I couldn't find a category for this-- so I'll try here
On this forum there is a huge amount of great information on reloading, and how to get the best accuracy from reloads. There are soooooo.. many things you can do for precision shooting. The question becomes: "What is good enough?" That, of course, depends on what kind of shooting you plan to do. This post is an invitation to talk about "good enough."
I've been a little nervous about posting this, because I know there are a lot of strong opinions on the best way to reload. But, at 80,000 rifle and pistol loads so far, I have some experience. I finally decided to go ahead because I think it will make for an interesting and useful discussion.
Obviously, what ammo is "good enough" depends on what you intend to do with the ammo. So-- when you reply to this post, it would help if you tell us what standard of "good enough" you are working at, so we can learn what things you do to get there.
I shoot primarily for pleasure, open sights, once or twice a week at the local range, visiting with friends, and shooting primarily at metal gongs. At our range, the smallest gongs are 2-3 inches, and at 400 yards nothing bigger than about 12 inches. So-- my goal is to have fun at about 3 MOA. My rifles range from 223 Rem up to 303 British, military, levers and bolts. I shoot both cast and jacketed and at velocities from subsonic on up.
When you get right down to it, how you reload mostly affects the vertical size of your groups, because so many things directly or indirectly affect muzzle velocity. So, I do the things that keep my velocity variation down enough for 3 MOA shooting. Some of the things I read about for precision shooting turned out to be unnecessary for that level of accuracy. This is my list of what I do and don't do that gets me to 3 MOA.
Brass: I do not measure or trim my brass so long as the rounds will chamber. I also do not turn the necks. However, I do have dedicated brass for each firearm and only neck size. I also use the brass in sets of 50 that are all the same head stamp (consistent case volume).
Annealing Brass: I don't unless it is gift brass that has had unknown use. Most of my rifle cases (thousands) have a dozen or more reloads already and are still doing fine.
Setting up dies: I have set screws on all my dies and they are all permanently set for depth. I do not bother to readjust the dies each time I use them.
Neck Expanding: I use Lyman M dies. The M die seems to work best at expanding necks on brass that is not always the exact same length. Since I rarely trim my brass this is important to me. I try not to expand any more than necessary (helps prevent splits).
Gunpowder: I use a standard powder measure and nothing else (no powder trickler). Also, I drop the charges directly into the cases without weighing each charge. When dropping the powder, I check the powder measure about every 10 loads. That is, I drop 10 loads into cases, then weigh the 11th, then continue. As long as the weighed charge is within about 1 or 2 tenths of a grain I do not readjust the powder measure. After filling 50 cases, I shine a flashlight down into the cases looking for any inconsistencies.
Cast Bullets: I don't worry about whether the bullets are shiny or frosty. Also, I do not sort my cast bullets by weight and do not worry about whether the gas checks are absolutely square on the base. BUT, I do reject bullets that have obvious defects. I have Lee, RCBS, NOE, Ideal, and SAECO molds and they all seem good enough.
Alloy: I use a mix close to Lyman #2 for all rifle loads, and roughly 10:1 for my pistols. After making up a batch I check relative hardness. I squeeze a ball bearing between a new sample and a piece from an old batch that worked well in my firearms. If the dents in the two pieces are about the same I know the hardness of the new batch is similar.
Bullet Lube: I powder coat plain based bullets (Smoke's Clear) and use gas checks and traditional lube for gas check designs. My standard lube is equal parts of old Christmas candles and beeswax with Vaseline to make it slightly soft. I use this for all my rifle cartridges except 223 Remington. The 223 and all my pistol bullets are lubed with one coat of Ben's Liquid Lube.
When Powder coating I use the same size batch every time (50 bullets) and just set the oven dial to 400. Once the oven is pre-heated I put them in for 15 minutes. I do not use a thermometer to verify the oven temperature and I do not try to measure the internal temperature of a bullet in the oven. I check a few in each batch for good coating.
Primers: I use a hand primer and prime 50 cases in a batch. I always use the same brand and type of primer that I used in load development. I run my fingertips across the heads of the primed cases to see if they are all well seated.
Cartridge Overall Length: I adjust the seating die until the first cartridge is at the overall length I want, BUT, I do not measure the COL of each cartridge.
Loads: I use published starting loads and do load ladders to find the most accurate for each firearm and bullet combination. If the gunpowder I want to use is not listed I will only use it if there is good data for powders both slower and faster, and then only by starting low and working up carefully. I never push my cast bullets beyond 140,000 rpm.
Rifle cleaning: I take apart and detail clean my firearms every winter. During the shooting season I do not scrub the bores. I run a bore snake through the bore after each range trip. At my shooting frequency every winter amounts to about every 1000 rounds. Also, I do not scrub the bore when I switch between jacketed bullets and cast bullets.