I've been doing some cleaning out and arranging my stuff (and we all got stuff)..and found stuff from when I first started to reload back in the '50's...got to looking at my "notes" and some of the things I'd written down and it's kind of funny in a way but also sort of makes my skin crawl.
I started shooting my 22 Winchester model 62A when I was about 10...so in about 1946 or 47...Didn't shoot anything much more than that until I went away for college at Colorado A and M...rented a room with a guy I knew in high school and found out he was quite a hunter and fisherman so we had plenty to talk about. I needed a job and found a place in Fort Collins that sold boats and guns (about 99% used guns)...and also the owner did reloading...so between me, my room mate and the owner of the store we had a "club"...I bought a couple of 1917's for "deer rifles" and a model 97 for duck hunting and pheasant hunting...my room mate had a Springfield 03 and a Winchester model 97 as well..the store owner had his choice from the rack.
We decided we'd do our own loading for the rifles...never did load shotguns.
We had the barest of equipment..hardly any literature....lots of notes from books and magazines and just talk back and forth between us and some other guys that we knew....components were often war surplus and packaged in paper bags with the info hand written on the bag...we had no idea how to store powder and primers and our method for testing a new load was to hear something from somebody or read something and come as close as we could with the stuff we had to use...then to pressure test we tied the rifle to a spare tire and took it out to the "range" and pulled the trigger with a string....if it didn't blow up it was a starting point.
I compare all that old stuff with today and realize we probably had more fun and learned more than many do today...today the number crunching is pretty much done for everyone while "close your eyes and hang on" testing was part of my growing up...was it right? Probably not...was it safe? It was ok for me but did occasionally hear of a problem...did we get game? Oh yeah!! wonderful hunting..not crowded..not restricted...few laws, etc.
Just sort of thinking back...like everything in the 'old days"...it's bitter sweet...I am 90% deaf today..part of the reason is I shot a .30 cal Luger in the basement of the police building in their "range"..it was a long concrete hall with doors that were locked..probably 15 yards long...used Kent cigarette filters in my ears for sound protection..don't have lung cancer but I'm deaf.
Any other old timers remember the spare tire "rest" and pull the cord to see if the thing all holds together?