Thanks gentlemen,for your responses

It does explain why I see many guns on USA auction sites that have "only been shot once a year on sundays" and are in as new condition even though they may be a 20 year old rifle

In Australia guns with little use are few and far between or they simply have a fault that the owner does't wish to fix.

U sually I buy one box of factory with every new gun. Then I fire it. If the gun is problematic I send it back and they cannot blame my reloading capability! Nor do I void any warantee...just in case they "want to go there"!

I'm not sure how many do or do not. As for me, I grew in in a family of reloaders and have never shot factory ammo out of any of my guns other than a 22 long rifle.

I know exactly what each gun is capable of and where it will impact the target. A lot of range practice makes it easier to be confident in the field. Plus, as much as I shoot, it's a whole lot cheaper than buying factory.

Example: 22 hornet..... I can reload a box of 50 for right around $5.00. WW factory ammo ranges between $23.00 and $28.00.

It doesn't take long to shoot 1000 rounds so it is easy to see the savings. $100 compared to $560.00. Covers the cost of the barrel, dies and press.

If I buy a box of factory ammo with a new gun, it's because I'm in a hurry. I've usually done that with a new caliber, but I also buy the loading dies and new bulk cases. My .22-250 Savage has never fired a factory cartridge, though. Just handloads.

Or less -- in Maine in Nov. '02 I was in a gun store that sold centerfire rifle ammo in 5-round baggies. I thought this was a joke, until a guy came in and asked if he could buy 3 rounds for his .308. The clerk happily obliged. John

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Good grief! This is worse than I remember....

I haven't shot a big game animal with a factory round in over 35 years I load most every thing I shoot,once in awhile I get a real good buy on some cheap pistol ammo that I can't pass up or some real cheap 223 for blasting other then that I reload every thing.

If you want a real education, come to the sight in days at our gun range. You will see everything that can go wrong happen. Your will have a man with 4 different brands of commercial ammo shoot one box up trying to get the rifle to group and just when it does he runs out of that ammo and does his final sight in with a completely different box. Only to find that the group is not the same----DAAAAA! Then he shoots up that box to get it right and on and on. We have had people shoot 7 REM mag in a 7 weatherby and think it is OK since the group is 2" and that is the best that they can shoot anyway. I have seen "see through" mounts so high that a whooping crane doesn't have enough neck to see through the scope. I have seen a throw away scope on a $1500.00 rifle and the scope was broken and the guy shot up 200.00 worth of ammo and still couldn't hit the center bull at 100 yrds. Hell he could have bought a cheap scope and saved a pot full of money but NOOOOOOO. The best perspective I have ever seen was an old man with a 308 Savage 99 with a peep site that shot a 2" group at 50 yards. He was happy as he said he couldn't see past 50 and that was good enough. He was 84 years old. Now that is a shooter!

I reload for all my hunting needs including shotguns, but in
reality most factory rifle ammo is plenty accurate enough to
get the job done. I just don't like 2" to 3" groups compared to custom handloads that will group under an inch if I do my part. Most factory ammo I have chronographed was
on the low side of factory claims but not by much at all. I
guess factory ammo is much better than 20 years ago but I still trust my handloads to be better and they have been for the past 20 years. Reloading has also caused me to shoot
a lot more than I used to and I think that has improved my
marksmanship more than anything else. But most of all I just
enjoy reloading and shooting and hunting with custom ammo.
Money saved is probably not that much since I shoot so much
more these days. FWIW BLR7

My father is 73 years old. Dad was a serious elk hunter back
when there were few serious elk hunters and only a fraction
of the elk there are today. He retired 11 years ago and spends
6 months of the living at the old family cabin on the Uncompahgre
Plateau (Western Colorado). When he retired I recall him breaking
out his "last box" of Remington factory Corlokts for his .06. Dad has
killed eight elk in these last 11 years--he still has 12 rounds left.
(sheesh)

Then there is me. I currently have 13 big game rifles. A reloading
bench that is getting so d#@* crowded I can't hardly find a spot for
my loading blocks; presses, 24 sets of dies (i just counted),
powder scales and measures, trimmers, neck turners, case cleaners,
calipers, micrometers, 4 chronographs, ect, ect, enough componets to
last through 5 years of anarchy, and 5 cleaning rods
(dad can't believe the last one).
Sometimes I wonder...

Casey

The older I get the smarter my Old Man becomes.

CaseyC,
My dad shot a few elk here in Washington state during the early 1970's.
He never reloaded a cartridge in his life.
He had only one rifle: a 30-06

Now I have dozens of high power rifles and have handloaded many thousands of rounds, and I have never shot anything with them

Wally;

Your post is right. Most American hunters don't handload. In fact I am sure most buy their ammo at Kmart or Walmart or similar stores.

This board is not a cross section of American hunters. Guys on here, know what they are doing. I think some real idiots show up on this board, but they still know more on their worst day than the average "suburban woods warrior" knows on his best day.

Most of those types of clowns fall into two categories, either they are still shooting some old gun like a 30/30 they bought cheap or inherited, or they have to have whatever is the latest and greatest out of this years shooting and hunting magazine.

Most of them can't hit Texas, or Australia if their life depended on it, regardless of what they shoot. Good chances are that most handloaders can shoot quite a few types of firearms well.

Not all guys on here are handloaders either to my knowledge. But being here, they show me they know a lot more than just the AVERAGE Walmart buying ammo guy.
The type who is waiting in line the night before the season starts at Wallie world to buy this seasons hunting license with the other 10,000 goof balls down there.

I do hope Aussie are a little more serious and astute about it than here. Liberalism and Democrats have made common sense a rare comodity in this country anymore.

I think after years of handloading I have acquired a reasonable knowledge of ballistics, firearm function and basic gun set-up. Had I choosen to not reload there are many things I would not have learned about with regard to this hobby/pasttime/obsession.
I am on the list of those who use their own loads.....although I have purchased some back up "white box" Winchesters for my 22-250 the night before a prairie dog shoot. Only because I was so damn tired of loading 700-800 rds. and didn't want to run out.
Didn't save a damn dime loading my own.......just shot a hell of alot more. Besides it keeps me outta the bars !

Casey, If your old man is from the GJ area I probably know him or know of him. My foot prints are all over the Unconpagree .My E-mail address is listed. Who is your dad? We'll meet some day at Gene Taylor's.
Roger

My Dad, about 10 years ago, asked me to take his whitetail for him, as he was having trouble seeing (he was 84 years old). I took his 270 Rem Pump, shot the deer (1 shot, heart/lung), and caught the ejected shell. It was headstamped 30-06, was one of the reloads he asked me to make for him in 1967, after he had collected the empties from ?. Just to show you the expectation he had, there was only one shell in the gun when he handed it to me. I had made him up about 30 rounds in 1967, all from 30-06 cases. 25 years later, shooting the last of them, with almost a one for one ratio of game to rounds.

He looked at me like I was crazy when I told him about shooting out the barrel of a rifle, you just don't shoot that many deer and elk and bear and moose in a lifetime!! Target shoot? What is that?

He was one of the best shots on game I have known, even counting the few bad ones I saw. But, you can't eat paper, right? And, a piece of paper is not going to break into the chicken coup and eat a flock of chickens, is it?

Life has changed in the last 100 years in America, hasn't it? Miss you, Dad.

You guys have me thinking now...I dont think I've ever shot anything with fur that was'nt with reloads. Except with rimfires. I've shot birds with factory ammo. I load lead,but not steel. Reloading has been a obsession at times. If you do enough varmit hunting though... It can become a JOB! Especially if your kid wants to reap the benifits of your labor.

An old way to sight in a rifle in Sweden is to fire one shot and remember there it hit to aim right then you are hunting. These guys just carried 2-3 round then they were moose hunting.

My father started to hunt moose about 1980 and he sighted in his rifle with Norma vulkan and he has never resighted it.He shoot 4-20 training rounds a year and has shot about 20 mooses all but one ,one shot kills.

Kimmo

Rolling your own is nearly as much fun as hunting or shooting. I have shot all my bigger game with self-loads, it gives some additional pleasure and satisfaction and, as stated already, techs you a lot about ballistics.