Remember your first reloads?

entropy said:

Gotta build up the brass collection.....

Click to expand...

LOL...yup, and that's exactly what I did. I have a good start with 1500 or so .38 brass and at least 500 of 44 special brass.

1988. Brand new Star 30M purchased at the gunshow in Okie City. Shot up a few boxes of store-bought, decided that was too expensive.

This was before the internet, and info was much more difficult to come by. Nobody I knew reloaded. The old guys at the gunshop had no time for a brash long-haired 20-something.
Bought a Lee hand press (the Thighmaster), and a set of Lee 9mm dies. The dies came with instructions, so I read them. Several times.
Bought a pound a Universal Clay's powder, a box of cast 115gr bullets, and commenced loading.

I lived in the city at the time. It never occurred to me to go to a range to shoot. I drove out to the boonies (easier to do back then) to shoot. The rounds leaded horribly.

I've learned much since then. Gave away the Thighmaster years ago, now I use a Lee Classic Turret.
I cast my own, and load around a dozen different cartridges.

We started on .30-06 and had some hiccups along the way.
I remember loading some up and shooting them. Pleased with the results, I loaded an entire box of them, 165 grain Hornady SSTs.
I got to the woods excited to be hunting with my handloads. I go to load my rifle and not one of them would chamber. I had loaded up an entire box of 20 and didn't trim them. The bolt wouldn't close on a single round.

I dug around behind the seat and found a partial box of factory ammo. I wasn't sure the POI would be the same, but I didn't want to go home, so I took the chance.
Killed my biggest buck ever that day with the ammo I fortunately found behind my truck seat.

Started in 1972 with a RCBS jr press and 270 and 30/06 dies. Rcbs 10/10 scale which I still use, then as time went on, it seemed I needed all the bells and whistles that came out over time. I sure wish I could go back to the simpler time when I bought 100 primers at a time, one pound of powder was enough. Now I panic when I get under 2000 primers and less than 5 pounds of powder!

The summer I graduated high school i moved across the state to work, I was living with my uncle. He had some friends who owned a small gun shop and did a lot of reloading. My uncle set me up with another job working for them on my days off. He told me to work hard over there all summer, don't ask about pay, and I would be heavily rewarded. For a solid month I resized and deprimed 5 gallon buckets of .223 on an rcbs single stage press. The rest of the summer they taught me how to reload. I finished that summer without making a dime there, but what I learned from those old guys is priceless to me now, a decade later, and not a day goes by I don't use it.

I started reloading for 2 reasons first was to afford to shoot my new blackhawk 2nd was I wanted to start off with light loads so I didn't develop a flinch. After reading everything I could find, I decided unique gave me the best option for light to heavy loads first load was 7 gr. Of Unique 215 gr. Semi wadcutter CCI large pistol primer on a Rock Chucker I bought used

30-06 for my M1 Garand in the late 70's. I started for reasons of economy to feed the beast. Garage sale kit...Lee handloader, Lee dies, Lee hand primer, Mec powder measure spoons, 3 boxes of 150gr FMJ, IMR 4895, Federal primers, and Lyman manual all packed in a plastic milk crate. Picked it all up for $7. I wouldn't have been able to afford much more than that at the time. I got some instruction from a WW2 Navy Master Chief and I drove out to the Canadian river and loaded rounds on the spot with some WW2 brass and a little WD-40 as lube. The M1 ate them all. It was hook, line, and sinker after that.

These days with acquisitions over the years and some of the best tools that money can buy, I fell like I'm walking in tall cotton and really appreciate them.

.40