So you’re thinking about taking up reloading (also called hand loading), which is the process of building ammunition up from its component parts. Today’s ammo prices are at historic highs and sometimes we experience shortages of some calibers. Reloading seems to be the answer to those important factors for many shooters. There are plenty of considerations that go into the decision to start down the path. I’ve made most of the mistakes and enjoyed most of the pleasures of building ammo, so I thought I’d give you the benefit of my experience while you ponder your decision.
Safety - First and Foremost! Know this! If you decide to get into reloading or bullet casting, you owe it to yourself and your family to learn well and observe strictly the safety rules of these endeavors. Like so many things in the shooting sports genre, the process is completely safe if all the rules are respected. Take a few shortcuts or fail to learn the rules and disaster of the most serious variety will one day make you very regretful -- or maybe even very dead.
There are a lot of logical and illogical reasons to make your own ammo. It’s almost never a good idea to think you can make some to sell “on the side” or give away to any but your closest friends. I’ll get into that later, but please remove those from consideration right now. Reducing your cost of shooting is valid in some circumstances but is not as good a justification as it might seem, even given the lofty price of “store bought” ammo these days. Quality of the product, in excess of “factory” ammo is a lofty and attainable goal but is not as easy to achieve as one might think. Some reasons that might not have occurred to you are; reloading is an enjoyable pastime/hobby, adequate supply of ammo for personal use is more controllable, and pursuit of quality cartridges is gratifyingly educational and can enhance your overall shooting experience.
This isn’t going to tell you how to make great ammo at home but it might help you with the question of if you should even try.
So, let's go through the facets of the discussion and I’ll tell you what I learned on my journey into the swamp of boolits, brass, primers and powder. Lets define some terms first, so we’re on the same page together. A piece of handgun, rifle, or shotgun ammunition (cartridge) is made up of several basic components.
Bullet (some of us like to call them boolits) -- the metal object that is pushed out of the cartridge and down the barrel by rapidly burning gunpowder (it does not, technically speaking, explode).
Brass - a metallic canister typically formed of brass - but also sometimes made of aluminum or steel - is the container which holds all of the components in place.
Powder -- gunpowder, a powdery or flaky chemical substance which burns very rapidly once it is ignited.
Primer -- a small, button-shaped, metallic object installed in the base of the brass which ignites the powder when the gun’s firing pin strikes it. So, if I have a bullet, a piece of brass, a primer, some gunpowder, and some tools, I can make a cartridge to fire in my gun. It’s not rocket science but, done safely, it does require the right tools and some education.
Time Out -- for a moment to address one of my pet peeves. We don't call the fully assembled product a bullet. It’s a
cartridge, dammit! A bullet is only one piece of the total ammunition package - a metal projectile which is tossed downrange while the remainder of the cartridge is either retained in the gun for manual removal or ejected from a semi-auto as a part of the firing process.
Cost
Most everyone who gets into reloading thinks or talks about ammo cost as a primary - or at least a major - factor. With my setup, I can build a box of 50 cartridges in the 357 S&W Magnum caliber for as little as $4.00. Yep, a completely safe and relatively accurate .357 mag cartridge for about 20% of what I’d pay at the gun shop, internet or big box store. This $4 figure is achieved partly by using a boolit that I cast myself from scrap “lead” I get for free, while using store-bought boolits raises the cost by about $5 per box - or more. The $4 figure also assumes I’m using brass (spent cases) I pick up at the range after they’re discarded by other shooters. If I have to buy brass, either used or new (aka virgin) the cost will go up by another $5 to $10 per box, depending on the caliber.
A 50-round box of fairly decent quality 9mm Luger can be had for something around $12 these days; cheaper if you get it on the internet in a 1,000 round batch. The $4 minimum cost mentioned above is still valid for this caliber, so the saving is smaller, but still significant assuming the use of used brass and homemade boolits. If you have to resort to virgin brass and “factory” bullets (for those who want to shoot mostly/only jacketed bullets, the cost differential becomes very small.
Some consideration, therefore, should be given to which calibers and components will be reloaded to determine if the cost saving is really a factor. Cost saving amounts of “insignificant” to “enormous” are possible and depend on many factors, some of which are unknowable at the time of the initial decision. Most reloaders, myself included, would advise against starting the project if cost saving is the only or main reason - unless you shoot a helluva lot of ammo on a regular basis.
We haven’t discussed the cost of the tooling necessary for the job. Costs here vary greatly and depend on many factors, such as how much labor-saving you want, how much equipment quality you’re willing to pay for, the quality of the tools themselves and the quality of the ammo produced, etc. Acquisition of a proper setup doesn’t stop with a press and a set of dies, either. There is a myriad of $5, $10, and $20 accessories that you’ll probably decide you “have to have” once you’ve started wading into the pool on the shallow end. High quality ammunition can be made with an inexpensive single-stage press and some budget dies ($300 for the total package), but that arrangement requires a lot more operator time and a quality control protocol than, for instance, a professional-grade progressive press with all the appropriate accessories ($1,000 or more).
As with guns, the first set of tools will probably only lead to another “upgrade” but starting with the basics allows you to spend a smaller amount while learning enough about the subject to decide intelligently what you really want or need. Remember also, that absorbing the cost of the equipment into each box of ammo produced is going to take a lot more time if you shoot 100 rounds a month, than if you shoot 500 a week. Make out a spreadsheet and do the math; you might find that gun store ammo is cheaper for you than reloading your own.
Ammo Quality
Manufacturers of ammunition produce a very wide variety of products aimed at various segments of the shooting population. Long range marksmanship, long range hunting, rifle, pistol, shotgun, plinking, self defense, and casual target shooting are but a few of the specific purposes for which ammunition of a given caliber can be tailored. Many very serious competitive marksmen make their own ammo simply because they can’t get the quality or consistency they demand for their specific niche from “over the counter” sources. Most folks who reload don’t go to those extremes of quality assurance, but higher quality ammo than the internet or gun store’s “budget brands” is fairly easy to produce at home.
A $12 box of 9mm ammo from any of the current list of manufacturers is a compromise of several factors because the producer has no way of knowing how the consumer will use its product. Those compromises, and to the extent they are applied, result in a product that is acceptable (albeit sometimes marginally) for a wide range of uses but excellent for none. Since most of us shooters spend the majority, or maybe the entirety, of our time engaged in one type of shooting per caliber it would be easy for us to tailor our ammo to fit our use. In making our own ammo our choice of powder, boolits, brass, and primers can be combined, with some experience and testing, to produce a cartridge vastly better for our chosen purpose than the $12 box, or even most of the more expensive products.
Because we can build better quality ammo does that mean that we will; or even should? Again, this depends on what kind of shooter we are and what kind of shooting we do. If you’ve gotten this far into reading this little epistle you’re most likely more than a 50-round-per-month shooter. You’re at least serious about the sport, if not an outright enthusiast. Still, if you’re not driven to, and capable of, producing ever smaller groups on paper, and shoot more than a box of ammo twice a month, you should probably stick to store bought. One proviso, however - if you seriously want to get a lot better at shooting and know that practice is what it takes to get there, reloading can help a lot with that mission because of the cost and quality of the ammo it takes to do that much practice. Yes, you can get high quality ammo, engineered for a specific purpose, at the store but that drives the price way up; and buying a lot of ultra-cheap crap over the internet will disappoint once you realize that the quality of ammo has more to do with your shooting success than you ever imagined.
As A Hobby In Itself
Reloading is a manufacturing process that produces a product necessary to feed our shooting endeavors. Seldom, however, do reloaders see themselves simply as a laborer in a manufacturing process. We gain varying degrees of satisfaction and/or enjoyment from the time spent at the reloading bench.
… A great way to spend some time doing something constructive.
Reloading can eat up a lot of time. Yeah, we hear stories about how someone’s setup is capable of turning out 600 rounds per hour but those are special situations. The typical reloader spends a heck of a lot more time than that in the production of high quality specialized ammo, which requires painstaking attention to detail. Not many of us are in the game for mass production - we think of our setup more as an artist’s brush than a cookie cutter.
All that having been said, a couple of hours utilizing a well designed setup can produce enough high quality ammo for a competitive match or range session with the guys. This is, of course, after all the education and practice is behind you and you know what you’re doing; and remember that safety thing - no shortcuts here.
….. Working with your hands while challenging your mind.
One of the reasons many of us choose to spend time at the reloading bench is that we are challenged by the very complicated science of ballistics. If you’re not a trained ballistics expert you probably have no idea how complicated handgun and rifle ammunition design happens to be. Choosing a powder and bullet size/shape/composition for a given cartridge is barely scratching the surface in the effort to produce ammo that best fits a particular need, let alone one that will adequately fit several needs.
Within limits, of course, a functional cartridge can be made from a variety of bullet lengths and diameters; perhaps as many as 10 or 20 combinations. The best 9mm combination for a Glock 19 will most likely not be the best for a Beretta 92, even though both are built to spec for the “9mm Luger” caliber. This is because Glock and Beretta make barrels of differing bore diameters and the design of the rifling in their barrels is different. Both will put holes in a “center mass” target from 7 yards pretty consistently with almost any commercial ammo, but getting a 2” 5-shot group from 25 yards will absolutely require ammo customized for the particular gun.
The myriad of component combinations provides an opportunity to fine-tune ammunition to fit your needs more precisely.
Supply problems
From time to time ammunition - either ammo in general or that of a particular caliber - becomes hard to find and/or ridiculously expensive. These episodes are nothing new, although the rumors about causes of the problems seem to be getting more imaginative and rooted in paranoia. Empirical evidence seems to confirm, however, that upward price mobility always follows these temporary shortages.
Each of us active shooters prepares for these situations in different ways. It’s a wisdom born of pain. Stockpiling or hoarding ammo of the caliber we shoot the most if one way of ensuring a personal supply against the possibility of shortages or rocketing prices. A prudent amount of “inventory expansion” - as I like to call it - entails quite a few decisions, however; any of which can easily be wrong - leading to a waste of a lot of money. I once bought a buttload (yes, buttload is actually a real unit of measurement - albeit not currently in common use) of 9mm ammo and found later that the quality was not all that great, its suitability for my purposes was questionable, and the shortage I expected never happened. I’ll eventually shoot it all (if I live long enough) but I could have put that money to better use if I’d made a better decision.
Reloading is a better way to prepare for shortages. Having on hand a reasonable inventory of components allows me to produce a variety of ammo on more of an “as needed” basis to meet my particular - and changing - shooting needs. Sure, I keep an adequate supply of loaded ammo in the calibers and load varieties I shoot regularly, but I don’t have to keep an excess on hand to combat potential supply and price problems. A particular powder, for instance, can be used effectively for assorted loads in several calibers. Some boolits, even, can be used in different calibers. A stockpile of only 2 sizes of primers will cover virtually ALL handgun ammo.
Reloading components are not immune from occasional shortages and price increases but these events - when they do occur - seem to be of less frequency, intensity and shorter duration than for loaded ammo.
Ballistic Science
If you’re in the pilot's seat, pulling back on the stick will make the airplane go up and pushing forward on it will make the airplane go down, but that’s not enough education to qualify you as a 747 Captain. The boolit comes out of the pointy end of the gun when your booger hook yanks on the trigger, but that’s not enough education to qualify you as a shooter. In both of these “tongue in cheek” examples additional education is required to make you safe and a great deal more is required to make you even marginally “good at it.”
How you grip the gun, how you manipulate the trigger, how you view the sights, breathing control, your shooting stance, etc. are all factors in how effectively you can put the boolit on its mark. The extent to which we learn and execute the proper application of those, and other, basics of gun control also affects the amount of enjoyment and/or satisfaction we get from a range session or, God forbid, how successful we might be in a personal defense event.
Utilizing a decent quality gun and “store bought” ammo, mastery of the shooting basics is achievable for most of us - given a reasonable amount of practice. Advanced education and a lot more practice can make some of us into much better than average shooters. If you throw good eyesight, talent, and desire into the mix a champion marksman or competitor might emerge. At this highest level, however, special guns and ammo are required because the personal skills of the operator have exceeded the capability of “production” guns and “consumer grade” ammunition.
As we strive to improve our shooting skills, education and experience with the science of ballistics can help by making us more aware of the various aspects of firearm operation. Reloading can provide an excellent and enjoyable means to acquire some or a lot of this knowledge as a very positive side effect. Combinations of boolit size/shape/weight and the type and amount of powder in a given caliber is almost unlimited. Each different combination will yield a dramatic or insignificant difference in the way a boolit will exit the muzzle and fly to the target. These variations have much more effect on the flight of the boolit than most shooters realize. Most combinations will not be good, some will be acceptable, and a few will provide excellent results - in terms of making a small group of holes at the appropriate place on the target. By controlling the variables in the construction of the ammo, we can learn about and control the ballistics of our shooting. The process is - concurrently - enjoyable, educational, and productive.
Don’t sell your reloads
Gun manufacturers typically insert language in the warranty that voids it if “reloads” are used. There is a good reason for this. “Store bought” ammo is guaranteed by its manufacturer (well, the vast majority of it is) to meet industry standards for various specifications. Ammo within these standards will not cause damage or excessive wear to a gun or its operator. Since an individual reloader may not even know or have access to these standards, it is entirely possible the reloaded ammo might not comply. Ammunition manufacturers spend considerable sums of money on equipment and procedures to control the quality of their product. The level of quality assurance in Bubba’s workshop may or may not be high enough to prohibit a destructive event when the firing pin engages the primer.
For these and other reasons, reloads have a tarnished reputation among casual shooters, and especially those that know little or nothing about the reloading process. I don’t feel insulted at all when a shooter declines to shoot reloads in his gun because there are plenty of true stories of Bubba's ammo blowing up his friend’s Glock. No, I’m not Bubba and I have absolutely no fear of my own ammo but that’s because I know how much care I put into my process and I have only myself to blame if I make a mistake.
So, Bubba is an excellent shooter and extremely sober, careful reloader. He uses quality equipment and keeps it in good condition. He uses high quality components and matches them with proven recipes known to work safely in the gun involved. Bubba is, however, a human and, as such, is capable of an innocent mistake. Bubba’s mistake finds its way into Marcel’s Glock and it blows up in the Marcel’s face. Marcel’s widow is convinced by a shyster that the Court will award her Bubba’s house, bass boat, and pickup truck. Bubba’s troubles are enormous no matter the final outcome. All Bubba was trying to do was recoup the cost of his reloading components and a favor for his shooting buddy, Marcel. It wasn’t worth it. Keep your reloads to yourself.
Safety is the first and final word
In the aviation business we used to say; “Flying is 99.9% sheer boredom, punctuated by 0.1% stark terror.” Thousands of commercial flights travel millions of miles with millions of passengers EVERY DAY without a single injury or fatality because the industry keeps safety as Job 1. I’ve loaded thousands of rounds of ammo in my workshop without a serious incident. Even the one minor “Oops” event I can remember in my shop was contained to that category, instead of escalating into an “Oh shit!”, because of adherence to established safety guidelines.
Safety is not free, and it can sometimes be inconvenient. Some safety protocols may even seem unnecessary or “that’s for pansies.” If you’re not willing to pay for and strictly adhere to the safety rules, please don’t get into reloading. It just ain’t worth the risk.
Respectfully Submitted
The Bunker Bunch
July, 2016
