Back in the early 80's I saw a classified ad for someone selling their whole reloading setup, I'd been wanting to start and the price was cheap enough for me I went and got it, still have the press, pretty much self taught using load manuals.
Read books or manuals
Watched videos online.
I had a mentor.
Other (please tell us below).
Back in the early 80's I saw a classified ad for someone selling their whole reloading setup, I'd been wanting to start and the price was cheap enough for me I went and got it, still have the press, pretty much self taught using load manuals.
"People in Arizona carry guns," said Detective David Ramer, a Chandler police spokesman. You better be careful about who you are picking on...
I voted "had a Mentor" but I started out by reading a Lyman book cover to cover. Then a Gentleman from the gun shop where Grandpa bought the equipment came to his house one evening and got us started. This was in the 60's and I was just a kid. Looking back on it, the Gentleman was pretty good and I have changed very little in my routine since then. Sure, I've ventures into other aspects of loading like case forming, neck turning, sizing with bushing dies, ect but I still do the basics the same way that he taught us.
Now casting was a different thing. I read the Lyman Cast Bullet book cover to cover and we just started casting. Our first efforts were pretty awful.
I started with a mentor on reloading smokeless but of course moved to manuals and videos. Once i decided to get into the BP game, I started reading here and then made an account to start connecting with all the experience here.
Ah yes, Nonte. I still have 'Modern Handloading' copyright 1972. Bought new through a book club. I still have and occasionally refer to it. I also have my first load manual, Lyman 45th ed. By the time I started loading and casting in 1971 I had already been shooting for about 15 years (started with a Daisy scoped BB gun from an uncle). An Air Force buddy got me started with 38 Spl, Ly 358311, and Unique. Bought an RCBS Jr from a guy at Fort Carson when he was leaving (still have it and use it). About 1976, friends in a skeet club got me hooked and I started loading 12 ga with their help, just to support the habit. Still have and use the MEC press I got back then.
It certainly has been a lifetime experience.
And the learning curve seems endless....
It ain't rocket science, it's boolit science.
In early 1960, I became convinced the only rifle I really wanted was a 300 Weatherby Magnum! I had married (at age 20) in 1959, eventually had two kids, worked in a plywood manufacturing plant, and we lived from payday to payday. It took all my income to support my family. My Union (at the plant level) negotiated our ability to work overtime (OT) on a rotating basis. I determined that I would not work overtime to get money to pay bills! The deal became that my wife got the net earnings from every other OT, and I got the same to be spent however each of us wished. She spent hers, I saved mine. By 1967 I had saved $500.00 and for that amount I negotiated with the gun store to buy a 300 Weatherby, sling, scope with tip-off mounts, mount open sights and one (20 round) box of ammunition. A box of twenty rounds cost $20.00. Enter the desire to reload! There was no empty brass to be found but I found out I could use 300 H&H by just firing it in my rifle to fire-form and then I could reload it to Weatherby levels. I found several boxes of 300 H&H (OLD stock) and after much wailing, the nice East Indian gentleman agreed to my (somewhat low-ball) price. I bought an RCBS package kit, watched my Brother in law load for his 308 was not impressed, bought a manual or two and read them. Read everything I could find on reloading and, after ignoring what I saw my BIL do, started to load guided by what I researched. From there on it has been a search for the wherewithal to get whatever I need to load for all the firearms I have. I am still learning!
R.D.M.
my cousin got me into it as we used to shoot a lot when I went to his place. Lost him 30 years ago now, think of him many times when I am doing things we used to do. We grew up more less together.
Beware of a government that fears its citizens having the means to protect themselves.
NRA Patron member
Veteran
A neighbor started me on the road to reloading. The first cartridge I reloaded was a 218 Bee. That was in 1958. I still have the dies.
A GUN THAT'S COCKED AND UNLOADED AIN'T GOOD FOR NUTHIN'........... ROOSTER COGBURN
Bought a Lymans #47, bullets, powder, primers and a Lee Loader at L.L.Cote's in Errol, NH. Read and re-read the front part then had at it for my 41Mag Blackhawk at my hunting camp miles from anywhere in front of the woodstove with the snow flying over the pond. Still remember like yesterday the grimace and squint when I touched off the first round then the giant grin when it worked. Still have part of the original pound of Blue Dot I bought for it and the Loader although both the 41Mag Blackhawks are long gone to my regret although the Single Six bought at the same time is still in the safe and my carry gun at camp. No idea of the thousands of 22lr put through it.
30yrs later and I test some of that Blue Dot and Unique bought not long after every year when back north. -30 or more in the winter and 85 sometimes in the summer. Still smells and looks good and goes bang.
No computer, phone or internet. Book or you were on your own. Still believe reading a book is the best way to go along with watching someone on the internet now demonstrate what is in print but if the power goes out or the net is down you still have a manual.
Last edited by jonp; 01-08-2023 at 04:55 PM.
I Am Descended From Men Who Would Not Be Ruled
It is not with strength one will prevail; those who oppose The Lord will be broken
My pap started me on .38 Specials and 45-70 loaded 310 style when I was 8. The .38's weren't too hard but the 45-70 was about all my hands would do at the time. When I was about 11 we set up his Truline Jr and I used that or the 310's exclusively until 1970 when I bought a All American press and the new Lyman load book.
Grumpy Old Man With A Gun....... Do Not Touch !!
Another old timer that started out reading everything I could lay my hands on.
Heck, no computers back then. Learned by doing.
Came from a non-shooting family as well, so no encouragement/mentoring.
First tool was a Lee Target Loader in .222 when I was 16. 56 years and still learning.
Don Verna
I started buying reloaded cartridges from an older gentlman that loaded and was a gunsmith. I would sit around and talk to himand watch as he loaded. He showed me some things and made recommendations of items that i needed or nice to have. I then bought a coax press and rcbs reloading kit and added as i could. Been hooked ever since reading about it and talking with others.That was around 1978.. Man wish some of those prices were still around. They have certainly increased and a lot lately.
Last edited by tctender; 01-10-2023 at 10:32 PM.
Book, more books and magazine articles were my teacher!
Age 19 in the fall of 1975 and I got tired of “wanting” to reload! I went to my favorite all around store (BiMart) and pestered the clerks there to recommend what powder to buy. The rifle was a 250/3000 in a Savage 99.
As a take down it suffered from too much head space and that got my goat! It eventually went down the road.
Anyway at the Bi Mart store the clerks told me they were not supposed to suggest what powder but they finally hinted at IMR 4320. I wheeled out with powder, primers, bullets, dies, a RCBS Jr press and a RCBS 505 scale!
A Hornady reloading manual followed me out as well!
I built a portable stand and mounted my press on it, still have both!
After a bit of study, my Dad gave me a 243 Win in a 670a Winchester bolt gun (an economy version of the Model 70) for Christmas ‘75. I slayed some number of coyotes with it but my eye was on the Ruger 77V in the same cartridge. The Win. bolt got turned for its new price. Seventy bucks more and I had the brand new Ruger (a Liberty model no less!) and now coyotes really caught it!
Still have that Liberty Ruger too BTW! If I had been smart, I would have kept the Winchester for a truck and farm tractor gun and gotten custom dies cut for the Savage 99.
Those are my reloading roots.
Three44s
Last edited by Three44s; 01-08-2023 at 06:17 PM.
Quote Originally Posted by Bret4207
“There is more to this than dumping lead in a hole.”
I had nobody to teach me and the internet didn’t exist so I bought one of the early Speer manuals and read it, then started buying equipment. That was more than 40 years ago.
I learned late in life from a 20 yo who shot 9mm competitively.
He reloaded 44mag for his dad, but his dad sold the old 29 for $$$$.
First lesson: Do Not Shoot Other People's Handloads!
Every thing else was RCBS book and this forum.
Thank you.
I read books. Lots and lots of books, magazine articles…you name it.
I posted this back in 2020, to another question:
I started in shooting sports at about 11 years old, learning and honing that craft. But I began casting sinkers first at about 12 or 13 years old. I had a small 6 cavity sinker mold my father gave me and I made 100’s of them.
A friend of my father, came over one day and saw me making sinkers and simply said you should make bullets too. Well being that young I didn’t even know anyone could make a bullet, but it really make me curious. I talked to that man all afternoon about it.
He came back he next day with a 45 caliber mold, 10 pounds of lead and said here, make me some and lets see how you do.
Same principal applies to both processes, so off I went. Obviously, some of them were good and some quite bad. Not a real problem in sinkers, but bullets....that’s a whole other story.
He taught me the fine tuning of melting lead and adding other metals. AND supplied the metals!
I became his major supplier....and even got paid for it. Can life get any better!
I don’t remember what I earned but I’m sure it was a fortune to a 13 year old.
The one thing that hooked me for life was when he said he was going to check the speed of the bullets when he shot them, with a machine he had. A Chronograph meant nothing to me at all except this had to be some kind of space alien technology. When I saw this bent wire thing and saw the “speed” of a bullet, I couldn’t believe it my eyes.
I’ve been making “boolits” ever since.
The only question I have is a simple one.....where is this man who comes with 10, 20, 30 pounds of lead at a time, every time! Most were wheel weights and real lead.
My father owned a Sunoco Station at the time, so lead weights were very plentiful. But I think he hid the new ones from me, because his supply was always in need of resupplying and my boolit supply kept increasing.
Just need to find that guy again with all the metals.
So I guess I’m, self taught and mentored.
Its been a great ride
Last edited by sailcaptain; 01-08-2023 at 06:55 PM. Reason: more detail
Zucca 1:1 Kill Your TV
Received a 308 from my Aunt and Uncle as a HS graduation gift in 1968. A month or two later got a lee loader. I learned from the instruction sheet in the Lee Loader. First bullets used were pulled from military surplus rounds given to my dad by one of his brothers. Wish I would have had a way to pull them without destroying the cases. Loaded with Unique and cream of wheat fillerusing Lee dippers, first started with a load that I believed would be safe. Fired one round, then loaded the next with the next smaller dipper. On the third or fourth round it went "bloop" and the bullet landed about 12 feet from the muzzle. I went to the next dipper up and had a good plinking load until I got commercial bullets and went from there.
The only thing I had read about reloading was occasional mentions in Outdoor Life magazines, there were no details given. About a year later, I got the firing pin repaired on a German Reischrevolver that my dad had brought back from Germany. I was taking physics at college and was allowed to use a lathe in the lab, used it to turn and bore a case trim die that was hand held to shorten 44 Spec brass. At that time I got a Lyman 310 tool and dies for 44 Special, used the lathe to shorten the sizing die. Not sure when I got my first loading manual, but it was probably about 1969-70. Started casting about 73, again self taught but was able to find books to help.
Got married in 1972, about 6 months later bought my first real press, a Rockchucker. About 1975 I helped my little brother get set up to reload 357, inherited his equipment a few years later. Now have 3 single stage presses.
Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |