hueyville
Member
So being the "guy" that buys most all the powder, primers and other loading supplies at the LGS I tend to get asked a lot of questions. According to who is asking and how, I am very careful about how I answer them. The two LGS's that I use the most have both asked me recently if I was interested in teaching reloading classes due to a huge increase in requests. My stock answer has been that my loading equipment is set up at home and the idea of dragging a bunch of unknown people into my home where they will have an opportunity to see things that if were known to certain segments of the local community my home may become a primary target for some neer-do-well has sufficed. So the owner of gun shop "A" told me recently he had two people really interested and both were regular customers for many years that he trusted enough to let hold the fort down while he ran to the bank to make a deposit, get a change order or grab some lunch. Owner of gun shop "B" told me the same line about one of his customers wanting to learn to reload so I gave them one of my public email addresses and said to have these folks contact me. Gee, what have I freaking done???
So after a little emailing back and forth it seemed as I had three decent guys that wanted to reload but were smart enough to realize a youtube video was not the way to go about it. One of them said his wife actually demanded he take lessons from a professional or she would not allow it. I told them they would have to sign a liability release and be willing to not only start but finish the basic program which was good for them and helped ensure me they would not leave with half the information I was willing to give out and be more of a danger than no lessons at all. I found out all three owned a .38 specials and a .308 Win among other combinations so we had our first class Saturday night.
We met at a LGS where they signed a form I had my lawyer draw up when he was writing the release for people to use the new indoor shooting range at work. I know a release is just a piece of paper but having an adult sign and have notarized a document stating they are embarking on a dangerous activity and they are responsible for any and all accidents is at least a start. My layer also said if I took no money for the class I was covered even better. I never went this far before, heck there was a time in the way, way back machine anyone who brought a 12 pack was at the bench as soon as we cracked the first cold one. Luckily I figured out that was a bad idea long before someone got hurt and actually quit drinking all together 20 years ago.
We left the LGS and they followed me to my house where we entered through the basement door. Funny how quickly they noticed my NIJ rated blast resistant/bullet resistant rear door was quite a bit different than a standard door. They even noticed the outer storm door looked a bit different than most with its triple weather seal, Best/Falcon medium security lock and wire mesh embedded in the glass which was covered with 3M ultra Prestige Security Film. The quad layer windows looking out on the lake from the rear of the basement gym and gun room with 1/2" Lexan center units was also noticed in conjunction with stainless burglar bars on all ground level windows. The security cameras and the automated fire suppression system seemed to be the final nail in convincing them that I lived in a fairly secure home and they were very curious as to where they could purchase some of the items I use for security and how much they cost. When I told them the reason for all this security is that once someone gets in I want to be sure and keep them in until I get to torture them for a while they had funny looks until they realized I was joking, or maybe not... With all this covered we started into our class. I had the wife turn the lead pot on when I called saying we were leaving the LGS so it was warmed up by the time we hit the reloading room which is separate from the vault room. Other than the home gym coming in the basement door the only other part of my homes interior they saw was the reloading and final gun assembly room. I do all my machine work at the shop but initial breakdown and final assembly happens in the relative cleanness of the home gun room. They really liked the two 10/22's that were in different stages of build.
I started the lesson with a cold 4 cavity mold and soon had it throwing nice pretty wad cutters faster than they ever expected. Once I thought they were catching on I sat the wad cutter mold to the side, handed the first guy a cold 38 caliber SWC mold and let him get it warmed up and threw about 20 to 30 good bullets. We set it to the side while he sized and lubed his bullets. By then the mold had cooled and student two cast a few and sized/lubed, then student three. We rolled their bullets into my big box of like items. A plastic tub with around 3,000 bullets seemed to be a new concept for the guys. i dipped out what looked to be enough for our lesson into one of the cute little Dillion bullet boxes for handy access when running the press.
I asked them to each bring 50 38 special cases and 20 308 cases which they did. I opened up the tumblers and put their 38's with some of mine into one and the 308's into the other tumbler. While loading the tumblers I explained the process, media, additives and reasons. I got a box full of already cleaned 38's and had them each put 50 into a loading block. We sat down at the case prep table and I showed them how the depriming/trimming/chamfering/primer pocket uniforming/primer pocket cleaning tasks worked. Explained the difference between primer pocket uniforming and just cleaning. Also went through flash hole deburring. Once each guy had prepped all 50 of his pistol cases we moved to a turret press. I pulled down three manuals and showed them how to look up powder charge, case dimensions and OAL. I showed them the variances in each, the preponderance of information in each one and what the odds that if a man only has one manual and that load your looking up is the one with a typo missed by the editor how catastrophic the results could be. First big lesson, two manuals minimum, three preferred and use them all.
So at the turret press I ran through the entire process from setting up the dies and powder measure to size/prime/bell/charge/seat/crimp. Then each guy got to load 25 of his pistol cases on the turret press being shown to check the charge weight every 10 throws for consistency. At this point each guy had actually been through the entire process of loading 25 rounds of straight wall pistol. We then moved to a Dillion I had already set up for 38 and I showed them how to load the primer tube, how the low primer alarm worked. How the powder measure worked, the powder check alarm, the purpose for all the different die stations and what happened at each one. I ran through 50 rounds in a blaze then let each guy take a slow turn at the machine finishing up their other 25 rounds with very close monitoring. So now all men had 50 rounds loaded, half single stage and half progressive.
Next I pulled 20 308 cases for each of us that were already cleaned. We went through the case prep process for all of the cases and then to two rock chuckers I had mounted up. We pulled down the loading manuals again and went through all the info specific to 308 in each. I choose two powders that have always shot well for me. I used a very generic standard 308 bullet, each man loaded 10 rounds with one powder, put them in some of the 10 round plastic cases factory ammo came in, labelled them with bullet type, powder type and charge weight. Then we switched powder and repeated the process. So when we finished each guy had 50 pistol and 20 rifle rounds they had made themselves.
We met at five, were at my house working before six and finished just after nine. At that point I asked them if they wanted to go shoot their pistol rounds and had a unanimous yes. We loaded up the wagon train and to my business we came where everyone got to shoot their fifty 38 target loads from the 50 foot line. It was a grinning group of guys who realized they had just cast their own bullets, loaded their own rounds, gone to the range and they shot every bit as good as any factory ammo they had ever used.
I fired up a computer and pulled current prices for powder by the pound, primers by the thousand and scrap lead by the pound, ran the numbers and when they saw that they were shooting 38 specials cheaper than most people can buy 22 rim-fire from Wallyworld I had three completely hooked, played, boated and in the cooler trophy fish ready for the taxidermist to mount on the wall. All emailed me Sunday night and said they fired their 308's and each had a powder that their rifle liked better than the other. One even said his rifle shot the best group with his first handloads it had ever fired.
This morning I got a call from both LGS owners that asked me to take care of their prize customers and asked me to come by. Each guy had given them a list of basic loading equipment and supplies and asked if they would check with me to make sure they were on the right track. I penciled in a few amendments and additions which they called their customers to get the o.k. which was fine. Since our first session was 38's I had the guys use HP-38 to keep it easy for their heads to remember powder. We used Alliant Power Pro 2000MR for the 308 Win mainly because I knew both stores had it on the shelf and IMR 4064 as it has been one of my go to powders since my mother weaned me off my baby bottle. The LGS owners said each guy purchased one pound of HP-38 and one pound of Power Pro, A few hundred small pistol primers and a few hundred large rifle primers. Each guy bought any die set they had in stock for a caliber they personally owned and only one store had a press in stock thus the first guy in yesterday bought himself a Rockchucker Combo kit and the other two guys ordered themselves the same kit.
Apparently me telling them that for a beginner or expert you can't go wrong with that setup stuck in their heads. I also told them that the four hole Lee turret press was worth double what it costs when balanced with its versatility. The guy that got to the LGS first and bought the in-stock Rockchucker kit also ordered a Lee turret press and an extra pack of turrets. I would not be surprised to find out the other two guys have one coming from elsewhere. My two LGS owners were ecstatic. They said the guys spent more money each on reloading yesterday than they had on their last couple of gun purchases.
As part of my deal with the guys I told them that one session was just enough knowledge to possibly get them hurt. Since they are like me and guns are their preferred form of entertainment, we have three more Saturday night classes scheduled. First class went a little long with the meet & greet at the LGS, doing the liability release with notary, (my lawyer told me that a notarized release seems to carry a lot more weight in court), drive to my house then back across town to my work to shoot their shiny new bullets, we started at 5:00 pm and didn't finish shooting till almost 11:00.
Next four classes are scheduled to start at 6:00 and run till 9:00. That will be a total of 12 hours of class time for these guys if they don't end up moving into the spare bedroom and never goi back home. Next week is going to be another general across the board gambit where they will all leave with a box of pistol and rifle bullets in different calibers, class three is going to be specific to bullet casting, swaging, how bullets are made, act and effect of seating depths/crimping, etc. Class four will concentrate on primers, propellents and how the change of just one component in a recipe can completely change the results. The fifth and final class will be a review of all previous material, question/answer session and a quick mention of the myriad of techniques we did not cover. While I could spend hundreds of hours teaching advanced techniques this is not my goal nor am I really motivated to spend months teaching someone the nuances of forming a case from its parent, annealing, inside neck reaming, outside turning, fire forming and the hundred or more little tweaks that can be done to a rifle case.
I am going to get them through the basics of loading straight wall pistol cases, standard rifle cartridges, proper bench safety, efficient work flow, bullet casting basics, etc. While I will mention alloys and such, I am not going to show them how to change the composition of a particular blend, no super low charges with dacron filler or such, No chamber casting, bullet comparators and all the micro bling that really does not matter unless your looking to shrink an already good group another hundredth of an inch. I want these guys to have enough hands on experience, the knowledge that you use at least three reloading manuals for verification of powder charges, no bottle of liquor on the bench, no case lube in the primers so that they end up with loads that function and don't cause them to lose a finger or an eye.
And now the coolest part. While I was adamant about not charging for the lessons or even compensation for class materials both LGS owners handed me a bag that they said was a gift from my students based on what they learned and knew I could use. The bag from LGS "A" had a pound of Lil'Gun and 500 Match primers. The bag from LGS "B" had two pounds of HP-38. While I am not short on any of said items and told the guys did not want or expect any pay for my time/materials, three pounds of powder and 500 match primers is not a bad score for a few hours of my time. I think the guys will get to take home a 100 rounds of pistol rounds from each class now.
So after a little emailing back and forth it seemed as I had three decent guys that wanted to reload but were smart enough to realize a youtube video was not the way to go about it. One of them said his wife actually demanded he take lessons from a professional or she would not allow it. I told them they would have to sign a liability release and be willing to not only start but finish the basic program which was good for them and helped ensure me they would not leave with half the information I was willing to give out and be more of a danger than no lessons at all. I found out all three owned a .38 specials and a .308 Win among other combinations so we had our first class Saturday night.
We met at a LGS where they signed a form I had my lawyer draw up when he was writing the release for people to use the new indoor shooting range at work. I know a release is just a piece of paper but having an adult sign and have notarized a document stating they are embarking on a dangerous activity and they are responsible for any and all accidents is at least a start. My layer also said if I took no money for the class I was covered even better. I never went this far before, heck there was a time in the way, way back machine anyone who brought a 12 pack was at the bench as soon as we cracked the first cold one. Luckily I figured out that was a bad idea long before someone got hurt and actually quit drinking all together 20 years ago.
We left the LGS and they followed me to my house where we entered through the basement door. Funny how quickly they noticed my NIJ rated blast resistant/bullet resistant rear door was quite a bit different than a standard door. They even noticed the outer storm door looked a bit different than most with its triple weather seal, Best/Falcon medium security lock and wire mesh embedded in the glass which was covered with 3M ultra Prestige Security Film. The quad layer windows looking out on the lake from the rear of the basement gym and gun room with 1/2" Lexan center units was also noticed in conjunction with stainless burglar bars on all ground level windows. The security cameras and the automated fire suppression system seemed to be the final nail in convincing them that I lived in a fairly secure home and they were very curious as to where they could purchase some of the items I use for security and how much they cost. When I told them the reason for all this security is that once someone gets in I want to be sure and keep them in until I get to torture them for a while they had funny looks until they realized I was joking, or maybe not... With all this covered we started into our class. I had the wife turn the lead pot on when I called saying we were leaving the LGS so it was warmed up by the time we hit the reloading room which is separate from the vault room. Other than the home gym coming in the basement door the only other part of my homes interior they saw was the reloading and final gun assembly room. I do all my machine work at the shop but initial breakdown and final assembly happens in the relative cleanness of the home gun room. They really liked the two 10/22's that were in different stages of build.
I started the lesson with a cold 4 cavity mold and soon had it throwing nice pretty wad cutters faster than they ever expected. Once I thought they were catching on I sat the wad cutter mold to the side, handed the first guy a cold 38 caliber SWC mold and let him get it warmed up and threw about 20 to 30 good bullets. We set it to the side while he sized and lubed his bullets. By then the mold had cooled and student two cast a few and sized/lubed, then student three. We rolled their bullets into my big box of like items. A plastic tub with around 3,000 bullets seemed to be a new concept for the guys. i dipped out what looked to be enough for our lesson into one of the cute little Dillion bullet boxes for handy access when running the press.
I asked them to each bring 50 38 special cases and 20 308 cases which they did. I opened up the tumblers and put their 38's with some of mine into one and the 308's into the other tumbler. While loading the tumblers I explained the process, media, additives and reasons. I got a box full of already cleaned 38's and had them each put 50 into a loading block. We sat down at the case prep table and I showed them how the depriming/trimming/chamfering/primer pocket uniforming/primer pocket cleaning tasks worked. Explained the difference between primer pocket uniforming and just cleaning. Also went through flash hole deburring. Once each guy had prepped all 50 of his pistol cases we moved to a turret press. I pulled down three manuals and showed them how to look up powder charge, case dimensions and OAL. I showed them the variances in each, the preponderance of information in each one and what the odds that if a man only has one manual and that load your looking up is the one with a typo missed by the editor how catastrophic the results could be. First big lesson, two manuals minimum, three preferred and use them all.
So at the turret press I ran through the entire process from setting up the dies and powder measure to size/prime/bell/charge/seat/crimp. Then each guy got to load 25 of his pistol cases on the turret press being shown to check the charge weight every 10 throws for consistency. At this point each guy had actually been through the entire process of loading 25 rounds of straight wall pistol. We then moved to a Dillion I had already set up for 38 and I showed them how to load the primer tube, how the low primer alarm worked. How the powder measure worked, the powder check alarm, the purpose for all the different die stations and what happened at each one. I ran through 50 rounds in a blaze then let each guy take a slow turn at the machine finishing up their other 25 rounds with very close monitoring. So now all men had 50 rounds loaded, half single stage and half progressive.
Next I pulled 20 308 cases for each of us that were already cleaned. We went through the case prep process for all of the cases and then to two rock chuckers I had mounted up. We pulled down the loading manuals again and went through all the info specific to 308 in each. I choose two powders that have always shot well for me. I used a very generic standard 308 bullet, each man loaded 10 rounds with one powder, put them in some of the 10 round plastic cases factory ammo came in, labelled them with bullet type, powder type and charge weight. Then we switched powder and repeated the process. So when we finished each guy had 50 pistol and 20 rifle rounds they had made themselves.
We met at five, were at my house working before six and finished just after nine. At that point I asked them if they wanted to go shoot their pistol rounds and had a unanimous yes. We loaded up the wagon train and to my business we came where everyone got to shoot their fifty 38 target loads from the 50 foot line. It was a grinning group of guys who realized they had just cast their own bullets, loaded their own rounds, gone to the range and they shot every bit as good as any factory ammo they had ever used.
I fired up a computer and pulled current prices for powder by the pound, primers by the thousand and scrap lead by the pound, ran the numbers and when they saw that they were shooting 38 specials cheaper than most people can buy 22 rim-fire from Wallyworld I had three completely hooked, played, boated and in the cooler trophy fish ready for the taxidermist to mount on the wall. All emailed me Sunday night and said they fired their 308's and each had a powder that their rifle liked better than the other. One even said his rifle shot the best group with his first handloads it had ever fired.
This morning I got a call from both LGS owners that asked me to take care of their prize customers and asked me to come by. Each guy had given them a list of basic loading equipment and supplies and asked if they would check with me to make sure they were on the right track. I penciled in a few amendments and additions which they called their customers to get the o.k. which was fine. Since our first session was 38's I had the guys use HP-38 to keep it easy for their heads to remember powder. We used Alliant Power Pro 2000MR for the 308 Win mainly because I knew both stores had it on the shelf and IMR 4064 as it has been one of my go to powders since my mother weaned me off my baby bottle. The LGS owners said each guy purchased one pound of HP-38 and one pound of Power Pro, A few hundred small pistol primers and a few hundred large rifle primers. Each guy bought any die set they had in stock for a caliber they personally owned and only one store had a press in stock thus the first guy in yesterday bought himself a Rockchucker Combo kit and the other two guys ordered themselves the same kit.
Apparently me telling them that for a beginner or expert you can't go wrong with that setup stuck in their heads. I also told them that the four hole Lee turret press was worth double what it costs when balanced with its versatility. The guy that got to the LGS first and bought the in-stock Rockchucker kit also ordered a Lee turret press and an extra pack of turrets. I would not be surprised to find out the other two guys have one coming from elsewhere. My two LGS owners were ecstatic. They said the guys spent more money each on reloading yesterday than they had on their last couple of gun purchases.
As part of my deal with the guys I told them that one session was just enough knowledge to possibly get them hurt. Since they are like me and guns are their preferred form of entertainment, we have three more Saturday night classes scheduled. First class went a little long with the meet & greet at the LGS, doing the liability release with notary, (my lawyer told me that a notarized release seems to carry a lot more weight in court), drive to my house then back across town to my work to shoot their shiny new bullets, we started at 5:00 pm and didn't finish shooting till almost 11:00.
Next four classes are scheduled to start at 6:00 and run till 9:00. That will be a total of 12 hours of class time for these guys if they don't end up moving into the spare bedroom and never goi back home. Next week is going to be another general across the board gambit where they will all leave with a box of pistol and rifle bullets in different calibers, class three is going to be specific to bullet casting, swaging, how bullets are made, act and effect of seating depths/crimping, etc. Class four will concentrate on primers, propellents and how the change of just one component in a recipe can completely change the results. The fifth and final class will be a review of all previous material, question/answer session and a quick mention of the myriad of techniques we did not cover. While I could spend hundreds of hours teaching advanced techniques this is not my goal nor am I really motivated to spend months teaching someone the nuances of forming a case from its parent, annealing, inside neck reaming, outside turning, fire forming and the hundred or more little tweaks that can be done to a rifle case.
I am going to get them through the basics of loading straight wall pistol cases, standard rifle cartridges, proper bench safety, efficient work flow, bullet casting basics, etc. While I will mention alloys and such, I am not going to show them how to change the composition of a particular blend, no super low charges with dacron filler or such, No chamber casting, bullet comparators and all the micro bling that really does not matter unless your looking to shrink an already good group another hundredth of an inch. I want these guys to have enough hands on experience, the knowledge that you use at least three reloading manuals for verification of powder charges, no bottle of liquor on the bench, no case lube in the primers so that they end up with loads that function and don't cause them to lose a finger or an eye.
And now the coolest part. While I was adamant about not charging for the lessons or even compensation for class materials both LGS owners handed me a bag that they said was a gift from my students based on what they learned and knew I could use. The bag from LGS "A" had a pound of Lil'Gun and 500 Match primers. The bag from LGS "B" had two pounds of HP-38. While I am not short on any of said items and told the guys did not want or expect any pay for my time/materials, three pounds of powder and 500 match primers is not a bad score for a few hours of my time. I think the guys will get to take home a 100 rounds of pistol rounds from each class now.
