Reloading for Handgunners. Patrick Sweeney
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lets take a moment here to satisfy the lawyers, the cautious, and the ‘sky is falling” crowd. These loads worked fine in my guns. I’ve checked them against industry data and the published information of the ammo and powder makers. I’ve done all I can to make sure they are ready for your enjoyment.
There are, however, things that are out of my control. For instance, if someone in the printing plant spills some coffee, and the typesetting software starts transposing numbers like a maniac, it wasn’t me. Check my data yourself, against that published by others. If, for example, everyone else has published that a particular caliber/bullet/powder combo is maxed out at 5.8 grains, and for some reason my list shows it as 8.5 grains, it’s that spilled coffee working mischief.
If your brother-in-law not only takes your prized SAA, and with his brand-new reamers opens the chambers up from .44 Special to something else, and proceeds to scatter bits of it across the range with his ammo, don’t come looking to me.
We’re all adults here, and doing something unsafe, unreasonable or just plain bone-headed gets you no sympathy from the rest of the shooting public.
Now that I’ve scared you off reloading, have fun.
Section I
Getting
Started
Chapter One
WHAT YOU NEED
What you need is simple: empty brass of the correct caliber for your needs/firearms/gear, and appropriate bullets, powder and primers. Then, you need equipment to process that empty brass and stuff a suitable amount of powder between the bullet and primer.
Here is where the decision-making comes in. You see, reloading is exactly like automobiles in that you have choices. Once you have exceeded the basic threshold of function, it all comes down to “how fast do you want to go?” Which, translated, becomes “how much do you want to spend?”
A Yugo (provided it works at all) will get you someplace in pretty much the same time frame as a fully tricked-out Mercedes (we’ll ignore the transit time in a Lamborghini, for the moment). It just does so at a different level of comfort, style, safety and reliability.
Reloading equipment of all levels can and will turn out entirely suitable ammunition, but some will do it faster, and some will do it for a longer period of time before needing a rebuild/overhaul.
One aspect of reloading for handguns that you should be aware of is volume. It is not unusual for a rifle reloader to sweat the details on a couple of boxes of brass and handcraft perfect little jewels of brass cases. When loaded, those 40 cases can last several hunting seasons. Benchrest shooters are even more extreme; they may sweat the details on 100 cases, winnowing down this or that near-microscopic “fault” until they have twenty hand-crafted, identical in every aspect that can be measured, perfect cases.
You must have a scale, even though you won’t be weighing each and every powder charge you drop.
Handgun shooters, however, tend towards volume. As in a couple of hundred rounds in a weekend’s practice session. Even just plinking, it is easy to go through that much. If you’re shooting in competition and trying to improve your skill, that every weekend is the minimum norm. 200 rounds a weekend, every weekend, is only 10,000 rounds a year. In a lot of competition circles, that is barely enough to keep your skills level and not slipping back. It is not unusual for those wishing to move up in the world to shoot 20, 30 and even 40 thousand rounds in a year’s practice session, and extra ammo in regular matches.
Those striving to reach the pinnacle of practical shooting may consume on the order of 75,000 rounds a year for a couple of years in their quest for Grand Master and National Champion status.
So, you have to balance capital investment against production capacity, keeping in mind just how much time you will have to shoot. Now, volume production does not always mean you are planning to be awash in ammo. You see, with a bit of practice and proper notes, you can produce ammo quickly, even if you do need buckets of it.
Not to jump ahead, but let’s take for example a single-stage press and a progressive press. The single stage press will have a final production rate of perhaps 50 rounds per hour. For the riffle loader, that means he’s spending an hour a week in the basement (many reloading locations are in the basement) and have an embarrassment of ammo, ending the year with 250 rounds. (I’ve known successful hunters who have not fired 250 rounds in decades of hunting.) However, a single stage press used to load your 200 rounds of handgun practice ammo means not less than four hours down there during the week. If your wife (or husband) is happy with that, fine. If not, then a progressive press will produce that much ammunition in less than one hour.
With the progressive press, you’ll spend the time of one TV show that he/she likes and you don’t, loading ammo. You spend a bit of money and find the time, and thus preserve domestic bliss.
So, when you consider equipment, consider not just what it does but how quickly it does it, and what effect that will have on your total throughput.
The minimum equipment you’re going to need falls into the following categories:
Brass prep, to make sure your brass is clean and ready to load.
Loading gear, to mash all the various parts together. This will include the measuring tools you’ll use.
Component storage, because you can’t just let all the ingredients spill across the floor.
Recordkeeping, because if you load more than one load in one caliber, you have to keep track of it all.
Failure to do so in an efficient manner can lead to more than embarrassment, it can lead to busted guns and/or shooters.
And finally, a place to do all this. Ideally, a dedicated space, one that can be secured against prying eyes and busy hands.
You may be tempted to scrimp on gear, to “make do” with a compromise or a something of lesser quality. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m solely advocating the purchase of gold-plated equipment, but keep this in mind: you’ll most likely be the one holding the firearm that will be firing the ammo you loaded.
The controls on any scale are clear. Pay attention to what it is telling you.
LOADING ROOM
Archimedes famously said, “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I can move the earth.” When it comes to loading, you can be too comfortable, but only because the room or its contents distract you.
Clean, warm, dry and well-lit is a good place to start. And since you’ll need a place to load, we’ll cover this before the actual gear or loading.
I must confess a fondness for Hornady dies.
Benches
Benches, as many as you can fit, should be at a good working height and secured either by mass or by being bolted to the wall. You’ll be working a lever that will be squeezing brass, so you need mass or bolts to keep from ending up with a bench that “walks” its way around the room as you load on it. Some of us load sitting, some load standing, and the bench height will have to be correct for you. If you have never worked at a workbench, get out and get some practice. Offer to pull the handle on a friend’s loading press to see what height works for you. I could offer elaborate