As soon as there were brass cases, there was reloading. The earliest cases had no primer, just a small hole where the flame from a percussion cap could enter to ignite the (black) powder. Civil War Maynards worked this way. Those cases were almost always reloaded, unless they were lost in battle. (See "A guide to the Maynard Breechloader" by George Layton.) Some early Ballards could fire rimfire cartridges, but with a quick switch on the breechblock, a cap could be fired. The reloader poked a hole in the used rimfire case with a nail, reloaded it with black, and reverted to the percussion cap.
Then came smokeless, and in the early days there was great trouble with people loading smokeless like they did black, (i.e. fill the case up and seat a boolit). Even after "bulk smokeless" appeared, this misunderstanding must have blown up quite a few guns, (and reloaders).
Bulk smokeless was therefor invented for the shotshell reloader, who knew how to ladle out his powder by the "dram", but had no scale, other than what he weighed his grain and hogs on, and that was rarely accurate even to the pound, never mind grains. The "dram" measure concept survives today, just look at any box of new shot-shells.
It took quite a while for precision powder-measuring to catch on.
Go on eBay and you will find reprints of the old Ideal reloading handbooks going back into the 19th century for sale. Abby at Cornell Publications has done an incredible job of collecting, cataloging, reprinting stuff from that era.
Here's one URL:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ideal-1900-H...item43ab681561