What to make of an American Rifleman artilce

[Fernando]

My 2cent
This what happens when people listen to the NRA and writers who shoot instead of Shooters who write.
The new trend is to play on peoples fears - not just in the shooting world but in all aspects.
Sensationalisim ?? shooter not speller - In every facet now from weather to the most trivial occurance.
It's all big buck grab - corporations are the real enemy

[Daekar]

I can't speak to the prevalence of shotgun reloading, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it's not that common. I know lots of people that shoot, a surprising number that reload, but I don't know a single person who routinely shoots a shotgun to such volume that they bother reloading.

I will echo some of the thoughts about existing gun media - there is a whole lot of low-effort or simply inaccurate chaff to sort through. So many "reviews" lack any evidence of critical thinking and read more like a copy/paste of the manufacturer's press release. In fact, many are precisely that. There are folks out there who still produce good information, but you have to find them the hard way. While the internet era has amplified the amount of bad content, it also enables good content to be distributed and for communities like this one, which are far more important, to exist. Passionate communities of enthusiasts will always be far preferable to most other things, especially if that community benefits from stability and a good moderating team.

I am the only one I know personally who casts bullets. That's not surprising, really, since the current direction the industry is leaning is military-style rifles which are effective far beyond the range that most people can actually hit the broad side of a barn. I went though that phase when I was younger and didn't really understand what I would enjoy most in shooting, so I can't really criticize too harshly.

[JohnH]

I shoot Contenders. Times are changing I fear.

About twice a year I take my Contender to the range with either a 357 or 44 barrel on it. (The old octagonal 10" for those who need to know) Without fail someone 40 or under will invariably ask, "What is that?" The surprising part to me is that when offered the chance to take it and let a few fly they decline But they never turn down a chance to shoot my Rossi 92's I let one fella shoot my Ruger GP 100, two week later he showed up with the new S&W 19. Let him shoot my Blackhawk and after a cylinder he hands it back and says, "I can't afford to shoot with you anymore" Someday's the best I can do is attempt to be an ambassador.

[Tar Heel]

Without fail someone 40 or under will invariably ask, "What is that?" The surprising part to me is that when offered the chance to take it and let a few fly they decline

Same here. Now the range oversight has changed hands and they always want me to shoot the Contender on the handgun 25 yard line. I try to explain that the Contender, in whatever caliber I have that day, is a 100+ yard cartridge falls on deaf (inexperienced) ears and I am relegated to the stupid 25 yards handgun line. When I pull out a 375-JDJ cartridge and rupture the ears of the folks to my left and right, I am then asked to go to the far end of the rifle line.
It is amazing that the <40 shooters have never seen a SAA, a flintlock pistol or rifle, a 1872 Open Top or an 1851 or 1860 conversion, or a Contender, or a "God Forbid" Remington XP100. I had a guy wanting to call the ATF when he saw the XP100. He lectured me on legal rifle barrel lengths until I packed up and left.

I reserve the Casull for seasoned shooters who actually know what one is and how hard they can recoil. I have the most fun with the Colt 1873 SAA and black powder cartridges. The recoil is brisk in the 45 Colt and the muzzle flash is quite a show. The younger guys won't believe that was the norm back then, albeit with a little lighter load.

I had one guy who wished to shoot the 1886. When I pulled out the 45-90 cartridge, he paled and declined the invitation. Jeez, it kicks less than a 35 Remington! OK. Perhaps a little more but you get my point.

If it isn't black plastic, they don't have a clue. Nor are they interested in any of the history. What a shame.

[charlie b]

I like it when someone asks what I am shooting. They are astounded when my cast bullets are hitting smaller targets than their new 6.5CM (that they really don't know how to shoot).

Magazines in general are obsolete and need to be buried. The writers are terrible and subject matter is worse.

I remember when.... But, thinking back on it, a lot of it back then wasn't that good either. The difference was it was our only source of information. If we were interested in the latest Ruger, S&W, etc then we had to find a mag article. Accuracy capability of the weapons. We were dependent on the writer's shooting capability. Some were good. Some were not. And they were given guns to shoot by the mfgs, who also paid for advertising in the mag. Now guess how many had bad reviews

Now we can go to any number of sources to find people who bought the latest and greatest. And it wasn't given to them in return for a glowing mag article. They find faults and report them. Sometimes many faults. Some have grown into very reliable sources of information that are far, far better than any magazine writer.

I have not read a magazine article in many years. Last year I can say for sure I have read none.

[country gent]

A magazine article is the writers opinion more so usually. His views on the issue or subject ( look at the arguments between Elmer Kieth and Jack O Connor back in the day Those sold a lot of magazines)

The new shooters have been regularly influenced by the gun store Rambos on what they need to do ammo and general info. most havent developed the knowledge to discern between folklore and fact yet. But when they see people shooting handloads with cast bullets or even jacketed and the groups most are getting they open their minds. I cant speak for the shotgunners as I dont do much there. But I see a lot of shot bags on the freebie table in the club house still, mostly marked 8 or 9 shot.

The other is with the past "gluts" in components it just isnt really the time to start casting reloading, if you cant get the other components reliably why start he others. Here most of the new shooters are saving their brass from factory loads so when components become available they will have it.

The new writers articles are not near an complete or thorough as the older writers were. Now if you get 100 yd testing your doing good. A lot of the articles are mostly reprints of the companies literature.

[tmanbuckhunter]

I'm not sure how much stock I'd put in a guy from RCBS's stance.

They make a GREAT mold, but only in iron, and only in 1 or 2 cavity.

They make my preferred casting pot, but others may balk at its price.

Lube-sizer parts may not be their bread and butter.

If they want to downsize to specialize in making dies for the 5.56 and 9mm jacketed crowd, that's there prerogative - I suspect other mold companies are eating their lunch right now anyway.

I have observed that there are many shooters who do not want to cross into reloading, and many reloaders hesitant to cross into casting. That said, however, the current shortage appears to be affecting mold availability as well.

Attendance at the club my father and I belong to seems to have tapered off recently, presumably due to ammo shortages. Those that want to shoot will take the plunge. Those that don't, won't.

This right here. I see more people casting bullets now, especially with all this new fangled powder coating, than I've ever seen. They're just not buying an RCBS Mold cut in a keith style wadcutter.

[JoeJames]

The cost and availability of factory ammo has driven more than a few into the reloading ranks. I personally have helped at least two folks get into it; albeit this is about the worst time for components. But they have scrounged around and gotten started. I will admit that the number of casters in my area is quite a bit smaller than the number of reloaders. I got back into casting just a few years ago myself, when I saw the handwriting on the wall regarding components. At first it was because mine were substantially cheaper than factory, and then it dawned on me that my cast revolver bullets were every bit as accurate as the harder cast factory bullets. Being in a rural area of Arkansas my cost for wheel weights is $0. Just a matter of sorting them out.

[Char-Gar]

I tend to agree with much of what has been posted. Even in my salad days shooting sports played second fiddle to the hunters. Hunters bought their ammo and the shooting sport folks were the reloaders. The shooting sport folks were the ones looking for precision and economy as they shot far more than hunters. I might mention that back in the 50's money was far harder to come by.

So reloaders or handloaders have always been a niche market and bullet casters were a smaller niche within that bigger niche. So the substance of the article in question really has not changed that much over the past 65 years or so, as far as I can tell.

The biggest change I have seen is the rise of the mall ninjas and other tacticool types. The folks go to a range and fire more ammo in an afternoon that us old timers fired in a year. There has been a sea change in firearms thinking that goes along with this current shooting trend. These folks want high volume reloaders, if they reload at all. They also want projectiles and powder that does not leave much residue in the firearms to require cleaning very often. Going to a public range these days is like entering a war zone with the volume of fire.

I really don't see anything in the article that will have any impact on my shooting world, but I am a fossil from a by gone era.

[fgd135]

Even 30 years ago the members of the trap and skeet club next door the rifle range where I was a member voiced their opinions that it was as cheaper to buy a case of shells at Wally World than to reload for shotguns. Don't know that myself, since I only reload for rifle calibers, all of which require reloading for better accuracy and also for cost, as over the counter centerfire rifle ammo has always been expensive to me. Some older, obsolete calibers that I shoot require casting bullets, even forming cases, actually, while with other relatively modern calibers I do reload j words for cost and performance reasons--low cost jwords can still be found from time to time, and frankly some rifles require em.
RCBS is a big player in the industry, so what their rep said in that AR magazine article was probably exactly as RCBS saw market trends at the time of the interview, which could've been several months before publication, fwiw. Would be interesting to hear comments based on trends since summer last year...to me it appears reloading for rifle and pistol is going "full guns" right now.

[JohnH]

One more observation on the subject; I think it was best summed up by Quigley at the end of the great gun fight scene where the bad guy Marson says, "But I didn't think you knew how to use one". Quigely replied, "I said I didn't have much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use it" And herein is the rub.

In the early 1990's the plastic fantastic was a rising star. The military style semiautomatic rifle was under intense attack by the anti gun forces and Congress had just passed the assault weapon ban in response, and everything was stuck with a ten round magazine. The gun industries response was to jack up the advertising to at once counter the antigun message and to increase familiarity with the arms among shooters particularly those who owned traditional firearms types but yet would go on about, "Who needs one of those". There was a lot of resistance within the shooting community to the "newcomers" so to speak; and in some ways the industry did too good a job. Follow or add to all this the 2008 Heller ruling which validated the 2A and the keeping and using of firearms for self defense and suddenly there was a rung on which the gun industry could hang it's hat on the legitimacy of it's products in society. Magazine fed firearms were touted for their compactness, ease of carry and ease of use.

The AR got a complete facelift and became the Chevy small block of the gun world. By the early 2000's you could buy whatever custom hardware and furniture for your rifle and upgrade it in the comfort of your living room, if not just build yourself one from scratch. New chamberings began to come on line to satisfy those who thought the 223/5.56 was anemic and state laws which forbade their use as hunting rounds. For the last nearly 30 years everything in the gun industry has been about self defense oriented firearms and military style semiautomatic rifles.

I've said all that to say this, they've only got themselves to blame. Once upon a time, "disciplined" meant well studied, experienced, capable. This is what Quigley was speaking to and what the headlong rush to advance the "next level of arms" (for lack of better words) by the gun industry has brought us to. As a young man I was eager to learn how to properly use every type of gun I could get my hands on. Most people can't run a bolt action or a lever action rifle without taking it off their shoulder to cycle it, but that is not the proper way. A double action revolver should be mastered using only the trigger and not firing it single action. The same is true in reloading. One should at the least learn casting if only to augment skills and ammunition supply, just as we hardline casters should keep some jacketed ball (if not ammo) on hand because there are some things for which cast is not suited (I know that's sacrilege, but). It should be a goal of every rifle shooter to to be able to score at least well enough at 500 yards to earn "Rifleman". It should be the goal of every handgunner to be able to reliably hit a paper plate at 50 yards. And it should be the goal of every shooter to be able to properly run whatever action type is handed them. I know that's a lofty goal and we are very likely to never see it (I've never seen it in my life time) but the industry owes it to it's own survival to encourage well rounded and well disciplined shooters, and in my opinion they have failed at this. They are following the same path the Big Five followed, acting as though they have a captive market and whatever they produce will sell and it's all the customer needs or wants. And in the firearms market that is a particularly short sighted business model.

Oliver Winchester and Sam Colt must have been rolling over in their graves when Cowboy Action Shooting took off and there stood Winchester and Colt at the sideline watching Uberti, Cimmaron and Pedersoli own that market when it was Winchester and Colt who had created it 100 years earlier. Only after Winchester closed up shop and leased it's manufacturing out to a foreign company did someone make the decision to bring back the '73. I'll not be surprised when they discontinue the model claiming the market for it stagnated.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I started reloading in 1964/65? No mentor, just read all i could, magazine articles, books, manuals. I was born with the 'GUN' gene and no one I knew had it. Loading was part of shooting, not only to shoot more but the immersion in art and science. Now part of handloading is being able to improve on available ammunition for the rifles I like. The 358 Win, 45-70, 300 Savage, 32 Special, 303 Savage others are not treated kindly in selection OR QUALITY by the big names. Accuracy for lever actions can usually be improved quite a bit with careful loading. I do some loading for handguns, but when prices are down I stock up on the bulk FMJ ammo. 223 is a toss-up, I am not a gamer but I do buy bulk when on sale. I acn buy 223 and 308 FMJ about as cheap as I can cast. I buy a lot of commercial cast bullets, like others, the cost and time needed to cast good bullets no longer works FOR ME. I have a bunch of molds along with a bunch of other stuff. Shooting is more enjoyable than reloading, reloading is more enjoyable than casting. Everyone has a different take on this. I do not wander garage sales and pawn shops as driving distances are long and everybody in this country shoots so pickings are slim. Punch a few keys and the brown truck shows up. I do try to stay stocked, but as fewer people have an easy way to go shooting, more will stare at the tube, 'learning to shoot' on a computer game. As said before, it is annoying to read questions that are all answered by reading a loading manual or book on the subject. Instant answers are expected since the Internet and Cell phone became part of our life. I guess we should accept that new people are shooting, reloading, and casting and welcome everyone, providing answers that we learned 'THE HARD WAY'.

[AZ Pete]

perhaps Hemeyer is biased by the current volume of sales for RCBS, not knowing what current members of the handloading community are actually doing.

Component sales might be a better gage of activity for some facets of our hobby, but tooling sales (tools that do not wear out very fast) not so much.

So far as casting is concerned, I doubt that anyone has a good handle on the volume of salvaged lead that is being cast and sent down range each year, or what calibre.

[rbuck351]

I got into reloading at 14 when my dad took me to a LGS and bought me a Lee loader in 12 ga, a 5#bag of shot, a flat of primers, a couple boxes of card wads and a Speer loader manual. He didn't know how to reload and neither did I. After I ran out of components, I could then load a box of shells for about $1 using reclaimed shot and wads I recovered from a trap club and washed. Factory shells were $3 to $4 per box. When I turned 21 I got into 50' NRA indoor pistol and was shooting a Colt Officers Model 38 Special. Ammo for that was about $4 to $5 per box so a RCBS reloader special kit in 38 special and a Lyman 2c wadcutter mold and a few other basic tools and I could shoot for about $1 per box.
I no longer shoot much shotgun ammo other than 410 using 444Marlin cases and a few home made tools although I have loaders in 12ga 16 ga and 20 ga.
Now about 60 years after starting, I can load my smaller case pistol rounds for about 5 to 6 cents per round and larger cases (41, 44, and 454Cassul) for 12 to 15cents per round. That is a significant savings over the current prices of handgun ammo. Then there is the ammo I shoot that not available anywhere like 22H, 22KH, 25/20, 32/20, 32 S&W L, 41mag, 7.62x25, 30 rem, 35 rem, 350 rem Mag, 7.7 Jap, 358 Norma, 256 Win, 7x57, 416Rem, 45/70 and such. Right now if you don't reload and cast, there are a lot of calibers you are not going to shoot. Even the cheap 9mm ammo is running $.40 + per round.
So yes, even though we as loaders and casters are a very minor part of the RCBS customer base, there are plenty of good options available for loading/casting tools other than RCBS. I doubt they will notice the loss of me as a customer.

[Tar Heel]

Ammunition conglomerates can keep the Rambo's shooting all week once the hoarding dies down. Where do we see the hobby of handloading and casting heading? Has our hobby had its day?

[jonp]

If someone can buy factory ammo for what I can cast and load I'd like his or her source.

[Tar Heel]

If someone can buy factory ammo for what I can cast and load I'd like his or her source.

MidwayUSA, Cheaper Than Dirt, Grafs, Cabela's to name a few.
In years past when everything was normal.

If you can load 9mm jacketed by the box of 50 for $9.95 then great. Realistically speaking you also need to account for your time and energy costs.

I bought many a box of 9mm from Cabela's for $9.95. Then there was 7.62x54R at $17.95 per 20. I couldn't buy the brass alone cheaper than that so I bought the box of cartridges to get the brass!

The point is when supply chains are running and the shelves are stocked, prices drop. They drop to the point that common ammunition is cheaper to purchase than it is to make.

[brewer12345]

Ammunition conglomerates can keep the Rambo's shooting all week once the hoarding dies down. Where do we see the hobby of handloading and casting heading? Has our hobby had its day?

As others have said, handloading has always been a niche and casting an even smaller niche. That is fine, and I don't see it changing. Will it die out? Doubtful absent the gubmint outlawing the sale of primers and powder.

[Grayone]

I have reloaded since the early 70's and at first it was for economy. I have expanded over the years due to the purchase or inheritance of odd chambered firearms. Within the last few years I stated loading 12 ,16, and 20 gauge specialty loads of slugs and buckshot that is unobtainable currently or not at all. I bought components after the anointed ones reign from 2008 to 2016. I have helped get started at least three young men with reloading to follow me when I leave for better pastures and woodlands one day. I hate to see the major corporations ruin all they touch from the 'old days'. It is not just our sport that is changing it is our way of life. Too many bean counters from 'business schools' are more interested in the bottom line than in quality of life.

[openbook]

How many states are still forcing the shotgun-only thing, though? I know Ohio gave it up. Is Illinois the only one left? And buckshoot can be cast up. Savings can be had there too. The only shotshells I've ever reloaded have been slugs and buck.

Maryland had a shotgun-only region covering several counties until the 2021 season when they introduced the "straight-wall cartridge rule," resulting in a market explosion for new production guns in 350 Legend.


This has been a fascinating thread. What I will say as a very junior contributor is that while we may be in a "waning phase" of the home reloading industry, I am optimistic about the future--even though the inflection point may be decades off.

This is the first two paragraphs of an article by Ed Matunas in my Lyman's 50th Edition Reloading Handbook:

After the Second World War the interest in shooting started to gain serious momentum; and in turn reloading became a thriving industry. By 1955, handloaders were producing 53 million rounds of centerfire metallic cartridges annually. This was equal to 37% of all the factory ammo - some 145 million rounds - produced by Winchester, Federal and Remington combined. At the end of 1964 the total yearly output for the 3 major ammo makers was 196 million centerfire metallic cartridges, an increase of some 35%. For the same year, total centerfire metallic reloads increased to 195 million rounds.

In nine years metallic ammunition reloaded at home, by shooters across the country, grew by 366%. Reloads now nearly equaled (99%) the combined production of the big ammunition factories. The demand for all things reloading was increasing exponentially...

I believe that we'll likely see these days again. As proved by the Ed Matunas article, surging interest in shooting can drive shocking growth in the reloading community in a very short amount of time. We could be seeing the shooting-interest surge that prefigures the reloading surge right now. On the other hand, if we aren't seeing the beginning of a reloading resurgence now, the time will come. And when the time comes, there will still be hundreds of thousands of presses, manuals, and brass collections circulating in American workshops and basements. Something like this just doesn't "go away."

My first rifle was a Colt LE AR-15. I wanted the closest thing to the M16 and M4 I learned in the military, and believed (still do) that it was my duty as a citizen to own a military-equivalent rifle. These days, I shoot my other rifles a lot more, but I will never sell the Colt. Don't knock the black guns! Every American man should own one!

Sure there are lots of guys at the range ripping mags and with no idea what they're doing. But every time they see someone out there placing careful shots, a seed is being planted. One day when they're tired of burning $, they're going to want to learn to shoot like that. And in the meantime the brass population is skyrocketing .

Guys I meet are very friendly to reloaders. If I'm picking up brass at the range people will walk over a few lanes and ask "are you a brass guy?"--and offer me their brass. More and more people I talk to are saving brass even though they don't have the equipment yet. They just know that ammo prices are up and they're staying up. One day soon their brass piles are going to reach critical mass and suck them in to buying a press and powder scale, or just a Lee Loader. Then it's off to the races. I talked to two guys recently who have been wanting to get into reloading but just needed a little "push."