Getting sick of tedious reloading.

archie_james_c

archie_james_c

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Lately (6 months) I've been getting tired of tedious loading for accuracys sake. Used to be, I'd get a box of desired bullets, I'd start 2 grains below max book charge, and shoot 3 of each powder charge (half grain increments) up to max, and if possible over max. Then go home and load more up of some of the more accurate charges and repeat. Always looking for that magical 1/2 MOA load.

Now I just wanna load up and hit the longer range gongs. I started doing 200 round ladders, but really, I don't even want to take those 2-3 charges in the "accuracy node" and test them accuracy wise against each other. The last month or so, I've just ran a ladder test till I ran into proper pressure (for me thats flat primers and I back off 1 grain if I hit stiff bolt lift), and then load up and shoot like a mo' fo'. Accuracy and speed have been good to me (.75-1.25").

Anyone else getting this way too or am I just ####ed? More of a rant from a cabin fever plagued shooter...gotta order more 7mm pills...
 
Nah. I figure lots of guys out there are trying to hit those half inch groups with a 1 inch capable rifle, thinking it's a load problem all the way along. They need a hobby too.

Someone on here posted that he looked for loads that shot accurately with as much as a half grain (?) variance in charge, rather than the loads that were only accurate if carefully measured out in tenths of a grain exactly perfect. Said something about it cutting into his trigger time, IIRC. Or his life.

Gotta get some fun outta this, or you wake up and don't wanna crawl out from under the covers.

Cheers
Trev
 
That's the funny thing with reloading....you can chase your tail all day, or do a few circles and call it good. I had a load worked out with my .223, and came to the end of that batch of bullets. I wasn't sure where to start with another brand of bullets, so I kept the load the same. This load shot even better.....:) You know what happens next, right? This batch of bullets is about out, so on to a 3rd bullet change, and it shoots on par with the first load. I'd rather be lucky than good.:D
 
I don't get to carried away chasing accuracy dreams in a hunting rifle. For most scoped, bolt action hunting rifles once I get a load that produces consistent MOA (or dang close to it) results at 200m I am done with load development. After that I shoot gongs and other reactive targets from 100 - 500m, offhand, sitting, kneeling, laying prone, from the bench, etc.
 
Big Jon said:
I don't get to carried away chasing accuracy dreams in a hunting rifle. For most scoped, bolt action hunting rifles once I get a load that produces consistent MOA (or dang close to it) results at 200m I am done with load development. After that I shoot gongs and other reactive targets from 100 - 500m, offhand, sitting, kneeling, laying prone, from the bench, etc.
Click to expand...

Glad to see we think a like :)
 
There is one other variable to throw into the equasion as well.

It isn't nearly as bad, now that manufacturing principles and use of a Juenke guage is common to check jacket concentricity.

Back in the day, a four inch group out of any hunting rifle at 100yds was acceptable to both manufacturers and hunters. If you had a rifle that would shoot consistent two inch groups, you had a real gem.

Today, things have changed. Many of those old rifles we used were well capable of MOA and even sub MOA groups. The biggest problem was the components the ammo was put together with.

Relatively inconsistent powders, primers and bullets.

It wasn't at all uncommon to find up to 5 grains varience in bullet weights, especially with bulk lots.

The weights weren't really an issue though. Inconsistent ignition was the worst. Many powders, were also inconsistent in burn rates, sometimes dramatically so.

The next biggest problem was bullet jacket concentricity.

Most bullet manufacturers were plagued with problems keeping jacket thicknesses the same all over the jacket. They had some very tedious ways to measure an unswaged jacket and likely just didn't do it often enough.

For us accuracy freaks, we either swaged our own or bought custom swaged bullets made up with J4 jackets and cores we cut ourselves.

Some of us even went so far as to use copper tubeing , which we swaged for concentricity, before assembling the bullet. This of course meant open bases. There was some advantage to open bases. Especially when the bullets were going to be used in the milsurps so many of us hunted with at the time.

Today, just about any primers off the shelf are consistent igniters from round to round. The powders are also consistent burners. Most bullet jackets are very concentric and of consistent thickness throughout. This makes for far better accuracy right from the start.

It is no longer worth while to swage our own bullets. It costs almost as much as most bullets available off the shelf. Sometimes, the quality isn't as good as the commercial stuff.

To blame a particular load for inaccuracy today, may hold some water but for the most part, when you start to get consistent groups from a bullet and just can't seem to shrink them anymore, there are other issues at play.

Many people immediately blame the rifle, bedding, scope etc. Most often, it's just a matter of consistent components. Especially primers and bullet jackets.
 
Take a break - have some fun!!!

Bring a 22 rimfire rifle to the range next time instead of a CF. Go and put some lead down-range for fun :) Lots of it :D:D:D

I went and shot skeet for a year to give myself a break. However, I did reload thousands of shot shells during that time..... :p

It was a good diversion.

Sounds like you need a reloading vacation.

Good luck - SD
 
Blaaahs

After 40 years of loading I can tell you it comes and goes in waves. Sometimes you get the blaaahs and you just gotta put it down for a month or so, don't even go in your loading room, watch TV, waste your time on forums like this and pretty soon you'll feel that old urge again. A new rifle/handgun in a new caliber you've never played with before can be a great jumpstarter, too.
 
I hate reloading. Could be because I weigh every charge, but that's the only way to make really good long range match ammo.

I have about 1600 empty Lapua cases sitting here waiting for me to resize and clean before I even start to prime them all. The only good part about it is everything was trimmed last year and all the cases are already weight sorted. And I already have a load developed.

As usual I will wait until about 2 weeks before the shooting season starts, then start to panic. And I will likely be up until after midnight the day before a match or practice loading enough rounds to get me through the match.:bangHead:

So, if anyone in SW Ontario that thinks reloading is fun and wants to learn how to make match ammo, we can work out some kind OJT right here at my place. I will let you resize all my brass, prime all my cases and will teach you how to weigh each charge and seat match bullets. I will do this out of the goodness of my heart. However if you are a fellow TR shooter that I will be shooting against this summer, disregard this offer:p
 
I am also interested in taking up your offer. I want to learn on how I can beat you more, but yet again, you are my ride to and from the range time to time. So I better think this one over really hard...........I don't want to be left behind at a service centre again:dancingbanana::rockOn:
 
Syxx15 said:
I am also interested in taking up your offer. I want to learn on how I can beat you more, but yet again, you are my ride to and from the range time to time. So I better think this one over really hard...........I don't want to be left behind at a service centre again:dancingbanana::rockOn:
Click to expand...

Ok let's get this straight.....I didn't make it all the way on to the highway, I only made it to the ramp. And that was on the way to the match:p I would have turned around at the next exit and came back to get you.:nest: Really I would have:p
 
reloading pistol ammo is quite different. I have the same load for 4 years for 9 & 45 . Its a plinking light round, check 1 in 10- or 20 usually just make 1 k per night probably make 10k of each and start again in 2 months..

When shooting IPSC I had a load for power factor in 9mm and a lot snappier
 
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