Do you Reload?

[jimg11]

When I started shooting I was making $1.25 an hour. A box of factory Ammo was at least $5.00. I needed to reload as a box of factory ammo was 1/2 a day's wages. I started with an old Lyman Nut Cracker tool. Slowly I increased my tooling and added more calibers. As my wages increased eventually my costs for factory ammo took less and less of my wages. By the 1990s I was seldom reloading. I would reload if I had special load I wanted but just shooting ammo was reasonably cheap. Now I see the price of ammo increasing and I am thinking that I need to get back into reloading.

[556NATO]

I've always wanted to get into reloading, but for whatever reason, never got started. A friend of a friend reloads religiously. He reads a lot and seems to know everything there is about the subject. He'll experiment until the bullet flies exactly the way he wants it to. It really is a science. He's retired so he has plenty of time on his hands to learn everything there is to know.

[Cranky]

I've reloaded 12 gauge shells on a friend's old press. It was very simple, but I never reloaded brass. Like 556NATO I've always wanted to get into it, but never found the time.

[jimg11]

I remember well several projects that I was very pleased with the outcome. One was around 1965 when I bought my first 41 Magnum, a model 58 S&W. I had bought a box of Remington High Speed 210 JSP Ammo and was really pleased with the Power and accuracy. Since I would be using this gun as a duty Revolver I bought a couple boxes of the lead bulleted M & P 41 Mag. Remington Ammo. This in my opinion was the worst factory ammo I had ever seen. It was dirty, loud, too much recoil and a general disappointment in accuracy. I bought dies and Speer 220 gr jsp bullets and loading books etc. I must have tried dozens of loads with as many different powders as I could buy or borrow. Almost all were better than the original Remington M&P loads but I found a real winner with 10 gr. of HERCO powder behind the Speer 220 jsp bullet. It was clean, accurate, powerful (900 fps) and easy to shoot. My favorite 41 Magnum load. I do not know if Remington ever improved their 41 Magnum M&P loads. They probably did but I never bought any 41Mag. ammo other than the High Speed 210 JSP Remington 41 magnum.

[Cranky]

My friend swears that Remington factory ammo has gone way down hill over the years. I haven't seen a problem with it out of my guns.

[jimg11]

My problem was with the original Remington (1965) 41 Magnum LEAD bullet M&P loading. I never bought another box of this load but the Remington 41 Magnum High Speed 210 gr. JSP loading was wonderful in my estimation and what I used in all my 41 Magnum Revolvers when I wanted a High Speed Loading from 1965 until now. My Reloaded 41 Magnum loads with Speer 220 JSP or Speer 200 JHP in front of 10 gr. HERCO powder and I have used other bullets cast, JHP, and JSP of various makers and 10 gr. + - Herco Powder with excellent results.

[556NATO]

I was just looking at this.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting ... s?slotId=0

I'd need some literature and education to get started.

[jimg11]

Many reloaders use the progressive loaders but they are quite expensive to get set up with and get loading. If you need to reload thousands of cartridges that is the way to go. I like single stage presses because I only reload a few hundred cartridges at a time most with pistol and revolver rounds. With rifle cartridges a hundred rounds is a lot for me I usually do not reload more than a box or two at a time.

[S_I_G]

Many reloaders use the progressive loaders but they are quite expensive to get set up with and get loading. If you need to reload thousands of cartridges that is the way to go. I like single stage presses because I only reload a few hundred cartridges at a time most with pistol and revolver rounds. With rifle cartridges a hundred rounds is a lot for me I usually do not reload more than a box or two at a time.

Do you think it's cost-effective to purchase new brass to load? Maybe from a site like Top Brass or somewhere else?
http://www.topbrass-inc.com/reloading-supplies/

[jimg11]

For me brass is obtained from shooting factory loaded cartridges. The new huge increases in cost of factory ammo may cause me to rethink but the cartridge case is very expensive to buy new. I would prefer to reload once fired ammo cases to buying virgin brass. Again the cost is a factor. When I started reloading a box of factory cartridges (in the early 1960s) cost me 2 or 3 hours of my pay. As my pay scale increased over the years the factory ammo took less of my wages until I did much less reloading. Lately the price of factory ammo has been skyrocketing and the economy of reloading looks better and better.