charge precisely the same. I bought a Lee Loader kit, added my own Ohaus powder scale and used those tools for the next 10 years.