What Planted the Seed to Reload and why? [Archive]

JesterGrin_1

11-17-2008, 12:36 AM

I was just pondering this question to the good people here. And yes I will tell my story lol.

For me when I was a young person of about 8 years old I had a few pistols and rifles from my father when he taut me how to shoot as I had an interest in it. Other than my first rifle and pistol which was a Ruger Single Six convertible in .22/.22 Mag never shot the mag though lol. And a very old Oct barrel Win .22 pump. When I was right at 11 the next combo was an old Singer .30 Carbine and a Ruger Black Hawk in .30 Carbine. No he did not know about the .30 Carbine round in a pistol lol. He just felt it would be nice that I would not need to carry two different kinds of rounds for the rifle or pistol. Once we shot the Black Hawk in .30 Carbine military rounds it was apparent that we needed to change the powder and or download the round for the pistol. And no my Father never did reload and never took up the hobby as he was just too busy. But I started shooting with a retired Marine that was the rifle instructor of which he did reload and showed me some things as well as shoot many thousands of rounds with him. He got me away from the ole .30 M1 Carbine since the best I could do with that rifle at 100 yards was a 3 1/2 group with open sights. But it was fun and good enough at the time for my age. When I was about 12 he threw me an old M14 which I liked since it shot far better than the ole .30 M1 lol. It was nice to hit things I aimed at lol. But it was his rifle lol. And so about this time I got a Rem 600 Mohawk in .243 and about that time the Marine moved on to be with the great architect of the universe. And I was never allowed to reload for myself at home. You know gun powder and such and go BOOM lol.

Since that time I have always remembered that ole Marine casting his own rounds and reloading all of his own ammo and him saying to me if you are going to hit something you need to do it yourself as no factory can make a round as good as you can and for your fire arm. Which brings us to about now lol. I kinda went full circle from the slower shooting stuff to high power rifles back to simple rifles like the Marlin Lever Guns. The first one I purchased was the Marlin 1894 in .44 Mag and started researching until I came upon this good site. And at first I thought WOW the Marlin is all messed up with its larger than normal bore and so forth and instead of just giving up and going back to bolt guns and such I took this as a challenge and took up reloading. As I felt with some time and work I can make this thing shoot to the best that it is capable of. And so there I was starting late at 45 at reloading but better late than never lol. And every time I reload it brings back good memories even when that ole Marine would yell at me if my shooting form was off lol and of watching him cast and reload and the pride that he took in doing so. It brings back great memories to say the least of him and my Father in his prime as we got to shoot together. Thank goodness my Father is still around and doing pretty well. But I also do miss that ole Marine.

And so I do have to give a huge THANK YOU to one and all of this great forum that has helped me learn this great hobby and to continue to learn and maybe help others along the way in there journey.

Tom W.

11-17-2008, 01:00 AM

I could either learn to handload or be happy with shooting just a few times a year.....But then came bullet casting... same reason...... Now I cast and handload more than I have time to shoot!

warf73

11-17-2008, 02:33 AM

For me I grew watching dad reload shotgun shells, I remember the first time he said I could put the loaded shells in the boxes man was I big stuff (I might have been 4 or 5). Fast forward to when I was 12 and need shotgun shells for my 12ga. Dad said if I need ammo I needed to make it. Well dad provided everything but the man power so I would reload all week long after school/practice so I had ammo for the weekend hunt. I loaded countless numbers of shells on that Mec Jr.

Seven years later I bought my first deer rifle a Remington Model 700 in 300WBY. Man ow man was that thing hard to feed, at $22~$25 a box for the Remington stuff or $45 for the Weatherby stuff it was hard to shoot more than 2 boxes a year normaly a month before deer season. My main hobby at the time was varmints and I was still buying my 22-250 and 223 ammo. After the local gun store called me about a new trade in they just got I went to look at it. The wife agreed if it wasn’t too much I could have it. This gun store done me right on the 22-250 and the wife liked how they treated me/us on the price. Well after 45~60 mins I step out of the gun store and told the wife I’ll be just a few more mins and we could leave. The financing was all but done………. She almost killed me on the spot but she didn’t thank god. I walked out with a very new looking Weatherby Mark V in 460WBY and 2 boxes of ammo.

The 460WBY is what put me over the edge to reload, at $90~$105 a box 20 I could reload the same ammo for under $45.00. My uncle had an old Pacific press laying around and was collecting rust on the ram. He said if I cleaned it up I could drag it home, my dad had an older Lyman beam scale he said I could have if I would reload him some 30 06 ammo when I got a chance. Man in a matter of a few weeks I was reading older Lyman reloading manuals Lee manuals, and read from cover to cover many times now my go to book the Hornady Reloading manual. With in 2 months after getting the 460 I reloaded my first rifle shell. It was for the 300WBY but it was ammo and it shot well, a few more months later it shot great. Then I moved onto the 460 and started reloading for it.

I get a big tickle out of every post I see or when people ask me “Can save money on reloading ” I think of how/why I started reloading metallic ammo and with a great big smile I always say “sure you can but it depends on what you reload for”.

Warf

Echo

11-17-2008, 02:56 AM

I was taught by my folks to shoot, starting when I was about 4 years old. We would go to an old trestle and shoot turtles with a Rem Model 12 pump, using 22 shorts. The shorts would just bounce off the turtles, but it was shooting.
Later, when I went into service, of course we had to qualify with the .30 Carbine, and I was shooting again. I stayed on at my set school as an instructor. In the Instructor training class a civilian I worked with used reloading as his demonstration of instructing technique. One of the things he pointed out was that you really don't save any money when you reload, you just shoot more for the same amount of money! I was interested, but still, I wasn't reloading yet. I had bought a Model 70 in -06 - my best bud back home still has it.
A couple of assignments, and a few years later, I tried out for the base pistol team, and made it. One of the shooters was a reloader. One thing led to another, and I got hooked. Still have my original Rock Chucker, my original Ohaus DuoMeasure, &cetera. Been at it for over 40 years now...

bruce drake

11-17-2008, 05:14 AM

Bought an Enfield N04 Mk1 in 303Brit in 1997. Found I didn't like the accuracy of the Brit/Paki Surplus and I hated paying $20+ for a box of commercial. Did the math and found I could enjoy my shooting a lot easier if I did my own loading. Started with a Lee Hand Press kit and have been expanding ever since.

Bruce

rbuck351

11-17-2008, 06:16 AM

When I was about 12 or 13 Dad gave me an old model10 rem 12 ga. and bought me 1 box of low recoil shells. For the next year or so every penny I could lay hands on went to shells. At the horrible cost, about $2.50 a box, I didn't shoot much. So one day for my birthday Dad took me to a sporting goods store and bought me a Lee , In the little red box, 12ga loader a can of red dot, 5lbs of shot and a box of Alcan wads. I was in hog heaven. Then when about 17, he gave me a Colt Officers Model 38Spl. and I bought my first press, an RCBS jr reloaders special. And then a Bullet mould and dipper and on and on. That all started about 1960 or 61. It hasen't saved me a bit of money, but I sure have shot a lot more than would have been possible otherwise. Wow great memories. Thanks for asking. Buck

James C. Snodgrass

11-17-2008, 06:41 AM

My father retired from Hercules Powder plant and so did my Grandfather and a slew of friends folks and family . A friend's Grandpa taught me to load when I was about 14 . As far as re-loading goes I don't think I have shot 500 rounds of center fire store bought in my life . I just always got some brass and dies when I got a rifle or pistol . I don't know how many rounds I've hand loaded but I burn about 22 lbs of powder a year and seem to be gettin the affliction to burn more every year . James

Shiloh

11-17-2008, 07:07 AM

Reloading goes hand in hand with shooting and components are cheaper than loaded ammo.
One also has the ability to tweak and adjust parameters on ones own ammo.

Surplus components and powder were dirt cheap back in the early 80's when I started acquiring my own loading equipment rather than using the neighbors. It came in handy when I acquired my first .40 S&W. Factory ammo was scarce and spendy. Components were available though.

Shiloh

copdills

11-17-2008, 07:20 AM

I started shooting IHMSA when I was 24yoa and a friend got me interesred into reloading , he became my shooting pardner and I became his reloading student , worked out great ,We shot together till he passed away at the early age of 44 ,he was a great shooter,reloader and FRIEND:coffeecom

BRYAN

11-17-2008, 08:50 AM

I started in mid 80's to get more bang for the buck. In the 90's I met a gunsmith and reloader who became one of the best friends I ever had. We loaded a lot of ammo and built a few rifles that we shot on his range every weekend. 23 March 2008, after I had deployed to Iraq, my friend left the range for good. I could ask no finer teacher and no better friend. I will pass it on to my son and any other interested youngster.

Doc K

11-17-2008, 08:59 AM

My first post after learning tons of info from you guys.
I was brought up fishing, but no hunting and no guns. I had no interest until I inherited a 40 year old Colt 1911. I did some research and started thinking it was dumb to have a firearm in the house and not know how to use it.
One year later, 16 hours of training with LEOs, 5 new guns, 5500 rounds and I’m thinking about IDPA.
After talking to a friend, he suggested reloading. So, after doing more research and starting slow, I have begun another addictive activity.
I’m constantly collecting brass and lead.
I now have reloaded and fired 50 rounds. (I lived to tell AND had no leading!)
Last night I melted down about 20 pounds of ingots and molded my first 500 bullets (Boolits?)
I must say they look pretty fine.
Thanks for all the knowledge transfer.:drinks:

Slogg76

11-17-2008, 09:24 AM

I always hunted a great deal growing up, but never shot very much or used much ammo. Then while in college I started shooting more with some friends, bought a couple handguns, and starting shooting in local matches. I had also just bought a few old military surplus rifles because they were cheap. I quickly discovered the economic side to reloading. I could simply shoot far more for the same amount of money if I reloaded. And for some of the mil surplus rifles (like my Argie mausers) it was really the only feasible option. Then when I started cowboy action shooting I started casting bullets for everything, saved more money, and shot even more. I don't think I've ever saved any money, but I have certainly shot a whole lot more.

Morgan Astorbilt

11-17-2008, 10:03 AM

Back in about 1954, I got my second gun, a J.C.Higgins 12Ga. Mod. 10 bolt action from Sears and Roebucks. My dad also hunted, small game and ducks, with his old Fox. An article came out in Popular Mechanics, called, if memory serves: "Kitchen Table reloading" it described the basics of shotshell reloading using home made tools and a bathroom scale. These were the days of roll crimps, cork, felt and cardboard wads, and paper shells. We started out roll crimping with a large nail stuck in a piece of broom stick, using the head as a burnisher, but eventually got a roll crimper that clamped to the bench. We also used canning wax to repair the frayed shell mouths. After a while, when the paper shells wore out, we cut them down and glued in the top wads with water glass. Eventually, we got some brass shells, I think they were Alcan.
Boy! does this bring back memories.
Morgan

docone31

11-17-2008, 10:42 AM

My family was old Bostonian Socialite. I was brought up like I was furniture. I was of course destined to be a CEO, or Senator.
My father was so punched out, being the trust fund baby he was, he would go to the bars and come home with some piece of crap pistol, or rifle. The people in the small town where we lived loved to laugh at him.
When I was 12, my father wanted me to be a champion skeet shooter. He got me an old JC Higgens 12 guage semi trap shooter. I was pretty good with it. I could outshoot everyone, not that they were that good.
I started collecting shotgun shells. I got some really interesting old ones. I would take them apart and see what they were made of. Back then, I could not recognise black powder form smokeless. Looking back, I think I took apart some black powder shot shells.
My father suddenly decided none of us should do ordinary things. None of us should get our hands dirty. ***.
It was years later, after I was married, that I took up shooting again. I got a Marlin bolt action .22. That lasted for years.
Later I got interested in milsurp copies. I had an Universal .30 Carbine copy, semi Thompson .45ACP. The carbine was pretty good shooting, couldn't take the 30rd clips though, had to push them forward to cycle the action. The Thompson, Blech. Jams, couldn't hit the ground if I aimed at it.
Then, then, a person I knew asked me if I wanted his Pre 64, slab side Model 94. I said sure. Paid 100$ for it. Had a sloppy trigger, blueing was chipping off, stock had a few cracks.
I got some factory ammo and took it to a gravel pit we shot at.
Dang that thing hurt! I liked it though. Ammo was a little pricey, as I was not a CEO, or Senator. I liked banging nails and running bulldozers.
I went to a real shooting range one day, and they had the Lee Hand Press kit in 30-30, complete with dies for 50$! I figuired, why not? I was surrounded by the upcoming liberals so I could be a redneck gun nut. I got some IMR 3031, some 150gn jacketed bullets, some primers, and went home and really messed up some shells. I finally loaded 40.
I did not fire them for a long time. My father had told me horror stories of how his buddies blew off their fingers, broke the rifles, and exploded the barrels.
I had been imbibing one day, got some beer balls, and went off to the gravel pit.
The rifle did not hurt so much, actually hit something, and most of all, I had reloaded!
From there, I reloaded every chance I could get. I literally got calibers no one shot as they were too pricey. I loaded some so hot, the primer went into the firing pin hole! I loades some so hot for my Ruger SuperBlackhawk, I could only get two or three reloads out of the brass.
Mainly, I got comfortable with my reloads.
Today, I cast, paper patch, and just feel comfortable at the range. I took my Smelly from 20min of berm, to 3" at 100yds with paper. My #1MKIII is a tack driver now! I might even change the milsurp trigger. Who knows. We have three now. I am redoing my new Ishy. Blueing, replaceing the machine screws with allen bolts where needed, polishing the metal, fineing the wood. I will spend the next month Tung Oiling the wood, installing a recoil pad, removeing the bayonette points, and if I can find a way, making the 12rd magazines 5rd.
I love full wood. It looks great. Today I am replaceing the recoil screw ahead of the magazine with a 3/8" oak dowel. After staining, it looks great with polished wood. When I get the reciever sight, I will put that on. For those who have the #1, or #2, that reciever sight is the bomb! What a difference! Pick it up, find the front sight, pull the trigger! I also do a full bedding. Three point competition.
Today, I find reloading relaxing. No one does it much anymore around here, except for the old folks. They like talking to me in my shop. I am learning to do it they way they were used to. Some even told me they could purchase paper jacketed castings! No one has paper patched .30cal., or .303cal. They patched the .45s.
I learned to cast here, and paper patch here.
I got no one else to talk to.
I learned a lot here.
I never was, or wanted to, be a socialite.
I like getting my hands dirty.
I like being around people who do also.

MT Gianni

11-17-2008, 11:04 AM

Skeeter Skelton planted it. I started with a LEE 12 gauge reloading set up then PPC shooting necessitated a move to pistol calibers. Ten years later Sarah Brady watered it so well it started a field. Gianni

Railbuggy

11-17-2008, 11:14 AM

About twenty years ago I saw a Lee Load All in 12ga at a gun shop.It was used and came with wads,shot,hulls and primers for $30.Next I sold it and got a Mec 600jr.I think it was costing me about $1.50 to reload a box of 25 back in the early 90s.I would load up about 300 and take a few buddies out and shoot them all up. Ps-I still have boxes of ACTIV hulls that havent been loaded yet.Now I reload for the 45acp mostly.

jonk

11-17-2008, 11:29 AM

Quite simple; I had bought a French MAS 36 in 7.5X54. You're not gonna find that one at Wal Mart. Nor was much surplus to be had, and what was, was expensive and about 1/3 FTF (Syrian crap). So I got a Lee Anniversery kit for Christmas that year from my dad. I was, oh, I'd say 20 at the time.

Steep learning curve and I taught myself.

felix

11-17-2008, 11:42 AM

My dad worked for Peters doing the Annie Oakley style of shooting for making 22LR sales. It was a fun gig before doing Insurance Sales which was in line with his college business degree. When Remington bought out Peters, and then wanted him to move to the East Coast for running a sales department, he quit. About 5 years later he was offered the head honcho sales management job for Weatherby, and he was torn between doing that and staying in Southeast Missouri brokering insurance for the biggies. He had 5 kids by then, and my mom said NO DEAL doing traveling which was required big time for Weatherby. So, he stayed at home, doing his gun stuff as always. I picked up his knowledge slowly at first because my interest is/was more towards the engineering of "guns and ammo" than shooting them. My dad was more interested in shooting varmints at long range at that time. ... felix

Kraschenbirn

11-17-2008, 12:30 PM

Dunno when I "really" started reloading...I just sort of drifted into itm sideways. When I was a child in the mid-1950s, both my parents worked full-time and one of my regular "sitters" was an uncle, a disabled WWII vet, who was a partner in a tack & saddle/gun shop. Spent a lot of afterschool time sweeping floors, wiping down display cases, dusting guns, etc. One of his partners, Frank, was the shop's gunsmith and also reloaded practice ammunition for the local police and sheriff's departments. The shop had Star "universal" set up for .38/.357 and I probably began "helping" Frank reload when I was 8 or 9. Wasn't long, though, before I was running the Star by myself and beginning to help Frank with his "wildcat" ammo...he did a number of 8mm-06 (Mauser) and .257 Roberts (Arisaka) conversions and usually supplied 50 or 100 rounds of ammunition with each gun. When I was 12, my father was transferred to the opposite end of the state and the move took away my "part-time job" at the shop. I been badly bitten by the shooting bug, though, joining the Scouts led me straight into small-bore (and later high-power) rifle competition. But, at that time, we got all of our ammuntion through DCM so there was little incentive for me to reload. Same was true in the Army when I shot on our airfield command pistol team...essentially unlimited handgun ammunition plus a steady supply of 7.62x51 Ball (I was assigned to an aviation weapons test/evaluation unit and, when you burn through 100,000 rounds a week, it's inevitable that a few "fall through the cracks". After leaving the Army, though, I began shooting bullseye with a local club and, being a college student on the GI Bill, money was tight enough that I often couldn't afford "club" reloads for practice. Around 1970, I managed to put back enough cash to buy a used Bonanza O-frame press with .38/.357 dies, a pound of Bullseye, a carton primers (CCI, as I recall), and 500 cast WCs. The rest, as they say, is history; The K-38 I shot back in those days is long gone but I've still got that old Bonanza press...bolted alongside two Dillons and a Lee...and, after thousands and thousands of rounds, it still works as slick as the day I first brought it home.

Bill

Gunslinger

11-17-2008, 01:22 PM

Great stories :drinks:

When I was 5, min pop bought me a Miroku .22lr leveraction, which we shot ballons with in the nearby forrest. But it wasn't until I was 20 that his colleague took me to the shooting range. All it took was half a box of .357's and I was hooked.

One year later I moved to Germany for a year. There I became best buddies with the owner of the local gun store. I don't think he'd ever seen a 20 year old with such love for guns. "Do you have a Freedom Arms, what about a Desert Eagle, or a Wildey or an Automag .44 perhaps"? So we started shooting at the range under the store. 2nd gun I tried was a .45 acp, 3rd was a FA .454, then a Desert Eagle .50AE, a S&W Model 27 .44 mag and so on. In Denmark we're not allowed to have anything bigger than a .357, so living in Germany was pretty wild!!

As I returned to Denmark I joined the club which my dad's colleague had introduced me to. I started reloading about a year ago. I just fell in love instantaneously :razz: It's just so exiting to work up a load, buying powder and making bullets on his hornady progressive press.

This summer he called me and asked if I wanted to cast bullets with him, at the time I thought, well okay... could be fun... maybe. Boy I was wrong. I dug up 30lbs of lead from the beam at the shooting range - with my bare hands. So we melted it down, added some WW and some lino, made ingots and before I knew it I had cast 4300 bullets in 2 days. That was it for me... now I'm a lead junkie, just waiting for my next score. If I could pimp my girlfriend out for few 100lbs of lino, I'd propably do it ha ha! The other day I was fixing something in my parents' garage, at one point I walked by my pop's old Porsche 911 with real nice custom made Fuchs rims on it. Had a screwdriver in my hand, and then spottet the old WW attached to the rims... hmmm.... "Will he notice if they're missing tomorrow?". That's how crazy I've become... of course I didn't take them! The guy I cast and reload with is 72 years old, and he's taught me everything I know about reloading and castig. Well... perhaps not the latter. Countless hours of reading on this forum sure has enlightend me :mrgreen:

Now I'm darn proud to say: :castmine: so I can :Fire: a lot more!!

Cherokee

11-17-2008, 01:31 PM

Started reloading at 18 with a Lyman #310 tool for the 1917 Enfield I had just purchased. HiVel #2 and 100-110 gr bullets. Economy was the main reason, but "making my own" really appealed to me and loading less than full power for pleasure shooting. Great fun and just kept at it as the guns and gear grew, added casting after getting out of the Army in 68. My family had/has no shooters, reloaders, etc to stimulate or guide my interest, but none objected to my interest.

unclebill

11-17-2008, 01:35 PM

back ordered ammo pushed me over the edge.
i got told it would be 3 months before a certain company could fill my order.
but they already had my money!
i started cussin
hung up.
and called another company and bought a press and dies /components on the spot.
i have never run out of ammo since.

redgum

11-17-2008, 06:10 PM

Welcome to the forum 'Doc K'

I wanted more shooting per dollar, so reloading offered that, casting came shortly after.
I still do it all for the same reason, but these days it also brings a sense of pride & satisfaction.

missionary5155

11-17-2008, 06:22 PM

Somewhere about 1955 my dad and his long time friend were about their casting routine and had gone off some where.. Me I was around 4 (Jan 1951) and decided I needed a close look at that hot smelley thing sitting on the basement work bench. Well as young unsupervised boys will do I got my right forearm to close and recieved my first hot lead burn. Been around reloading and casting since then.

Dark Helmet

11-17-2008, 06:23 PM

410 shotshells- they were- and still are expensive.

DLCTEX

11-17-2008, 06:33 PM

I began reloading at age 21 (42 years ago) as I could not afford to shoot as much as I wanted. I soon found that I could reload more accurate ammo than factory, and the purchase of an Argentina Mauser fueled the need. I still reload to afford my habit. Matter of fact I need another fix right now, gone hunting. DALE

C1PNR

11-17-2008, 06:56 PM

What a bunch of interesting stories! Mine is much more mundane.

I'm really cheap, but I like good stuff. Married only 2 years, with a very young Daughter, I had very little "disposable income." So, when I started shooting trap on our Company League, I figured out early on that I'd need to make my own trap loads if I was going to keep shooting.

One of the guys from our Service Department showed me how to use a MEC 600 Jr that the Gun Club owned, and later I found a used one for not much money.

In 1972 I found I had a contact with a company selling reloading equipment at wholesale prices. I bought everything I needed to load my own rifle and pistol ammo. I got "good stuff" at wholesale cost, which satisfied my "cheap" side.[smilie=1:

I learned from friends, and the hard way, how to load my own. It didn't take long before I was tailoring my loads for the individual rifle or pistol to get what I figured was the best performance it had to offer.

Shooting muzzle loaders brought me to casting my own. Then it really wasn't much of a step from casting pure lead for the .58 to casting WW for the .45 Auto, and rifle quickly followed.

Now, I occasionally buy factory stuff to shoot through a new barrel during the "break in" process, and to get some quick brass for hand loading. Or maybe some inexpensive surplus for the 8mm or 7.62R, but otherwise, it's my own product I like to shoot.:-D

jasdebcr

11-17-2008, 07:12 PM

For me it was a bit different. i walked in to the local gun shop that was going out of bisness and he had 75% off of all of his reloading stuff. well needless to say i bought it all out!!!!!! well i started out wil a RCBS Automaster. not the press to start out with. it took a while to learn that but i read alot of books. i never really had anyone to teach me. just trial and error.

Larry Gibson

11-17-2008, 08:17 PM

The Old Gentleman

Years ago I got a M94 30-30 for my 14th birthday. A year later my grandmother gave me $20 for my 15th birthday. The next day found me in Fosters Sporting Goods in Dallas, Oregon trying to figure out how many 30-30s in combination with 22 LR HPs I could get. There was an old gentleman observing my one person conversation and he decided to butt in. He convinced me to get a Lee Loader, an 8 oz can of Unique, 500 CCI 200 primers, a small plastic head mallet and a tapered punch. I even had enough money left over for a couple boxes of 22s.

Out parked in front on the main street kitty-cornered across from the County Courthouse was his PU, a 52 or 53 Ford. He lowered the tailgate and retrieved a large coffee can full of cast bullets. Right there the old gentleman proceeded to teach this young teenager how to reload. He had a box of 30-30 brass that he said had been full length resized and would work in my rifle but cautioned me to use brass that I had fired in my rifle only in the future. I had 3 boxes of brass at home that were from the only three boxes of ammo I'd been able to get for the rifle so my head was swirling at the possibilities. He showed me how to use the Lee loader (made me read the directions), how to clean the necks with #0000 steel wool, how to clean the primer pockets with a nail driven into the end of round wooden clothes pin, then flattened and filed to shape and how to seat primers without setting them off. I set off the first one and it scared the bee-Jesus out of me and I can still hear him laughing.

(Try doing some reloading off the tailgate of a PU parked on Main Street across from a courthouse these days and see where it gets you!)

He showed me how to flare the case mouth slightly with the tapered punch so the bullets wouldn't be damaged seating them. He gave me a small scoop made from a German steel 9mm case soldered to a bent nail stuck in another round clothes pin. He cautioned me to only use one "small" scoop of Unique. Said it wouldn't blow the rifle up if I used two but would streak lead down the bore and I wouldn't hit anything anyway. He made me promise not to do it and I faithfully kept that promise. I found out later the bullets were Lyman 3118s lubed with Lyman graphite lube. Also the "small" scoop held about 8 gr of Unique and the velocity was about 1400 fps. He also made me promise to re-read the directions when I loaded full power loads. He threw in a pint jar of surplus H4895 and a half box of Speer 170 gr FPs.

He asked if I knew how to zero my rifle as he said this load wouldn't be zeroed. I said I did but he made me explain it anyway. He seemed satisfied as he began filling his pipe with Prince Albert and asked me how I was going to get all this stuff out to my home which was 5 miles away on James Howe Road. I said I guessed I'd have to carry it since my folks were at work but he laughed and told me to pick up the can of bullets which was full. I knew it was going to be a lonnnnnng walk home!

He said not to worry and gave me a ride home. I still remember the wonderful smell of the Prince Albert and the magical thoughts that were dancing in my mind on the ride home. I took the reloading stuff in the house and brought out my M94 to show him. He looked it over as if it was the most wonderful rifle he had ever seen! He "hummm'd" at this and "aawwww'd" at that and shouldered it a couple times commenting on the balance and handiness. He handed it back and said it was a very fine rifle indeed. He then said he had to go and I watched him drive down our ranch driveway with his hand and a puff of smoke waving out the window to me.

Well the summer went by and I had many magical experiences hunting and shooting my M94 with that load. I had zeroed the rifle as the old gentleman had said to, at 50 yards. Many a squirrel, a few rabbits and some headshot quail fell to my rifle. Also a large number of pine cones, sticks and dirt clods! Fall came around and I found myself back in Fosters Sporting goods to get some more primers to load up the 170s for deer hunting.

My mother, seeing how much I enjoyed the rifle and reloading, told me to get the gentleman's name the next time I was in Fosters so I could thank him. I asked the guy who ran Fosters if he knew him. He paused and then sadly said he had known the old gentleman for years. Said the old gentleman had "the cancer" and wasn't with us anymore. When the old gentleman saw me in the store the spring before he had already sold most of his rifles and reloading equipment as his own boy had been killed in the Pacific during the war and he didn't have anyone else he wanted to leave the equipment to.

He told me the old gentleman had mentioned me the last time he'd been in saying he'd wished he had a grandson he could teach to reload the way he did me. The guy then reached behind the counter and brought out another coffee can full of cast bullets and a whole brick of primers on top! The guy had a tear in his eye as he slid the can across the counter to me. Then he told me the old gentleman figured I would be needing them. It was a long five mile walk home carrying that coffee can of bullets, I cried the whole way.

Well, a lot of years have gone since then. I went off into the Army and my brother ended up with my M94. His interests were different and the Lee loader was lost somewhere along the way. I finally got the M94 back from him about 10 years ago. It still shoots quite well though I had to have it refinished. This summer my grandson, age 12, came out for a visit from Florida. He took a real shine to my M94 and shot it a lot. He really likes that it was my first big game rifle and thinks it should be his too! And so it will be. I picked up a new Legacy M94 for me last week with a 24" barrel so I can see the sights. I can't wait for my grandson's next visit when we can both walk through the woods with our M94s.

And, oh yes, there is a Lee loader, a can Of Unique and a coffee can full of Lyman 3118s waiting for him! I'll try to fulfill the old gentleman's wish.

Larry Gibson

docone31

11-17-2008, 08:25 PM

Too bad we will lose all that in the future.
Those special people in my life, probably saved my life with what they told me.
Larry,
an honour.

No_1

11-17-2008, 08:51 PM

About 20 years ago I was home visiting the parents. I went into the room downstairs and saw a huge reloading bench with a Dillon 550b mounted to it. I talked to my dad and he said ask my little brother to load me some. Charles loaded me about a hundred 9mm fmj's that shot just as good as the store purchased stuff. That Christmas a large package arrived from Dillon addressed to me and I will admit that It was a great gift. I did a lot of reading, bought a lot of books, did a lot of searching on the internet then loaded my first bullets. I was scared sh*tless the first time I pulled the trigger thinking it was possible I might have done something wrong but I guess I lucked out. The next time I was visiting the parents my dad handed me a book on casting. I ask him why I would want to cast boolits since jacketed were clearly "so superior". He was quick to inform me that jacketed bullets had been around only for about 100 years and unitl then cast was the only way. He took me upstair and got a box out of his reloading room that contained some moulds, a RCBS sizer, some size dies, some lube and a couple of books. He told me to take it home with me. I started collecting ww's like they were going out of style, turned them into ingots and I was on my way. A few years later I found the first cast boolit web site (forget the original name), met a bunch of good guys, learned a lot of stuff but was very sad the day it went down. A fellow member sent me a e-mail telling me there was a new site with all the old guys on it. I was in heaven again until that one went down and this one began. I have been loading and casting for some time now. I do not know it all but will say that a lot of what I have learned about casting was learned here.

Recently my dad gave me all his reloading / casting gear. It was more than I ever imagined and more than one man should ever own. I have given a complete reloading setup to my older brother and a lot of gear to my younger brother (HATCH). Hatch was the younger brother that loaded my first bullets on my dad's press. A few years back I had Dillon send HATCH a 550b for Christmas and he recently became a member here. I am not claiming to have started him but I believe that my dad started the process and in my way I am continuing it.

Robert

45nut

11-17-2008, 09:08 PM

Wayne Smith

11-18-2008, 12:53 PM

Great story, Larry. Tears in my eyes.

Thirty eight years ago I was 16. I bought my first gun, a Stevens single shot 16 ga. Reading Guns and Ammo introduced me to the idea of reloading. Being short on cash I bought a Lee Loader for the 16ga. and started loading. My Dad had a 30-30 Marlin (now in my closet) and I told him I could load for him. He allowed as how that might not be the most accurate ammo but he was willing to try. I got a Lee Loader in 30-30. I don't believe he ever bought another box of ammo!

Segue to a number of years later. I'm married, living in WVA and in college. Dad is living outside of Front Royal, VA. One fall he calls me, says he has a problem with my ammo. "Its not so accurate any more", he says. I remind him that we will be there for Thanksgiving, we can go out and shoot some then.

We get there for Thanksgiving and Friday he and I go to shoot. He had no targets so he took a grocery bag and put a two inch circle in the middle of it with a black Magic Marker. He has his Marlin 336 30-30, the only rifle he ever owned other than a .22, with a Weaver Bear Cub 4x scope on it. We go to the pasture and tack up the bag about 70 yds away. He leans the rifle over the top of his pickup truck and stares through the scope. He looks at me, frowns, and stares some more. He says, "We put a bullseye on that bag, didn't we?" as he looked through the scope. I allowed as how we had. He says, "We put it in the middle, didn't we?" I allowed as how we had. He sighs, fires two shots, says "Let's see what I did." Two holes, 3/4" apart, 1" above the bull. I said, "Dad, it's not my ammo, you need new glasses!"

He allowed as to how that might be the case.

JesterGrin_1

11-18-2008, 01:56 PM

I would like to thank the good people on this forum that participated in this thread with all of the great stories that have been bestowed upon us lucky few.

And I will freely admit there was a method to this madness lol. I started this thread with the knowledge of the closeness of the holidays at hand such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and of the New Year all of which are here to remind us to give and to think of others and of the future to come and that we all have a little part in it to make things better or to help not only improve others but to enlighten there lives just by little things we may do. As we all that have shared in this have received a seed from someone else that was willing to share there information and knowledge as well as there good will. And to recognize that many of these good people that have shared there thoughts and lives with us either in a small part to plant the seed or in life long friendships are no longer with us and to think of them with a full heart as what they have done is changed our lives for the better of not only ourselves but of others we may meet with an open mind.

To this end we all must remember life is short and that whatever knowledge we have will die with us. So it is important that we share our thoughts and what is important in life to our fellow man so that it is not lost in time and to help others continue on with there life and maybe make them a little more outgoing to help others as well to pass on there knowledge from what they may have gleamed from previous generations and also there own lives to the next generation so that our ideals do not pass gently into that goodnight.

So my friends to give a present can be a fleeting thing but to give knowledge and of friendship will last a life time and onto the future we will never see but may help shape it and keep things we know to be right and true. So that we are remembered and not forgotten as it is the good things we do in life or the bad that will remain with our name through time be it great or small all of which depends on perception of our actions.

So take heart my friends the things we share in good faith will not die but continue on and maybe even flourish with the passing of time.

If one sits in thundering quiet the soul dies slow instead of yell to the heavens for all to hear and behold the righteous and upstanding and ones of which should be held with tales of woe. By C.A.S. III. That is me lol. :)

JesterGrin_1

11-18-2008, 08:49 PM

Keep it going people. This thread is still open :) :drinks:

wmitty

11-18-2008, 10:32 PM

Dad had hung an '84 Springfield trapdoor over the mantle when I was six. I grew up marveling at that rifle ( with bayonet, it looked to be eight feet long!) When I reached fourteen or fifteen I asked Dad if we could shoot it. He decided we would take it down and go to "the creek" and fire a few rounds of the ancient Peters ammo sitting on a high shelf in the water heater closet. Well, the trigger pull was a challenge, to say the least, but it sure was fun to launch those 405 grain bullets down the creek and see the geyser they thru up when we shot at stumps!

It wasn't long before I came up with a Lyman manual and was ordering a single cavity 457124 mold and shooting with black powder. Great fun, but cleaning the rifle was a job I soon grew to dislike. I decided smokeless powder was a great idea and soon bought a M93 Mauser from Montgomery Ward and a Lee Loader for the 7 x 57 and under Dad's watchful eye I started reloading in earnest.

I look at a box of ammo in WalMart now and just shake my head.

OeldeWolf

11-19-2008, 12:35 AM

My dad was in the Navy, and not home a lot. But he had hunted as a kid, to help feed the family. One year on a leave, he took a .22 (which is in my safe now) and shot a squirrel while on the way to the fishing spot.

Years later, in boy scouts, our scoutmaster showed us how to shoot .22 at targets.

At 21, I ended up with my dad's old squirrel gun, a "Springfield Model 15" (it is also in the safe now). I learned to shoot it in an old quarry, and soon found that some of the people at work also shot. First pistol I ever shot was a Ruger in .44 mag. First high power rifle I shot was an 1909 Argie my mom had bought because she liked its appearance (also in the safe right now).

About 6 years ago, I earned a bonus at work, and a boiler mechanic at work offered to sell me a pair of Pietta copies of the 1860 Colt. I had to buy a Lee 10# pot and a mould, as I was paying child support, and needed to do things as cheaply as I could. Bonuses were great, were not attached, I actually received them. LOL

I few years later, I received the Argie, and a 95 Chileno. While ammo was cheap, I could afford some occasionally, but with a tax return I bought equipment, and started reloading, and doing cartridge conversions of 270 and 30-06 brass to get brass for the Mausers.

Now I am starting to cast for .38 spl and .44 spl. I am gathering all of all types of lead as I can, this being Cali I am resident in. But I am still friends with that mechanic, and I have and continue to learn from him, as well as the folks here.

I can not say he has saved my life, but he has certainly enriched it, and may have saved my life in the future, who knows?

I have notes and directions set down for my son, and with any luck will teach some grandkids to shoot and load someday. The notes are a result of my catching him staring at the safe, and wondering "what the %^&*" he was going to do with all those firearms...... :)

mooman76

11-19-2008, 12:59 AM

I guess most of the credit goes to my brother-in-law. I started loading ML about 30 years ago and about 35 years ago I got one of the old lee loaders for 20 ga. and started that to save money. When i found out I was saving .5 cents a box I quit. Anyway about 6 or 7 years ago my brother-in-law was looking for brass. i told him where I go shoot there is brass all over the place. I got a box (Corona beer) for him. When he came down at xmas he thought I just had a little box and boy was he surprized. He was so excited he couldn't sleep on xmas eve so he was up at 2am sorting and going through the brass. I kept collecting brass and he told me he didn't really need any more. I had been thinking of reloading for years but thought it was out of my price range to getstarted. He also told me I could get a Lee aniversary kit pretty cheap. Allot cheaper than I tought to get started so I thought might as well do it. I got everything but the tools to get started. So I guess I could blame him.

kodiak1

11-19-2008, 12:45 PM

Reloading has always been around our house.
We was one of them poor people and never knew it. Dad reloaded everything and most people would not believe some of the shtuff that he did when he reloaded.
He had two brothers that were ugh just as thrifty (broke, cheap). Home made shot for shot guns. Mealt lead pour onto steel plate let cool and cut with a knife into little squares. When they didn't have lead and got their hands on nails they would cut them into little chuncks and reload them. Start of Steel shot I guess!!!
Did you know it is possible to rebuild primers!!!! I shat you not they goofy old farts had that down to sort of a science. Those wooden matches they would cut off the white and dice it up hammer the dent out of the primer put in the powder with a glue and the anvil in the primer cup. No I never tried this personnelly.
I started when I was 14 buying my own stuff and reloading.
Dad use to come and sit there and watch me in total amazement at how easy it was with proper equipment ( He was in his late 60's then). Yes I buy all my components and die, no home made tools made out of sticks and stones.
I always think of a bullet as a minature bomb and try to take that kind of care when building them.

Aw how times have changed in our family and now my grandson is starting to reload with me he is 11 and is getting very very compatent at it.

This is one very cool topic to have posted on Ken.

blackthorn

11-19-2008, 01:05 PM

I have always loved guns and shooting. When I was 10 I pestered my dad so much that he finally let me take the old single shot .22 Winchester rabbit gun out to shoot gophers. We lived on a 1/4 section farm in Manitoba. There was no training other than being told the gun was not a toy and had the capeability of killing someone! That old rifle was a story all to itself. It had been run over by a farm wagon and the stock broken. Someone, likely dad, had used stovepipe wire to hold the thing together. The extractor was worn so bad it would not take the emptys out so you had to use a jacknife! Because of the wire job, the gun had a hair trigger once you cocked it (which had to be done by hand) and you seldom had time for a second shot if you missed the first time. I was warned never to use anything stronger than a "short" in it! A friend of my parents gave me a coffee can full of mixed .22 ammo (mostly shorts) and I found some Super-X copper-heads in there. I used to carry one in my pocket but I knew not to try firing it. One November day when I was 12 I found myself in a position to shoot a mule deer buck from about 35 feet as he looked away from me and I put the Super-X in the gun and I shot him! I got in big trouble over that, not for killing the deer but for using that long shell to do it. It took dad some time to get the empty out of the gun!

Anyway---when I grew up, moved to the west coast, got married and had two boys, I worked in a plywood mill and in about 1967 (or so) having saved up enough money from working overtime at $20 clear a day, I had $440. I began to look for my dream rifle, a Weatherby Magnum! I was lucky enough to drop into Hunters Sporting Goods store on Kingsway in Vancouver (or maybe it was in Burnaby) and the owner, Cliff Hunter, sold me a 300 Weatherby, 4-power Redfield, sling, one box of cartridges and he had open sights installed at my request for $440. The ammo even in /67 was $20 a box of 20, a days wages at overtime rates. By the next hunting season I had discovered that 300 H&H not only were good enough for "minute of deer", once I ran them through my rifle I had reloadable 300 Weatherby brass and I learned to reload. Since then I have only gotten factory ammo (other than rimfire) if it came in trade or some other "deal", for any of my firearms.

JesterGrin_1

11-21-2008, 11:34 PM

Bump I know more very interesting stories are out there. :)

Southern Son

11-23-2008, 04:20 AM

I really don't know what made me start reloading. I know that my first center fire rifle was a Brno Fox in .222Rem. Bought it when I was training at the accademy. At the same time I bought it, I bought a Simplex O frame press and Simplex dies. The only time that rifle fired factory ammo was to make empty cases to reload. Nobody in my family reloaded (or really shot for that matter), and none of the family friends did either. I think I just decided that when I got a center fire (I had been shooting Small Bore Rifle for about 5 years before I got my .222), I would reload for it. It just seemed to be what was meant to be done. Since then I have never owned a centerfire rifle or handgun and not reloaded for it.

OBXPilgrim

11-23-2008, 10:11 AM

When I was younger I loved to shoot anything that went bang. My family lived in cities all over the southeast (Hopewell/VA to Nashville/TN to Ft Lauderdale/FL), and I hardly ever got to shoot anything until we went on vacation and went back to my dad's home in western NC. Out in the country there, my dad's stepfather used to let us shoot his .22 rifle & 12 ga shotgun. I was 12 the first time I shot the 12 ga - it kicked like a mule but I was hooked. I loved to shoot. I always loved going back to NC because I knew I could shoot something when we did. My dad had a 30-30 Win 94, but that was the only gun he owned at the time - it was always too expensive to shoot it much though, with 8 kids in the family, there was always something else to spend money on. We had everything we needed though.

We eventually moved back up to Western NC. Being in the boy scouts helped with my love to shoot. We had a scoutmaster that was partial to his S&W 357 mags and he didn't mind letting us shoot 22's on some camp-outs. We lived in the city, but near some heavy woods that I used to terrorize with a friends air rifle. Found out I loved to hunt too. One of the merit badge counselors for our boy scout troop was a reloader. When I found out about it - I asked him to show me how to reload. He showed me how to reload 38 specials one day. I thought it was alot of trouble, but looking at the prices of ammo, even back then, I could see the benefits of it.

A few months after getting married, I heard about highpower rifle matches after learning about the Director of Civilan Marksmanship and the M1 Garand sales program they had. I was always a military history buff (thanks to my dad) and I had to have one. I called the local head of the matches & found out the details about the matches & showed up at one. It just happened to be the only day I know of that a Marine Corps Rifle team from Camp Lejeune showed up at the match as well. I got "trained" by a Staff Sargent on the rifle team in how to use his M14 while shooting the 2nd stage of the match that day. I had a ball, got qualified for an M1 Garand, and a few months later got one. Feeding it was what got me into reloading. That also started me into a love of other guns.

Rick The 310 Shop guy

11-23-2008, 01:36 PM

I had to start reloading when I bought my first Remington Rolling block in 45-70. At the time the only way to shoot it was by rolling your own. I used a Lyman 310, which I still have and use and never looked back. That gun also started me casting too. On a Coleman stove no less. Take care, Rick

JesterGrin_1

11-30-2008, 01:24 AM

Bump :)

Ghugly

11-30-2008, 06:16 AM

I started with .22's as a little kid. When I started shooting center fire's as a teen, I was taught to reload as part of the sport. My brother-in-law was an avid shooter and loader and started teaching me when I was 12 or 13. I've always known about factory loaded ammo, just seldom ever had any use for it. Although, I have to admit to buying a couple of crates of 8mm Mauser when it was really cheap (I seldom shoot them, as I prefer my handloads). I still don't really understand why people buy it when it makes so much more sense to load your own.

EMC45

11-30-2008, 10:09 AM

Well here goes; I started shooting at the tender age of 6. It was a Ruger Single Six, no muffs no glasses, just shooting. It was my Uncles gun and he would bring it and a few boxes of ammo to my Mom's house whenever he would come up to the "country". He was also a reloader and had quite a large gun collection. He would give me all the Guns and Ammo magazines and Shooter's Bibles and Gun Digests as a kid. I learned to read on that stuff. I was a hundred miles an hour as a kid, but if you put a gun book in my hand you wouldn't know I was in the room. I always had a fascination with guns, always. Whenever I would go to someones house that had guns I would ask to see them and hold them. I had a bus driver as a kid who's husband was an avid shooter and hunter. I would spend the weekend at their house and marvel over his gun collection. He would put a box of 22 shorts out and I couldn't hardly sleep that night waiting to go out and shoot them in the snow at a pie plate tacked up to the wood pile. I believe it was a Stevens Favorite. Well years past and I would shoot as much as I was allowed. Moved from NJ to GA and bought a gun 2 days later! Been buying and trading since. I reloaded my first ammo (44Mag) in 1998 fresh off a deployment from Japan. It was my Mom's boyfriend's setup and he had everything ready to go. I was hooked, but it would take years for me to get my own gear and be setup. I then met a guy in my Battalion who was a reloader and gun guy. He taught me a bunch and he also schooled me on gunsmithing. He let me reload on his Dillon 550 some 38 wadcutters. Wow that thing was fast! Well him and I deployed for 7 months to Puerto Rico and he actually packed a Lee 10lb pot in his carry on. He had a Lee 44Mag and a .358SWC mold too. Well he went to motor pool and got some used WWs and we set out on the patio outside the barracks and cast some bullets! That was 1999. I got out of the Navy and moved back to GA and realized to shoot in the volume I was used to I would have to reload. I was put off to it, because I thought I HAD to have a Dillon! I got a Rockchucker kit instead from Cabela's. First ammo I loaded was 38 Sp with a Rem bulk .358 SWC. Shot good, didn't blow myself up! That was 03. Well the cost of bullets kept rising and even the cast I was buying were going up and they were too hard anyway! So come around the fall of 06 I got a pot and a mold and some checks. I already had some WWs saved up ready to go. It's been craziness since then. I am obsessed with getting WWs and finding deals on reloading/casting gear. I have found a bunch of good stuff and have passed a bunch on to guys here as well. I only buy 22LR ammo. Everything else I reload for, including 12Ga. All my rifles and handguns are handloaded for. Very little jacketed is fired, almost all cast! That's my story. P.S That story by Larry was a tearjerker. Real nice memory I'm sure.

LeadThrower

11-30-2008, 12:21 PM

When I was a kid visiting my grandparent's place in IL for family gatherings, there were two major highlights. The first was "grandma rolls", which are the best rolls the world has ever known. The second was when Grandpa B's 22 came out of the closet for us to shoot in the back. We slew paper, sticks, and pine cones by the dozens on those hot afternoons. Grandpa would keep squirrels out of the bird feeder by smacking them with 22 shotshells.

We'd also visit the other side, up in central WI. My other grandparents had much more property, and lived farther from town, so shooting was a regular occurrence. Before we were old enough to shoot, Grandpa presented us with slingshots and walked us around the property pointing out which birds were "fair game" and which we should never bother. Once we were old enough to handle firearms, the slingshots lost their charm. Grandpa had a hand thrower, so I learned to shoot a 12ga one August in Wisconsin. Plinking with a 22 was a standard practice there, as well. We rarely spent Christmas in Wisconsin, but the year we did (I think I was 12 or 13), my brother got a 22 and I got a Mossberg 500 pump 12ga. Dad said Grandpa suggested the gifts (based upon what he saw in the field) and helped pick them out for us. I guess the fact that I almost never missed a clay pigeon impressed Grampa J. :D

Dad and I did a little hunting for whitetail while I was in high school, but most of our available time was bow season. The Mossberg didn't take any game until I went rabbit hunting while I was in college.

Fast forward to couple years ago... I picked up a 357 and wanted to do lots of shooting. Plus saw more time for hunting on the horizon so knew I'd want to get in lots of practice with whatever rifle I ended up getting. I enjoy doing things myself and I did the math to realize I could cast and reload for a fraction of the cost of factory ammo. I launched myself into it after reading about the practice here at Castboolits.

So, my love of shooting sports was instilled by my father and grandparents on both sides. As was pointed out at my grandmother's 100th birthday party this past summer, when my dad and his 4 siblings were growing up Grandma would "cook anything the boys brought home". All three sons hunted, and the gents courting the two daughters would bring their bounty by for dinner to impress their dates! Hunting was a means to getting meat on the table.

My reloading and casting habit came on thanks to the excellent folks here on the forum.

Pat I.

11-30-2008, 12:44 PM

I like to shoot and I'm a cheapskate which is also why I got into cast bullets. Although when I look back on all the $$$ I've spent on casting stuff I wonder if it was the best choice for a titewad.

Jim-Iowa

11-30-2008, 01:50 PM

Been shooting since I was 12, centerfires are for varmints in Iowa(shotgun only for Deer). So most of my shooting has been rimfire.
Back in 1972 for christmas our first year together my wife bought me a Savage 24 vl 222.20ga and it came with a lee loader.
So started loading. Since have .22 Hornet,.223 & .444 Marlin and load for all 4.
Have not started casting yet, but since 20 rounds for the .444 have gone up 60% in the past year. I sure will be!

USMCbrat

11-30-2008, 02:14 PM

OK…..my first post this forum….

My Dad taught me to shoot when I was 8 years old. First, it was with a Winchester .22 short pump that my Grandfather gave him when he turned 12. This was the kind you see in a carnival shooting gallery. Being a Marine Corps DI (Korean War Vet), he could not have his son keep shooting .22s so he then put a Colt .45 Auto in my hand. Later on, after he joined the USAF as an OSI Agent, I got to shoot most of his S&Ws as well.

Fast forward through HS, College, marriage, kids and carrier and I kind of let it all go with the exception of going the range with Dad when I would go to PA to visit him and my Mom. Then he died, leaving me with 29 handguns. I brought 16 of them back to CA and put the rest on consignment. I started to shoot again with the added thrill of teaching my son what his Grandfather taught me.

I started reloading .45 ACP just to be able to shoot more for less (so the myth goes) with an OLD RCBS single stage and some 3 die sets I bought from a friend. I found one powder (Clays), one bullet (Missouri Bullets) and one load that I stuck with for a year. At that time I started to read more in different publications (John Taffin), and then Handloader Mag about different loads for different calibers and decided to try my hand at .38, .357 and .44 Mag. At this point, I purchased a Dillon 550B and have not looked back.

I am here for further education.

JohnH

11-30-2008, 10:18 PM

Insanity

leadeye

12-01-2008, 10:15 AM

To save money at first but it has always been fun. I put it down 25 years ago when job and family responsibilities changed and picked it back up again when I retired. This forum has made it even more interesting.:-D

Snapping Twig

12-01-2008, 05:53 PM

My neighbor's boyfriend, in his 60's at the time, told me he'd sell me a 6.5" 29-2 if I cast and reloaded for him. He gave me the books and equipment and it was off to the races. This was back in 83, the pistol is a 1967 manufacture, I still shoot it today.

Once I accepted this challenge, I got bit hard and besides the savings, there's the accessibility. I can go to my bench and whip up anything my heart desires.

I teach anyone interested how to do it to spread the knowledge and I rejoice in the fact that no govt. agency knows my name by way of signing for ammunition. Privacy is the right of the citizen.

Add to this, going to the range and having ample ammo to shoot with your friends and the joy of hunting with home cast and home rolled ammo.

dmen

12-01-2008, 06:09 PM

A beautiful Schmidt-Rubin in 7.5mm and 40 boxer primed cases from Norma. dmen

Hardcast416taylor

12-01-2008, 06:10 PM

One word. OBAMA!!!:castmine: Robert

waksupi

12-01-2008, 08:55 PM

I started about a year after I got out of high school. Around my area, NOBODY reloaded, as everyone shot .22, and shotguns. I bought a .222 for coyote hunting, and the darn cartridges cost something like $4 or $5 bucks a box! Ridiculous!
So, I got a set of Lee Slam and Bang dies, some powder, brass, primer, and bullets. I was living in a house with a bunch of college types, so secreted myself in the basement, with the light of a dim bulb burning.
It was with fear and trepidation I reloaded my first rounds, expecting them to blow up in my face at any moment.
I did manage to set off a primer or two, adding to my fear and loathing of the black art I was undertaking. Having made my devilish concoctions, I put them in the trunk of my car, as far away from the rifle as possible, so they couldn't accidently come into contact, and explode the vehicle.
I went to one of our family farms, and with shaking hands, slipped one of the fearsome instruments, into the first center fire rifle I had ever owned, or fired. I picked out a small rock across the valley, nestled in over a hay bale, and squeezed the trigger, fully expecting the rifle to dismantle itself, driving chunks of searing hot metal deep into my body. I slowly squeezed the trigger, the bullet cracked out across the valley, and echoed down the river it seemed forever.
I ejected the brass, and looked it over. Strange. It didn't seem to have ruptured, or to have exploded in any unseemly manner. SO, I tried some more. I don't recall now that they were particularly accurate, I just remember they went bang, and that I had loaded them myself.
Things have been downhill ever since.

Dale53

12-01-2008, 09:06 PM

I was a teenager when my father started pistol shooting with a local club. He bought Elmer Keith's book "Sixgun Cartridges and Loads" (which I still have). After he finished with the book, he "assigned" the book to me. He financed us and I cast bullets and reloaded for the two of us. My father worked long hours and shooting was a release for him and a great opportunity for me to bond with him. He later became a really good trap shooter and introduced me to trap and skeet. Living in SW Ohio, a true hotbed of shotgunning and shooting in general, I tried all of the disciplines over the years.

I became interested in motorcycle racing and raced bikes for ten years. However, I NEVER lost interest in shooting and continued and still do to this day. I am a better rifleman than anything but am competent with a pistol. Due to eye problems (advancing age, no doubt) I have concentrated on pistols. Red Dot sights have given me a new lease on my shooting life. I am extremely fortunate as I can still shoot a pistol well (with the use of Red Dot sights).

Casting bullets and reloading was and is a way to stretch my pleasure in the shooting sports. They are skills, too and doing things well help give life that special glow.

Dale53

13Echo

12-01-2008, 09:27 PM

I grew up shooting and reading O'Conner, Page, Askins, Keith, and others. When I was about 12 (1958) dad bought a CH press for shotgun and then a CH C press and dies for .270. I started casting for a 7.5 Swiss martini Scheutzen target rifle when I was 15. I've been reloading off and on since then. Casting took a long hiatus while I was in school, the Army, back in school, grad school, med school and the Army again and while building an airplane. I've been doing a lot of casting for the last 10 years for pistol and BPCR. BPCR has been extremely interesting and very gratifying.

Jerry Liles

Whitespider

12-02-2008, 09:18 AM

I grew up around guns, hunting and fishing. My Grandfather owned and operated a “General Store” in a small river town with a one-sided main street. His dad (my great-granddad) had opened the store in the 1800’s, naming it <name>’s Pioneer Store. You could buy anything you needed at that store, groceries, hardware, books, boots, rope, etc. Grandma ran the cash register and dry goods, Granddad did the heavy work including hauling the sides of beef and pork out of the cooler to cut selections for the meat counter. The large old butcher block he cut meat on sits in the center of my parents kitchen now, brings back memories every time I walk in there. My Grandparents were devout christens, two things you couldn’t buy from them were alcohol and tobacco, but you could buy guns, ammunition, trapping and fishing gear. Grandpa even did a bit of basic gunsmithin’ on the bench behind the meat counter.

Starting as a very young child I’d go stay with them, and when I wasn’t fishin’ in the river out back, I’d “help” them in the store (Granddad had the patients of a mule). I’d sit at the back of the store, around the gun rack, fishin’ rods and fur traps, listening to Grandpa and the guys talk guns and shooting, hunting, trapping and fishing. Occasionally one of the salesmen from Winchester, Remington, Browning, Savage, etc. would stop in to show Granddad the newest wares from the company he represented. They always had “give-a-ways”, like signs, posters, pocket knives, calendars, key rings, etc. and I still have some of those things along with some of Granddad’s ‘smithin’ tools.

Dad and Granddad would take me hunting and shooting before I was big enough to hold a long gun. I’d run beside them, chase after down game and reset their targets. When I did start doin’ my own shooting, ammunition was never a problem, Grandpa kept me supplied. But my dad had decided before I was born to do something other than run a general store in a tiny town, that store is gone now. When Grandpa passed on I had to supply my own ammunition, and it was getting expensive. Although neither Dad nor Granddad ever reloaded a single cartridge, for me it was just a natural progression of my upbringing. If I was gonna keep shooting as much as I always had, I needed a way to stretch my shootin’ dollar as far as possible. No one ever showed me “how” to reload, I learnt it on my own by reading and making my own mistakes. My reloading and casting set-ups are modest, many of the tools I’ve made myself. I have no use for fancy doo-dads and such, I just want quality ammunition, and I craft each cartridge with care and pride.

Newtire

12-02-2008, 09:50 AM

I started reloading shotgun shells the summer of my 16th year. Made some money working on the railroad so bought a Lee handloader, a can of RedDot and one of AL-5,some 6's & 4's and went at it in 12 gauge.

It was for economy in the beginning. Like Waksupi said, "noone" reloaded around my neck of the woods. My buddy loaded me the use of his Iver Johnson 12 gauge which we tied to a tree and shot first the load using RedDot & then next, the load using AL-5. Much to our amazement, it didn't blow up! We shot the rest of them in Dad's M-12 and that was that.

It wasn't long before everyone in my cirlcle of friends got themselves loaders and joined the club.

I'll always remember how my Dad asked me how I was affording to do all the shooting that I did and asking me, "You're not shooting those in my M-12 are you?" I proudly fessed up and he then said, "Well, how do they work?" "Great" of course was my asnwer. He then asked if we could load up a few. We did and he asked me if I would like to go to Grandma's farm & shoot some Blue Rock. Then I got to see how good a shot my Dad was-Wow! From then on, I didn't feel like I was sneaking around.

Since then, I have saved many thousands of dollars!

clodhopper

12-03-2008, 01:23 AM

Dad loaded ammo and cast bullets. He had a cast iron pot on the kitchen stove, loaded .45acp. .30 40 krag and 38 special. I remeber him cussing when a bead of sweat rolled off his brow into the lead pot and some lead burned his forearm just below the elbow. He tried to brush it off but just burned more hide.
Mom left dad and took the kids when I was eight. Have not seen him since. I thought I knew how to load ammo then.
My first income tax return came in the spring of 74 I was eighteen. I bought a new Remington 788 .243 winchester, K4 weaver scope, mounts and two boxes of ammo. One week later I was looking at more ammo when a kind gentelman reccomended a Lee loader. I was familair with presses. But I could afford a Lee loader! and some powder primers and bullets! Bought the Serria manual too.
1982 I was shooting fox and selling fox fur to pay for a TC contender 7mm tcu.
Money was tight, a wife and two small kids. I wanted to shoot handgun silhouette. The very same gentleman who guided me to the lee loader was now my Father in Law. He suggested casting to make silhoutte affordable. FIL dug out lead pot, dipper,and Lyman cast bullet manual from garage sales I bought a Lee 130 grain mould. I made enough to shoot for three years then started shooting .22 silhouette because casting was to time consuming.
Raising kids, working two jobs building a house many years passed as I just loaded enough jacketed bullets to hunt and shoot a few targets and varmits.
Now the kids are moved out I have a garage with nice reloading room. Equipped by garage sales, pawn shop buys, dumpster diving, and some stuff was new! Have been casting again since 02.
Currently shoot cast in .22 hornet, 7.62X39 bolt gun, M1 Garand, .35 Whelen.
9mm 40 sw 45 acp 12ga slug. Working on .30-30, thinking about 35 rem (just have to break out the contender barrel and load some200 g FP)
My current shooting persuits are HP service rifle, AR15. and Appleseed 10-22 and/or M1, AR.

mauser1959

12-03-2008, 02:44 AM

I am really the only one in the family to "shoot", not that everyone does not shoot some , but not much. I bought my own .22 rifle when I was 14 and fed that gun for years off of what I made on the farm... that and shotgun shells for a gun that dad had traded for (doubt he has ever shot a box of shell through it in 30 years). I was smitten by the gun bug and once I got a good job started buying guns and ammo, at first mostly .22s so that I could shoot and I would shoot my .38 occasionally. At some time I got my 03FFL and started shooting and buying more guns, but shortly after that I got a very good job that had a lot of hours , but good money; so I bought a new .44 magnum Ruger Super Black Hawk. I tried feeding that for a few months and no matter how much money I made it seemed like a weekend of shooting left me both sore and broke, so I bought a RCBS Rockchucker with a piggy back 3. All the sudden the awesome job came to an end, as did most of my gun and ammo purchases... but I still had the press. Then about a year after I was shifted back to a less paying job , but with less hours I was in an intense motor cycle wreck, the Drs thought that I would lose my leg. I was laid up for more than a year on Morphine and not able to shoot , both because of the cost and because of the morphine. I kicked the morphine habit and realized that I needed to get back out to shooting, and I knew absolutely jack crap about reloading. I was totally terrified by the thought of reloading but needed ammo for the .44;I belonged to another site that both Glen, LAH , and a few others, belonged to, and they gave me pointers and I tried to not look like a fool; I started to reload everything single stage and found out that I actually enjoyed it. I have since reloaded many thousands of rounds for my different pistols, and have even recently set up the manual progressive. But the thrill that I felt the first time that I had a finished cartridge that went bang for less than 4¢ s a round had me hooked. Now it seems that I enjoy reloading as much as shooting and that a lot of time that I shoot so that I can reload the bullets to get them to where I want them to shoot. I never figured that the addiction to reloading could be as intense as that of shooting. I really appreciated the help of Glen and LAH , those guys are tops in my book, and I just hope that some day I too can help out some poor aspiring reloader like those guys helped me out.

JesterGrin_1

12-30-2008, 10:14 PM

Bump :)

akriverrat

12-30-2008, 10:36 PM

while i havent reloaded or casted yet ive been researching it everyday since my old man sent me a marlin 1895 gs in 45-70. a few years back we built the new cancer center for one of the hospitals here in anchorage alaska and i ended up taking home about 900 pounds of pure sheet lead. i started making jigs for saltwater fishing and smaller jigs for ice fishing in the winter. well i havent even put a dent in this supply in three years. the 45-70 and my lead stockpile sparked my intrest along with the price of rounds these days.

Down South

12-30-2008, 10:40 PM

I started out reloading rifle bullets as a hobby then for better accuracy around 1973. Then I started loading shotgun shells a year or so later. Back then I could really come out reloading for the shotgun and I shot a lot. I stopped loading for the shotgun some years back due to I just don’t shoot one that much anymore. I started casting just a little over a year ago to offset the price of jacketed bullets. The price of jacketed bullets was going through the roof. Once I started casting I think it was the best decision that I’ve made so far in my reloading history. I was one of the ones that always frowned on using non-jacketed bullets. I had heard the horror stories of the leading problems plus you couldn’t push the boolits at jacketed velocities. Since then I’ve been better educated about cast (thanks to this forum). As of now all of my revolvers/pistols are digesting cast boolits. I still use condom coated bullets in my rifles but some day I will cast for them too.

Crash_Corrigan

12-31-2008, 01:41 AM

The disease began when I got my hands on a Red Ryder BB lever action gun. I was about 7 or eight years old. When I was 10 Dad took me out to shoot his Savage Bolt Action .22 LR. It was heavy, old {1920} and tricky. It actually was unsafe in that once a round was chambered {it cocked on closing} it was ready to shoot. However if you turned the bolt handle a quarter inch or so from closed and then closed it..........BANG. I learned early on to treat every gun at all times as if it were loaded and always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

One day we were in my friends Dad car when somehow the old Savage let one go up through the roof of a 1950 Ford Woodie SW. We pounded the pucker out of the roof and filled the hole with some cork and glue. A light application of touch up paint and his Dad never knew about it. It helped that his Dad was kinda short and could not see the top of his SW. We were death on skunks and feral cats for some years. Later on when I was 12 Dad let me use his Baker 12 Gauge Double.

Between that old Savage and the Baker I was spending a lot of money on ammo over the years. At about 15 my shooting interests waned as I discovered the fair sex.

Fast forward about 28 years and now I am a retired LEO who has been carrying a .38 for the last 20 years everywhere I went. I ended up in Las Vegas in '93 and started to get interested in those old .38's I had. I was always an excellent shot but when I got my mitts on a 586 Smith with a 6" tube and adjustible sights I got the bug seriously. I would go through 4 or 5 boxes of ammo in two hours. I started out with a Lee Loadmaster and a Lee 4-20 bottom pour pot. A friend owned a radiator repair business and I had a steady supply of short pieces of solder and other 60/40 alloys to the tune of 3 or 4 plastic buckets a month.

I started out with a Lee 6 banger in .358 WC without handles. I did not know that they came with handles. I was casting boolits wearing two pair of heavy leather gloves and I was still getting burned! This went on for almost two years when I saw a mould similiar to mine at a gun show with handles on it!

I was hard core. I immediately bought that mold at the show with the nice cool handles and this one was .358 SWC. I had been using LLA for all my lubing and Lee push through sizers and they worked ok with my 357 and .38's. I bought a 8MM Mauser 98/22 for 105 bucks and when I finally got all the cosmoline offa it and degunked the wood I found an excellent barrel. However the first box of bullets in a green box by Remington were over 20 bucks.

I immediately got with Midway and ordered 2 Lee single cavity 170 GR molds but these were not TL boolits. I sprang for a Saeco sizer and although I still use LLA and JPW for most pistol rounds most of my rifle boolits go through the Saeco.

I am so diseased that I started collecting range brass of all kinds for calibers which I did not have. I was saving .45 ACP's 2 years before I got a 1911 and for 3 YEARS before I got a 9MM. I have buckets of .40 S&W {thanks to Metro} as the LEO's get their ammo issued and do not pay for it. I had hundreds or .223 long before I bought mine.

I have 9 handguns and 6 long guns and a decent safe to keep them in now. I also have a stockpile of lead alloy ingots in the garage that is about 3' x 4' x 3' high. I do not know how much it weighs but I have moved it 3 times in the last 2 years and it ain't getting any lighter.

I have lost track of how many moulds I have but I would guess at least 60 or so.

I spend more time scrounging lead, smelting lead, casting boolits and reloading than I ever did shooting. It is an incurable disease that has occupied a large part of my life since I fully retired 6 months ago.:holysheep

At least with my broken leg in a cast I am not going nuts with nothing to do here! I need to learn more about this so I get bettter at it. I just got a 327 Mag and I am getting the moulds, brass and other sundries for this new calibre.

I need help. I just gave away a perfectly good .38 to a good friend of mine whose Smith had been snitched when his car was stolen. He had gone thru a round of Prostate Cancer and could not afford to replace it. It was a pleasure to watch his face break out in a lip splitting grin when I told him that the Taurus was his for as long as he needed it. :-P

I have to lay the blame on some of the members of this forum. You are spreading this affliction shamelessly amongst the unknowing public and it is incurable.:killingpc

targetshootr

12-31-2008, 12:49 PM

I wired the house and the shop of a gunsmith about 15 years ago and got the urge to shoot bigtime. He'd just bought a Dillon 650 which he decided he wasn't going to use it so I swapped him a 32 Vaquero for it. And then a few years ago I came into a deal on some casting equipment and that was that.

:castmine:

JesterGrin_1

12-31-2008, 02:11 PM

I would like to thank the good people on this forum that participated in this thread with all of the great stories that have been bestowed upon us lucky few. PLEASE KEEP IT GOING. :)

And I will freely admit there was a method to this madness lol. I started this thread with the knowledge of the closeness of the holidays at hand such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and of the New Year all of which are here to remind us to give and to think of others and of the future to come and that we all have a little part in it to make things better or to help not only improve others but to enlighten there lives just by little things we may do. As we all that have shared in this have received a seed from someone else that was willing to share there information and knowledge as well as there good will. And to recognize that many of these good people that have shared there thoughts and lives with us either in a small part to plant the seed or in life long friendships are no longer with us and to think of them with a full heart as what they have done is changed our lives for the better of not only ourselves but of others we may meet with an open mind.

To this end we all must remember life is short and that whatever knowledge we have will die with us. So it is important that we share our thoughts and what is important in life to our fellow man so that it is not lost in time and to help others continue on with there life and maybe make them a little more outgoing to help others as well to pass on there knowledge from what they may have gleamed from previous generations and also there own lives to the next generation so that our ideals do not pass gently into that goodnight.

So my friends to give a present can be a fleeting thing but to give knowledge and of friendship will last a life time and onto the future we will never see but may help shape it and keep things we know to be right and true. So that we are remembered and not forgotten as it is the good things we do in life or the bad that will remain with our name through time be it great or small all of which depends on perception of our actions.

So take heart my friends the things we share in good faith will not die but continue on and maybe even flourish with the passing of time.

If one sits in thundering quiet the soul dies slow instead of yell to the heavens for all to hear and behold the righteous and upstanding and ones of which should be held with tales of woe. By C.A.S. III. That is me lol.

KCSO

12-31-2008, 02:41 PM

One of my first guns was a sporterized trapdoor cut into a carbine. When i got the gun the old fellow I got it from gave me a cigar box full of old shells and an Ideal reloading tool. The loads from that outfit shot pretty goood so I had this thought that if i had a REAL press and a REAL bullet sizer...

JesterGrin_1

05-10-2009, 01:50 AM

Bump :) I thought I would bring this back up as at this time the thread shows our own Humanity,Courage,And thought of our fellow Man :)

lead_her_fly

05-10-2009, 07:22 AM

I started out of necessity. Kids/guns/one income. No way to shoot and have kids (which is more important than shooting for me)and have the wife stay home, than to reload.

I had a desire to shoot in pistol competition for years but just simply couldn't afford it. Then, there was a friend that had a habit of buying things he never used. Well, he bought a fellow out that did reloading. I ended up with that equipment "on loan" for some reason. I used it for several years and replaced it with Dillon progressive equipment.

I am going to be passing on some of my older Dillon equipment to our oldest son soon. I hope he gets some good use out of it.

markinalpine

05-10-2009, 11:17 AM

...not "Tightwad!" :roll:
I started re-loading last year after I bought a 1911 Mil-spec clone, and started to face the high cost of ammo. No way near as bad as it is now, even if you can find any.
Somehow I wandered on to this web-site, I think I came across the thread for casting glue boolits, and was intrigued, but I then read the entire sticky concerning lubing with JPW, and was hooked by then. I started out scrounging wheel weights locally, and smelted them into about 30 lbs of corn-bread and muffin ingots, so I had to join this web-site and post pictures. It took me a few more months to accumulate the rest of the equipment to actually cast my own boolits. I was so happy with my accomplishment, about 200 TL-452-230-TCs, I just lubed them with JPW as others have described, sized and loaded them up, and shot them all as soon as I could. :Fire::Fire:

Yeah, I've got it bad.

Mark :coffee:
ps, I've really enjoyed reading all the posts to this thread.

Beekeeper

05-10-2009, 11:37 AM

In 1962 The ship I was on auctioned off a winchester model 12 in 12 ga. I was the lucky winner.
Being a sailor I had little or no money to shoot with.
I collected hulls from along the bay where rich people went duck hunting.
Left my daughter in the car one time and found a LEO waiting for me when I got back.
He gave me 200 empty hulls from the police range that he had collected and told me about a gunshop called Weisers in National City Ca where I could get supplies and all the help I needed.
I saw a Lee loader there for $6.00 and bought it (still have it today and still use it).
That old 12 ga brought home a lot of doves from the fields around National City Ca.

That started a lifelong addiction.
The first rifle was bought in bremerton Wa ,$10 and he even showed me how to take it apart (7x57 Argentine Mauser)
Another Lee loader and some 30/06 range brass from the Navy Range . I built a forming die on cruise to west pac.
The first rounds were fired off the fantail of the ship.

That auction started an addiction that cannot be stopped.
I now own 10 shotguns and 15 rifles.
I learned casting for the same reason, I couldn't afford to shoot any other way.
I didn't know how many mistakes I had made until I got a computer and found this forum.
I was a lurker here for several years just soaking up knowledge.
I now cast for all of my weapons except for buckshot which I still buy.
I still use the Lee Loaders even tho I have a good press.

Over the years I have lost a lot of respect for LEO's but have never lost the good memories of the one who helped me to get started off right.

You know I'm sitting here trying to remember his name and I don't think he ever gave it to me!
I think it is time for me to as he did Pass along the addiction and get a newbe started.
It's a shame Lee doesn't still make12 ga Lee Loaders .

sleeper1428

05-10-2009, 02:23 PM

My Dad was a physician/surgeon who, while outstanding in his chosen profession, was a disaster when it came to anything mechanical, especially firearms. As a physician (2nd Looey) during the Second World War, he was with the 7th Division all the way from the Aleutians to Okinawa where he was not only awarded the Bronze Star with V for Valor but also promoted to the rank of Major. He was never a hunter or shooter but as a teenager in the early 1950s I fell in with the 'wrong group', you know, a bunch of guys who loved to hunt, shoot and even reload! Never one to discourage me in any reasonable pursuit, Dad encouraged me to follow suit and so when I had saved up enough money from summer work in the Oregon woods, I bought my first rifle, a Remington 700 in 270, and started reloading with my first little Lyman press. Since that time I've gone through several different presses and now use a Dillon 550B as well as a Lee Challenger. In the mid-1980s I finally purchased my first handgun, a Colt 1911 Model 80, and at the same time took up casting as a means of relaxation as well as to keep my costs down while shooting as often as my duties as a practicing anesthesiologist would allow. Well, as you might imagine, I became addicted to the 'Sliver Stream' and since that time I've accumulated many more firearms, both handguns and rifles, and I now cast several different styles of boolits for 8 (eight) handgun calibers and 5 (five) rifle calibers, all of which I shoot as often as possible.

At the ripe old age of 71, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep casting and shooting but fortunately my son has recently become interested in my 'hobby' and I think he'll be carrying on the tradition. And with over three dozen different boolit moulds, a couple of bottom pour pots, a neat plumber's furnace, 30lb cast iron lead pot, a half dozen Lyman ingot moulds, skimmers, a couple of Rowell ladles, plenty of pulverized antimony, over 50 lbs of tin, nearly a half ton of WW ingots, a couple of lube/sizers as well as all the necessary reloading die sets, he should be well set up to continue to enjoy the pleasures of the 'Silver Stream' for many years to come.

sleeper1428

4296

05-10-2009, 05:44 PM

My first firearm was a 686 purchased in 1990. 1000 reloaded 38 wadcutters were purchased shortly thereafter. They were quickly consumed and for some reason I held onto the mixed headstamped brass. An RCBS Partner press was bought along with Lee dippers and a pound of HP38. Today I own 4 presses (the partner was given away to get someone started) and my reloading equipment fills an unused bedroom. Reloading for me was a natural progression of being a gunowner who loves to burn powder. I am currently mentoring someone to pass on this fascinating pastime.

Maven

05-10-2009, 06:08 PM

Even though my father was dead set against guns, it didn't stop me from reading Field & Stream and Outdoor Life when I went to the barber shop. I was fascinated with the gun ads, and even more so the ads for Ideal/Lyman molds and the Lee Loaders. Btw, this was in the late 1950's - 1962. By 1964, I'd acquired a 16ga. single shot by J.C. Higgins (Stevens/Fox; still have it) a tubular magazine Stevens .22cal bolt action repeater, and a new milsurp 8 x 57mm Mau. that my father actually encouraged me to buy ($40). As I lived on Long Island and later Philadelphia, findng a place to shoot wasn't easy. In short, whatever shooting I did was with a BP 1851 Navy Colt replica and whatever milsurp 8mm ammo I saved from the '60's. However, the desire to shoot the Mauser grew stronger by the mid-70's and, by that time moved to an area that had more than a few places to shoot. I got tired of purchasing expensive 8mm ammo. and looked into a Lee Loader. Not knowing about neck v. full length sizing, I promptly got a few loaded rounds tightly jammed into the chamber. After my gunsmith fixed this and educated me about the Lee Loader and brass from one's own rifle, I purchased a Lyman Orange Crusher press, Lyman FL dies, a scale (RCBS 5-0-5), Lee Auto Prime and a Lyman #55 powder measure. I was hooked! Cast bullets came later, as did other rifles. In fact, I still use the Lee Loader for my rebarreled and restocked 8 x 57mm and it loads some very accurate ammunition.

Terrier

05-10-2009, 06:13 PM

For me it was a combination of financial necessity and the need for another hobby. Factory ammo has always been expensive and limited in its offerings. Reloading is a natural extension of a love of guns and shooting.
Terrier

Hang Fire

05-10-2009, 06:39 PM

Had always had guns and did a lot of hunting as a kid in Missouri. Started reloading in 1960 when in Chicago taking a millwright apprenticeship.

The old Chicago Gun Center shop and indoor pistol range was on Armitage Ave, right around the corner from where we lived. Became friends with the guys there and they introduced me to reloading, boolit casting, and they allowed me to use their equipment. I have been a feverent (yeah I know, no such word, but it just fits) reloader and boolit caster ever since.

JIMinPHX

05-10-2009, 08:41 PM

For me, the reason to reload was real simple. It was the only way I could afford to shoot my .45 when I was a poor starving college student.

ghh3rd

05-10-2009, 11:55 PM

I am 55 yrs old, had a .22 rifle when I was 16, and 21 when I bought a Ruger Single Six .22 revolver. I put many thousands of rounds through that gun before having two more .22 pistols. It seems like I put a "million" rounds through them.

Last year I finally got into a larger caliber with a .40 Glock, and just recently a .38 revolver, and I love shooting them.

I used to hear of people reloading bullets, and it sounded interesting, but I had no need/use for them. Once I started shooting larger caliber bullets I (first) thought it would be fun to reload, and (second) realized just how much I could save by reloading. Then (third) while researching reloading on the internet, I stumbled on this web site and realized how many folks actually cast their own boolits.

I thought that casting boolits would be a very difficult feat, but fortunately soon learned that is not hard at all to make decent boolits, especially with some good coaching, and am now addicted and have a little black book of numbers to call to check for wheel weights.

My regrets are that I didn't get into shooting larger calibers many years ago, and feel that I let myself miss out on lots of fun. Also, if I had only known that wheel weights would be so beneficial to me someday, I would have stockpiled a lifetime supply.

Fortunately, I am 55 (as I mentioned), which I hear is still young, so if I'm lucky I should still have plenty of time to enjoy myself scrounding lead, casting, loading, and shooting home made boolits.

Thanks everyone for all of the help.

Randy

Fire_stick

05-11-2009, 12:56 AM

For me it all started when I was struggling with inconsistent shots with my 30-06. I ran 100's of rounds through that gun, tried several scopes and different factory loads. Nothing seemed to stay constant with my groupings. One shot would be dead on and the next would be 6" low to right or left, etc... I missed some nice wall hangers as well, and I was frustrated.
One day I was reading about reloading, and decided I would try to tailor a load to my gun. Well that didn't work to well either. But one day an old timer at the range saw my frustration and asked to take a look at my rifle. After a few moments, he proceeded to tighten screws and nuts... and that was the answer I had longed for. So simple, yet overlooked.
Well, by then I was hooked on reloading. Now I enjoy tuning loads to the guns I have added over the years since.

kingstrider

05-11-2009, 09:32 AM

I collected brass for years knowing I'd get around to it one day. Then I bought my first .44 magnum and nearly died from sticker shock at the price of ammo. Needless to say I was up and reloading a few weeks later and have never looked back. These days I load a lot of pisol ammo such as 380, 9mm and 45acp. Components have become scarce but I still save a bundle over inferior factory ammo.

snaggdit

05-11-2009, 05:11 PM

My father always took me fishing when I was real young. I had a wrist rocket, bear recurve bow and an old daisy BB gun. In the basement I set up a range with an old mill felt backstop thatr stopped arrows and BBs. My friends and I spent hundreds of hours shooting various targets. When I was 11, we moved from southern WI to Superior, WI. As far north as you can go in WI, actually. Gone were the farmlands, all you see are woods, mostly oak, popple and pine. I knew my dad had a gun, a Savage 22/20 ga. When I was 12, I took hunter safety and when I finished I took my paper route money and bought my first gun, a Ruger 10/22. My dad and I went hunting a lot from then on, but only small game. Squirrels and rabbits. Then a friend of my dad's had a shotgun for sale. I bought my second gun, a Remington 870 in 16ga. In my 16th year, a friend and his father invited me to join them for deer hunting with their small party of old guys. The cabin owner had a couple acres on a river with a sq. mile pine plantation adjacent to it. It was more about just getting out for the week than actually getting deer but I jumped at the chance. I got my first deer, a small fork buck, noon that opening day with a rifled slug. It jumped up in front of me on a drive and I dropped it. Our family ended up buying some land nearby on the river where we built a large log cabin ourselves, and I hunted deer there for several years with both gun and bow until college made it too difficult to get back for the season.

Well, all through high school my friends and I grouse hunted most every weekend in the fall. In college, I found a friend who liked to hunt and we got out squirrel hunting often with the 22s. Down in SW WI they have the big fox squirrels. Lots of fun.

I had my guns stolen from my apartment after college. I got an Ithaca 12 ga. but didn't replace the 22. Things get busy when you get out of college. I didn't get out hunting much. Finally one year I tried to gun hunt the area by the cabin. All of a sudden there were 20 guys in orange walking out of the pines at me. Now I know this was public land but back in the day we were the only folks to hunt this, at least until later in the week when some small groups would begin to roam around a bit. At this point I decided to quit gun deer hunting. I don't want to get shot by the out of state "shoot if it rustles the brush" type hunters we unfortunately get too much of up here. I still bow hunt.

At 30, I met my wife. She had just been divorced and had a 4yo daughter and a 2yo son. Again, things got busy. I loaned my dad my Ithaca for duck and goose hunting with his best friend. Years go by. I had given my son a pellet gun when he was about 9 and taught him how to be safe with it. My daughter liked to use it some, too (and she was a better shot!). He had shown good sense with it so in the fall of 2007 when he was 11 I thought he might be ready for a 22. I bought them each a Savage Model 64 22. We can shoot in the backyard, so we occasionally take them out and shoot at targets.

My brother in law is a gun nut. He suggested taking my son to an Appleseed. We did and it was the best thing for him (and me). It taught him how to properly shoot offhand, kneeling, sitting and prone. The history rang with me and I decied I needed to get a centerfire. My BIL gave me a Yugo SKS. I bought a Hi-Point 40 as well. I started going to the range with my son and BIL and shot some. Ammo wasn't cheap, but was affordable. We discussed reloading, but the initial cost was a little much.

Last fall my son was interested in hunting so I got him into hunter safety (required in WI). When he finished, my father gave him his Savage 22/20ga. My dad also gave me his Remington 30-06 he had gotten from an old friend who had passed away and he was no longer going to use it. I still will not gun deer hunt, but my sons uncle invited him to go with his small group. We decided that he could use a 20 ga. rifled slug since the 30-06 was a little too powerful for him yet. Two weeks before the season, before church, I was chatting with a guy and mentioned that I would probably need to start looking for a deer rifle for my son. I said it would need to be a left handed rifle, though. He said he had that disease, too. He had quit shooting 6 years ago but thought I might be interested in a left handed 25-06 he had. We agreed to look at it after church the next week. He mentioned he used to reload for it and his 30-06 as well but doesn't use that equipment anymore, either. I told him I had been thinking about getting into that and he said maybe I would like to buy his stuff. He wanted to get rid of all of it as a package. The next week I went to his place and he showed me the Browning 25-06 with Leopold scope and sold it to me for $400. Then he showed me all the reloading stuff. It was a full setup. Everything I needed for .223, 30-06 and 25-06. RCBS RS press, brass, bullets, powder, scale, tumbler the works. I bought it for $200.

I bought the Lee Modern Reloading Handbook and learned how it was done. While looking for load info online I came across this site and looked around a little, but since I wasn't casting didn't join. I loaded up some 25-06 and tried them at the range. I found some decent medium loads with 100gr. Noslers that my son could handle. I also wanted to start loading for my 40 so I went to Midway and bought dies and discovered that j-bullets are the most expensive part of the reloading. Time to return to Castboolits and see about casting.

The addiction proceeded quickly from there. December and January saw a lot of $ go to Midway. Also bought more and more primers and powder as I got more into it. BIL has 9mm, might as well get a Lee turret press and 9mm dies. BIL had an AR. Figured I might as well get one, too. MIL buys a .380 for her CC, new dies and mold were needed. Started reloading and casting for two buddies that had 45's. Figured might as well have one myself. Now I'm casting for a buddy that needed 38/357 boolits. I got some brass and dies now, too. Next handgun?? Where does it end? Now everything is backordered. Glad I got in just under the wire and could afford to dive in full throttle. This site has taught me so much. Well, I should say the members have. Thanks to all!

Rodfac

05-11-2009, 06:21 PM

No one in our family hunted when I was growing up in the late 50's. An uncle gave me a 6.5 mm Japanese infantry rifle picked up in a cashe on Okinawa in early 45. And that was the start, I couldn't afford the factory made ammunition for it and I really wanted to try it out on wood chucks.

Herter's had a wonderful catalogue in those days and you could order by mail and have it delivered by the post office or REA... I was working a trapline and morning paper route in a small town south of Buffalo, NY and was making the princely sum of 1c. per paper. Coons and muskrats were .35 a pelt, case skinned. It was a 3 am wake up every morning, but it was outside work, and it paid for my sneakers and most of my clothes for school.

Herters supplied me with a #3 press...$13, a powder dribbler and a Redding scale and I was off to the races. 6.5's were loaded with Hodgen's 3031 but the load escapes me, the bullets came from Sierra, I think and cost about a nickle a piece. Out to 150 yds or so, I had an even chance of taking chucks. Farmers in the dairy country paid .50 a piece for them, shot out of their fields. Kept me in shells for the .22 and the 6.5.

By the time I was 16, I had bought a Remington 722 in .243 and mounted a Weaver 6x scope on it. That rifle shot minute and a half groups with Hodgens 380 and Sierra 80 grainers.

One afternoon, early in May before the alfalfa fields had grown too high, a friend and I were driving the dirt roads scouting for chucks. We spotted a likely candidate way out in one of those dead flat alfalfa fields and I had him stop the old 57 chevy and let me get a good sitting back rest position against one of the front wheels. I figured the chuck was a good 300 yds out. I held right on the top of his head and touched her off. He stayed up but my pal couldn't see where the bullet had struck. It was a good hold so I figured it was low. Holding 4" high I shot again and nothing...***. Again I held over by 6" now and shot again...he stayed up and *** again.

Finally, we started walking out there, the "chuck" stayed up "watching" us till we were within a hundred yards of him...that's when we saw that I'd been shooting at an old rusted milk can...it had the same outline as a chuck, was about 2' high and when we paced it off, I'd finally hit the base of the can at a paced 550 yds. It was a great shot, but not a chuck!

I've still got the Herters press, and it will load .30-06 rounds that have less than .004" run out. My son's both learned to load on it, and like me, they went off to college with a Lyman 310 tool for their rifles.

I'm 63 now and our granddaughters are coming along. The oldest is 5 and will get the full treatment at some point. Her dad is shooting with her in the backyard already with a BB gun.

Hope you all have a full as life as I've had, and cherish the memories as I do. I've had a good run of it, and wish the same for you and yours.

Rodfac, aka Dave Oberg

Tracy

07-22-2009, 02:45 AM

My dad had several guns, but was not really a shooter nor hunter, except on the rare occasion. He generally kept one box of ammo per gun, and expected that box to last at least a year. But from the time I first started shooting on my own (at age 9), I knew I wanted to shoot and tinker with guns more than that. With my airguns I could pretty much shoot as much as I wanted to, because I could buy my own ammo, and it was cheap. I could also buy my own .22s at the general store in the small town I grew up in, but I wanted something more substantial. I could shoot the .357 (a nickel 6 1/2" S&W M27), shotguns and centerfire rifles, but had to conserve ammo because Dad wouldn't replenish the supply very quickly. So at age 13, I built my first muzzleloader pistol kit, following up the same year with a couple of c&b revolvers and another single-shot muzzle loader. I didn't start casting right away, because I was able to find cheap cast lead balls to shoot. Black powder was cheap then, as were percussion caps. Eventually I did start casting my own. I read about the special bullet lubes one could buy, but continued lubing my bullets with Crisco shortening.
All this time, I was reading every word Elmer Keith wrote, and wandering the woods with a replica Remington 1858 Army .44, hunting rabbits and such. I usually also carried a muzzle loading derringer, loaded with shot to use against snakes and such.
I couldn't wander off with that .357, although I was allowed to shoot it, but I could take my '58 anywhere because I bought it myself (a 13 year old kid could actually buy a BP gun, and balls, and powder).
When I got old enough to buy my own cartridge handguns, I naturally bought some reloading equipment. It didn't seem like much of a stretch, because I had been shooting BP guns for several years, and by their very nature, you have to hand-load them. All those years of reading Elmer Keith helped, too. Eventually I progressed into reloading and casting for rifles and shotguns.
I always tinkered with my own guns, too.

leadeye

07-22-2009, 09:53 AM

Same as casting, less cost, more shooting!:cbpour:

MHL555

06-01-2013, 07:55 PM

Hello, Started reloading with a Lee Loader in 38 Super in 1969. I still use a old model RCBS rockchucker press/saeco molds and Star machines. Lower cost and having fun. Mark

kudoo

06-04-2013, 07:17 AM

COST SAVINGS, and I guess I just like doing it!

jonk

06-04-2013, 09:04 AM

For me it was a combination of two things. First, ever since I was a teen of about 13-14, I thought my dad's old .303 Enfield was the coolest thing; he had gotten it for his 16th birthday, so with my birthday coming, I asked if he could get me a German Mauser, which he did. That started a love affair with milsurp rifles. At the time, 8mm ammo was cheap and plentiful, or about to become so (this was the mid 90s). When I turned 18, I started buying guns myself- an Argentine Mauser and french MAS 36 were among the first. While surplus was available for both (and still is occasionally encountered), obviously I was heading into territory where shooting would be prohibitively cost expensive. So I asked for a Lee Anniversery kit for my 19th birthday. I didn't know anyone who reloaded, the internet was of no use back then except for email and grainy still porn pictures, so I learned entirely from books and didn't blow myself up. So the combo of oddball calibers and high ammo prices did the job.

I started casting when I was 14 for muzzleloaders, and when I was 20 for metallic cartridges. Again, cost- poor college student, plus oversized milsurp bores lead me to look for ways to better accuracy and decrease price.

I'm 33 now, my birthday is in a few weeks. How time flies. Hard to believe I've been casting for almost 14 years for cartridge guns, and reloading for 15 years. Seems like last week.

So... what should I ask pops for for a birthday present this year???????????? :)

ku4hx

06-04-2013, 10:05 AM

From the age of maybe 10 or so, if it had anything to do with shooting rifles and hand guns, I wanted to be immersed in it. To me, after beginning hand loading in the '70s, it was the next logical step. Additionally, at the time, factory stuff was rather pitiful quality and [thankfully] I believed all the stories about how producing my own would be producing better ammunition.

My first loading manual was Lyman's 44th edition. Right there on page 7 it stated factory 30-06 ammunition was 25 cents each and a hand loaded round was 8 cents. I not only found that to be perfectly true, I found my stuff to be far superior in the accuracy department. When I managed to start consistently producing good cast boolits, I found that everything got an order of magnitude better: cost, quality and enjoyment.

And that as they say ... was that.

HATCH

06-04-2013, 10:07 AM

My dad bought a dillon 550B back in the early 90s.
I started reloading then. It was mostly jacketed bullets. I made some mistakes starting out.

We moved to a new house and I stopped reloading.
Fast forward a few years. I was living on my own and got married.
A package arrived from Dillon. It was a brand new 550b. My brother Robert (No_1 on here) gave me it for christmas.
It sat in the box for 5 or 6 years.
One day I just said to myself that I have to make time.
I did, I set everything up in my 20x20 building and started loading.
In the beginning I used boolits cast by my brother.
I then started hand casting my own but still using my brothers boolits for the majority of my loading.
Today I cast all my boolits on my automated Master Caster.

I went from loading 357 mag in the 90's to basically loading most handguns now. (9x18,9mm,32-20,38-40,38sp,357mag,40sw,10mm,41 mag, 44sp,44mag,45 colt,45acp and 22 hornet).
For me its a cost savings. I can load what I want, how I want it.
Right now on my shelf I have 500 rds of 38sp, 41 mag, 40sw, 45 colt, and 45 acp).
My goal is to have 500 rds of all the calibers I load on the shelf.
I pretty much cast and load all winter and spring. It gets too hot to do that in my shop in the summer.

375RUGER

06-04-2013, 10:44 AM

It started as necessity to obtain decent steel shot loads for duck and goose. Within a year I was loading pistol and then rifle as the increase developed.

762 shooter

06-04-2013, 05:51 PM

It started in the 70's. I realized at the ripe old age of 21 that I would have to be responsible for my own welfare. Started shooting IPSC to increase my odds for survival. Raised as a frugal American due to my depression era parents, I had to start reloading to continue shooting at the level I could compete. Frugal equals reloading equals lots of rounds down range. Casting is a natural progression. Reloading and casting has provided me with untold hours of concentration, delight, and satisfaction.

This part of my hobby has allowed me to continue shooting through several downturns in component availability.

I'm 62 now and you can have my casting molds when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

That's all I have to say about that.

762

jimb16

06-04-2013, 07:06 PM

I was a bit of a gun nut when I started college, and I can blame my father for that. We used to go rabbit and squirrel hunting and really enjoyed the time together. But that isn't how I got into reloading, it merely explains my enjoyment of shooting. But to the point, when I was a poor college student, I had an Ithaca M37 20 ga., a .45 auto and a H&R Plainsman .22. The Plainsman was the only one I could afford to shoot. Then I met this girl....Her father was a shooter and a boolit caster and he taught me how to reload and cast boolits. For Christmas that year, he bought me a MEC 600 jr. so I could reload shotshells. I still have that reloader 45 years later....and I still have his daughter too!

bear67

06-04-2013, 09:42 PM

This is a great thread.
I grew up in a family of shooters, heck I was given my first .22 when I was 6 months old by my old uncle who I am named after. My dad kept .22s around, but he was a quail and duck hunter. He raised and trained bird dogs for the man he worked for for 45 years and they bought the old cases of shotshell that had 20 boxes in lots of 20. I still have some wooden shotshell boxes from an earlier era.

I was allowed to roam the farm and woods for small game and birds in season and started working for a salary at 11 cultivating for neighbors and other farm work. Skip to 1959 and I own a pickup, boat and motor and guns that I had purchased with my earnings. I helped a guy in the community who retired as a gunsmith from a shop in "town" and opened a range and shop at his home. He paid me to build berms, mow pasture and range and I bought his deceased wife's Rem 722 in 257 Roberts. I loved to bench rest and varmint hunt with it, but ammo was dear when you are making 4 or 6 bits an hour. He said he would finance a press and a few sets of dies, if I would load for his personal guns. That was my start. He knew all about loading, but did not have the patience, so he hooked me up with a high school science teacher and he became my friend, mentor and shooting buddy. These gentlemen are both long gone, but I have lots of fond memories of my time spent at their elbows.

Fast forward to raising 3 children with my wonderful bride of 45 years and we shot as a family. My boy and girls too shot 4-H trap and skeet and on the rifle team. My shotgun teams used to ride the bus home to our farm every Tuesday to load practice ammo on 2 MECs and an old Texan.

Fast forward to grandchildren who love to shoot and enjoy learning to reload with Papa. I credit my father and Uncles for my love of guns and hunting and just enjoying the outdoors. I credit the two gentlemen described above for introducing me to reloading ammo, casting bullets and shotshell presses. I credit my wife of 46 yearsw for giving me a great set of kids and then grandkids by magic--she went shooting with me yesterday to practice with "her" guns. And I give thanks to the Good Lord above for all these blessings down through the years and allowing me to pass it on to my offspring, 4-H Club members and Boy Scouts. I am truly blessed.

Mike Kerr

06-04-2013, 10:19 PM

A lot of folks have answered with what got them interested in shooting and then reloading was a spin off from that. I guess thats true of me, although since I am past retirement age, I find my memories of long ago grow fainter with time. Anyway, my dad was definitely who got me interested in reloading.

jabo52521

06-04-2013, 10:41 PM

I was 23, in the Air Force and stationed at a remote installation in Alaska. Campion AirStation to be precise. Never owned a hand gun before but was told I needed one if I wanted to go off site. So I bought a Ruger single action in 357/9mm. There was only 2 boxes of 357 to be had and nowhere off site to buy anyd. My roommate had packed a Lyman press in his baggage for some reason and made ammo for me for around 4 months. Great stuff!! Shot better than factory. So when I got back to the "lower 48" bought my own setup. Went with Lee. Never looked back. Haven't shot a factory round in over 30 years.

Huskerguy

06-04-2013, 10:48 PM

Never had a father growing up until my mother remarried and we moved to a farm in SW Nebraska. There I learned on a 410 shotgun and later moved up to a double barrel 12 gauge. Purchased my first single six after I was married. Around age 26 or so some friends and I started shooting quite a bit and he purchased the bullet making equipment and I purchased reloading equipment. It was mostly used and all single stage, lived in Grand Island, NE at the time so I had almost all Hornady stuff. Move to NW KS to begin my career in education and now had two young kids in tow, I was now 30. Sold the stainless single six and still had a shotgun, Ruger 10/22, Remington 30-06 and a Colt Trooper MK III. Shot some with the kids when we went to the farm but not a lot. Reloading stuff never got unboxed until about 4 or 5 years ago. I had a very stressful job turning a college around and I needed something to do with my mind and hands so I got out my old reloading equipment after about 25 years. I do it for stress relief, the satisfaction of making something and shooting it, and I always have lots of components on hand and am never out of ammo. I enjoy casting and reloading as much or more than shooting. I wish I had taken both of my kids out more but money was tight in those days. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

gunoil

06-04-2013, 11:03 PM

bout two years ago,, i had to reload, its just to much $$$! Then i started casting. Havent bought a copper plated bullet in, i cant remember. I shoot around 20 days a month.

rintinglen

06-04-2013, 11:19 PM

I was 13 in 1966, and a friend of mine was in need of assistance in fixing the flat on his bike. While we were in the garage, his Dad came out and opened up an old roll-top desk. Inside, he had a C-type press of unknown make mounted. While my buddy patched his tube, I watched in fascination as his father turned worthless, old, empty shells into new 30-30's. I was entranced. He let me resize, prime, and seat the bullets in a couple them, though he chose to load the powder himself. I was hooked. Later on, he showed me how to cast 38 wadcutters in a single cavity mold, using a little plumbers furnace. Watching the molted metal flow into the pot and harden into a real, live handgun projectile was amazing. My father was strictly a hunter and had no use whatsoever for Handguns, but I was really interested. I read everything I could find on the topic of reloading, walking 3 miles over to the Dearborn Library to find more books than were to be had in the little branch library near my house. I copied pages by hand out of Phil Sharpe's big handloading book.

In 1970, I bought a lee loader in 30-30. A pound of surplus 4895 was 1.95, IIRC, and I think the primers were .59 a flat. Speer 170 grain boolits were also in the mix but I don't recall how much they were, though I seem to recall that a box of 100 cost the same as box of 20 factory 30-30's. I loaded and shot quite a few. I stumbled across a couple of molds at a yard sale in 1973, along with an old pacific press. I found a little 2 lb plumbers pot and that began my casting career. I got a .357 Dan Wesson, and have been reloading and casting ever since. I have many guns now that I have never fired a single round of factory ammunition through.

gmsharps

06-05-2013, 01:27 AM

In the middle 60's I had just turned 15 and my dad bought me a beautiful Browning A5 sweet 16. Of course it had 2 9/16th inch chambers. I went to all of the small local stores that sold ammo and found about 10 boxes of 2 9/16th ammo. That left me with the possibility of not being able to shoot that gun after the ammo ran out. I did some inquiring and was able to procure a Lee 16 ga loader. I had a friend show me the whats and nots and I purchased the Lyman shotshell manual and read it cover to cover. I shot that gun unil I found a nice mid 50's made 12 ga A5 and made the trade. (wish I could get it back) but ol well. I picked up a near mint Browning Hi-power in Vietnam and was able to bring it back and my old friend introduced me into casting and as they all say the rest is history.

gmsharps

torpedoman

06-26-2013, 10:23 PM

accuracy is my only reason for reloading.

Three44s

09-28-2013, 09:32 AM

To save money ......... boy .... how that worked out!!

I began on my own at the ripe old age of 19.

No mentor ....... just gun rags for inspiration!

I went to BiMart with some jingle and bugged the salesmen there to give me a recommendation on what powder for loading .250-3000 in a Savage 99.

They were reluctant to offer advice citing liability (this was 1975) but finally hinted that Imr 4320 would likely be a good starting point. So off I went, RCBS Jr. press, dies, CCI primers and Imr 4320 tucked in my shopping cart ........

Now back home all went ok ...... but that dang take down 99 had too much headspace! So being green I had a battle on my hands!

Sadly, I ended up selling that '99 after a number of years of it collecting dust.

But my Jr. is still in the line up and a lot of other metalic presses share the stage with it.

Later, I was dragged into shotshell loading because a load I had to have .... literally ..... was tough to get ........ we were (legally) air gunning coyotes and my sledgehammer was a magnum 10 ga. and the feds had made lead illegal for waterfowling. I needed 4 buck lead shells.

A 10 ga. press came to me and now I do shotshells ..........

About that time ........ a good portion of the tools to do casting came into view and a friend told me I had better get on it ......

........... for a very reasonable price ......... bullet casting had found me ..... in the early 90's.

Since then, I had people running at me with shotshell presses ...... I figure a good tool, whether I need it right now or not ...... can't hurt ..... a dry place and some oil .......... and some day a "nail" will come along that needs the right hammer!

So that's pretty much how I ended up this way! .......

and looking back ......... I wouldn't change a THING!!!

Three 44s

Lead Fred

09-28-2013, 07:31 PM

I want out to the living room to see what Mum was up to. She was watching President Kennedy talk about ask not blah, blah blah speech.
Nothing there to interest a young boy.
Knocked on the ole man's cave door. I asked him what he was doing. He said making bullets. Sounded a lot more fun than watch JFK.
The first thing he said was" Boy, people will always need two things, food & ammo. You dont look like the cook type.....
So I learned how to make bullets. 50 years later, I think Ive got it down pat.

smokeywolf

09-28-2013, 09:03 PM

Dad was a well thought of gunsmith in the Los Angeles metro area. I started shooting a model 67 Winchester when I was 2 years old. When we'd go camping, mom or dad would grab the 22, a box of ammo and 2 folding canvas camp stools. We'd go out away from camp, they would open up both camp stools, rest the rifle on one stool and sit on the other. With the rifle resting across the camp stool the butt was only slightly below my shoulder when I was standing. Mom or dad would sit there and hand me one cartridge at a time; I would load it, fire it and eject it.

A close family friend was an owner/partner of the premier gun shop in San Fernando Valley, CA; Pony Express Sport Shop. I spent many happy hours wandering around that gun shop.
When I was 3 or 4, I was pulling the handle on a Hollywood Sr. single stage press. 55 years later more or less, I'm still pulling the same handle on the same Hollywood single stage press.

smokeywolf

Elkins45

09-29-2013, 08:39 AM

I was always fascinated by mechanical things, especially guns. My Dad owned a Winchester 67A single shot .22 and it was always a great day when he let me shoot it. When I was 17 and a senior in HS I saved up my money and he signed for a 4" S&W model 19 at the local hardware store. I think I paid $239 and they threw in a box of shells. I knew those 50 shells wouldn't even begin to satisfy my shooting desires so I set out to learn about reloading. A couple of my friend's fathers reloaded shotgun shells but none loaded rifle or pistol.

The school library had a first edition copy of Dean Grinnell's The ABC's of Reloading and I think I kept it checked out for most of the year, reading it over and over. I saved up some more money and bought a Lee Loader, an RCBS 5-0-5 scale, a pound of Unique, 200 CCI primers and two boxes of Sierra 125gr JHC from the old Phillip Gall's store in downtown Lexington when we went shopping one weekend.

When I got a real job after college, one of my first purchases with my new found riches was a reloading press. No more banging for me! Now I own 4 presses and who knows how many sets of dies. I still have and still use the same 5-0-5 scale from 1981. We don't have any kids so I don't know what will happen to all of this stuff when I die. I'm hoping I can pass it on to my BIL's sons when they get old enough.

41 mag fan

09-29-2013, 09:24 AM

I popped out of momma with a gun in hand, a cig in my mouth, and a beer in the other hand. Or so I was told!

Digger

09-29-2013, 10:39 AM

Blame it on Keltec ..... have had guns most of my life and picked up a Keltec P-40 a few years back ...
Most every one knows they have a limp wristing problem with standard loads and they quit producing them as a result .
went to a local gun show and a gentlemen was selling his reloads , picked up a few of his 135 grainers and the little pistol loved them ... accurate and reliable for the first time .
He never came back to the shows and I never got any personal info from him , standard off the shelf 135's in forty were rare and expensive so ...... me being a hands on type.
Since then one of Miha's molds and my Keltec are a marriage made in heaven and all the other guns in the collection have benefited greatly .... down side? , ... coming up with the time to cast and reload lately.

olereb

09-29-2013, 11:58 AM

One reason i started reloading was to save money but also so that i could have what i wanted when i want it,back when obummer was looking like he was going to win the first time i figured now would be a good time to become self reliant in the ammo department. If anything ever was to happen ammo will be like gold and i plan on having enough for whatever i need it for. Also now it relaxes me,i have small kids so just escaping to the garage on a Saturday and cranking out a few hundred rounds is a nice way to get away for awhile.

lancem

09-29-2013, 02:19 PM

I turned 18 and bought my first rifle (had been using Dad's before that), Universal 30 carbine, that would have been in 73. Was able to afford the first box of ammo, next came a Lee pound in loader, then a lyman mould and the rest is history. Still have the mold...

brtelec

09-29-2013, 02:53 PM

I grew up in a family where everyone shot together, Mom, Dad the kids. Always had guns. Never really thought about reloading. I always had access to ammo. Then after I got out of the military I started shooting more seriously, mostly long range hand guns. T/C's, 44 mag & 357 Mag revolvers at as long a distance as I could find to shoot. The Contender was available in calibers that I could not buy ammo for like 7mm TCU and the rest is history. I could not stand to not be able to shoot whatever caliber I wanted. That was 30 years ago. The amazing part is I am just now starting to cast my own bullets.

Grendl

09-29-2013, 03:56 PM

I guess I started reloading at dad's knee in the late fifties, he wouldn't let us hunt deer with factory ammo. the only ammo we bought was shot shells and .22s. after I left home I fell in with a nefarious crowd outwardly know as "bullseye" Pistol shooters. in reality they were the kind of people that get you hooked and then the addiction sets in. You know the type they get you hooked on pulling the trigger and not really mentioning that to get good and better that you had to keep yourself in ammo. By that time I had borrowed Dad's herters single stage press, invested in some dies, powder and bullets for the 1911(one of many to follow,purchased from one of the aformentioned nefarious souls) busted my back for a good number of years to keep up with two or three nights a week practice and friday night traveling indoor matches, postals on Sunday nights. About midway through this, says I to myself; self you might save yourself some money if you started casting your own bullets for that 45 that you're putting a couple a' hundred rounds a week through. I'm still waiting on that investment return in cash.
Needless to say it's been down hill ever since. The addiction has me , the monkey has been on my back lo' these past 40 years, and to tell the truth I wouldn't have done it any different, except maybe more molds, guns, dies and other equipment. But then I'm not done yet. :lovebooli