"Why did you start reloading?"

1) It's Cheaper!
2) It's a whole lot more accurate than the factory stuff and you can taylor loads to any rifle.
3) It's Cheaper, you can load a premium box of Magnum loads w/ very good components for less than $12 a bow when the same/close factory loads would cost $35+/box.
4) It's a Great Hobby in the off season especially in the Hot summer time.
5) It gives you confidence while in the field because you know you built the load and it's going to do what you want.
6) Did I mention it's cheaper .

Good Luck!

Reloader

To save money, originally. This was almost forty years ago. Started out with a 310 tool, and perhaps not such great bullets. Whatever the reason, I found that my .38 Special ammo was not accurate. Wisely gave it up. Started up again a few years later in .45 ACP, but I didn't have that much time, and my Uncle was often providing free ammo anyway. Gave it up.

Got a 6mm Remington rifle and a Lee Target Loader with the intention of loading for accuracy. I did, and still do. The money saved is secondary - I have used very little factory ammo in that rifle, but my own loads are great. Some of Federal's aren't so bad, either.

Got a Charter Arms Bulldog in .44 Special, and lead bullets in factory ammo would pull enough that the fifth round would stick out of the cylinder. By that time I was loading successfully for .44 Magnum, so I got a .44 Special die so I could load very heavily crimped JHP's just to get a functional .44 Special round.

Bought a 7mm-08 pistol, and bought Wilson dies to load my own for accuracy. I have done this very successfully with several different bullets, but if I had known beforehand how accurate Hornady Light Magnum ammo was, I might not have bothered.

I now reload .45 Auto-Rim, because not many folks make it, and noneof them load heavy loads. Of course, I mostly use .45 ACP in those guns. Now that I'm loading .45AR, I've started loading some .45ACP, also.

In summary, I now load mostly for accuracy and sometimes for availability. I'd usually rather look for and find a good buy on factory ammo than spend my time reloading to save money, although for .416 Rigby, I do just that!

I grew up shooting handloads, so for me it was really just continuing on with tradition. I kept doing it to get better accuracy than the factory loads, and with the bonus of it being cheaper.

264 Winchester. My uncle left me a pre-64 and factory fodder was a joke.

So I could read this forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader:
"Why did you start reloading?"

2) It's a whole lot more accurate than the factory stuff

Not necessarly true in my case. Damned if I
could get my hand loads in 22 Hornet to better
Win.Factory.
Their target load of 69g.Sierra in 223Rem.,loaded for Australian Full-Bore shooters
may be hard to improve on, it won a comp.or set
a record or such a while ago.
And in my 223 sporter Win 45g F.Load would stop
me bothering to hand load if I only wanted a proj. that light.
Prob. same with my 30-30. The F.loads seem to
have improved,or my standards have slipped. :-)
JL

Stated off wanting to shoot Barnes X, then it was an effort to learn nore about handloading than my brother could.

Now I'm hopelessly obessed. Still want to show my brother up and thanks to this forum I do that on a regular basis

Simdow

Back in the early 60'ds, my brother and I used to load just about everything...rifles, pistols and shotguns too. Loaded quite a few rounds and were at the range all the time. We did that for about 10 years and then stopped. Two years ago, I bought a new .223 NEF Handi rifle for coyote hunting. (The first new gun I have bought in 35 years!) I remembered how much enjoyment we used to get from reloading our own, so I decided to get back in to it. So I purchased all the equipment I needed and started to reload again.
It IS enjoyable..and I really like reloading and shooting my .223 NEF Handi rifle.

Same with me, I started loading and making 7.65X54 Argintine brass. Norma required a co-signer to purchase. I like millsurp rifles and load them to modest levels and also cast bullets. Early on I was loading the same cast bullet, sized and unsized in 5 diff cartridges from 30/30 to .303 and shooting them from 9 rifles. I even got that pill paper patched up to 8mm and it printed. Great fun, great hobby ... did someone say you can save money???
Jbmauser2 formerly Jbmauser

Like so many others, the reason was mney. I (or my guns) had an insatiable appetite for ammo. I reasned that if I could shoot twice as much for my ammo buck, that was a good idea. In the process, thiough, I found I was shooting 4 times as much for twice the price. Bad economic decision, but it sure was fun!
Now I reload just because I love to do it. Oh, yeah, I still shoot a lot; all that brass got to come from somewhere!

1). To save money (I have really gotten into 1,000 yard shooting with 7mm remington magnums..and at $18 a box for 20 factory loads the costs were killin me.)
2). For Better Accuracy
3). A new hobby to learn
...but what I have also discovered as a side benefit..is being able to run out and hide from my wife and purple haired daughter in my workshop....ahhhhhhhhh....peace and quiet!

I had 2 brothers and we all got into centerfire rifles at about the same time, and my Dad got back into shooting after many years. Since he was a truck driver, the only way we could all afford to shoot was to reload. Sierra Bullets was in Santa Fe Springs then, and that was on Dad's way home. He could stop and buy seconds by the pound cheaply.

It was fun to head out into the Mojave desert and shoot jackrabbits with 125 gr Sierra spitzers out of our .30-06s.

Growing up in Western Colorado and hunting since follwing dad around when I was 9 years old, I always had the dream of reloading and killing a deer with the finished round. Many years later I begin reloading for an AR-15 to keep cost down. Then I was told that the 30/06 Remington 742 I bought wouldn't shoot very accrute and I set out to prove it would. It took a few cans of powder and a few boxes of bullets before I was shooting 1/2 inch - groups with a 165 grain Nosler Balistic tip. Learned a lot and then quit for awhile. Started up again and enjoy the fun of it reloading Remington 700 BDL bull barreled, .223, .243, .41 magnum, 7.7 jap.

I recall looking at available factory ammo back in the day and feeling disenchanted, like I could do so much better if I rolled my own, not only from an ecinomic standpoint but in reguards to bullet selection and matching my loads to game as well.

As most others discovered, the more loads you make the more you spend, but what the hell, I liked shooting a lot when factory ammo was my only recourse as well. And having more ammo to shoot is a tangible benefit. Besides, Im a died in the wool do it yourselfer and reloading just suits me.