Reloading- How Technical!?

[Leec6.5]

Due to the Cost of Living Crisis (COLC) I can no longer afford to add View attachment 484435 to my tumbling media.

K

Your posh I use T cut

 

[Jh1986]

I recently discovered the Lee loader sets that come in a wee case and include everything you need to make ammunition. You just need a hammer to smack it with. Comes with a wee scoop for the powder and everything. I really fancied buying one but they don’t seem to do one in 25-06. I put in for a .223 so that I can buy one.

Got myself one of these, and a set of balance scales and digital scales.

Not had a chance to give it a go yet. The thought of making ammunition by "hitting with a hammer", any part of it seems outrageous to me but I'll probably start over the next month or two.

 

[63]

Most of what is written about reloading online (by volume) is about what you might call ‘technical reloading’ ie trying to make super tuned ammunition that produces the best possible groups in a given rifle. It is easy to get lost in that detail and get intimidated.

If you just want to make ‘cheaper factory ammo’ then it’s pretty simple - just load to standard OAL as per the instructions in your chosen manual. It’s worth tinkering with different charge weights to obtain decent accuracy, but for stalking purposes it’s very possible that you’ll find the first charge you try is perfectly good enough.

Depending on how much you shoot, you can get a long way with a Lee loader, a hammer and some scales for weighing out your powder (in preference to the scoops).

Seen a lot of people whinging online recently that reloading isn’t cost saving anymore - personally I reckon that, even accounting for the brass, I can load copper bullets for about £2 a bang in 308 - which is around half the cost of factory loaded Sako Blade, Barnes etc.

 

[BenBhoy]

An interesting 'experiment' for the so-called Advanced Reloader is to prep' and group test 10 rounds in accordance with their sterile laboratory procedure, and 10 more that are simply resized & primed with no other tinkering including cleaning.

K

Have you performed such a test?

 

[trickie]

I look on reloading as three distinct activities -

Brass prep
Preparing ammunition
Load testing

I find load testing the most challenging part of the process. Finding cost effective locations to load test is not easy at all.

Regards

JCS

Not quite the 3 I like to think of reloading as.
The first 2 are spot on
Number3: Enjoying the fruits of the first two

If you are a bit pedantic, or a perfectionist then reloading is for you.

Should you be “slapdash” then you might not be best suited

 

[Mike1979]

Depends what you want and as everyone says you can do it in a cheap and cheerful way.

To my mind the real benefit is that you can achieve accuracy beyond standard factory ammo..is it needed for deer stalking...probably not but why shouldnt we get the best accuracy out of our kit. Will it save you money ...arguments for and against...its a rabbit hole and I suppose it depends on how far down it you want to go Im half way down the rabbit hole at the mo but got what I wanted for the 6.5 creed with copper and I wasnt getting that with factory.