Reloading help

[Jeff Stevenson]

Hello,
I have been reloading for about a year, and up until now it has only been pistol ammunition. I'm looking to start doing rifle ammo as well (.308 to start). I'm just curious as to what the major differences are and what other tooling I need to get. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

[samsplacci71]

Hello,
I have been reloading for about a year, and up until now it has only been pistol ammunition. I'm looking to start doing rifle ammo as well (.308 to start). I'm just curious as to what the major differences are and what other tooling I need to get. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I have been reloading for 2 years, all rifle. Various calibres, but mainly .308, 7.5 x 55 (Swiss), 8mm Mauser, 6.5mm Mauser. I can speak for myself, I have a manually intensive set up since I only have a single stage press. If you only have a single rifle per calibre, get a set of dies with FL resize, Neck size and Seating dies. The reason is that once you've fired your cartridge, the fire formed brass is specific to that rifle chamber so you all you have to do is neck size. This is especially important for military configuration Lee Enfield rifles. I have several rifles in each calibre and I am too lazy to separate the brass for each specific rifle, so I end up FL resizing. You can spend as little or as much on reloading equipment. The trick is to buy what works for you. Others will chime in with other pointers. Good luck.

 

[Trinimon]

One additional tool you will need to add is a case trimmer as bottle neck cases tend to stretch after FL sizing. You may not always have to trim after each firing but eventually you will.

To help cut down on trimming, pick up a Collet Neck Sizing die for the bottleneck cartridges you are going to reload for. That being said, neck sizing only works on cases that were fired from your rifle and sometimes, reloaded only for that particular rifle. Range brass or any spent cases fired from another rifle other than your own will need to be FL sized first and after than, neck sized.

 

[ATOM]

+1 on the above.

I would get really careful on your lube as rifle brass is far more likely to get stuck, a real PITA. Less of an issue if you're just neck resizing, of course. Anyway, get yourself a stuck case remover - you'll not need it until you really need it and then nothing else will do. Cheap insurance.

WRT case trimming, if you already haven't got a pair of callipers, now's the time.

 

[Pr589]

I would encourage you to get a case-length gauge as well. It really helps when checking that your sizing die is set correctly, as well as checking when full-length sizing is needed and/or the necks need trimming.