Posts Tagged ‘Bullets’

By:  Mike Price It was so cold that day in the swamp about 30 minutes south of Baton Rouge.  The temperature plunged to 19 degrees during the early morning hours, and the humidity was 80%, making the experience much worse than it actually was. The cold went right through our clothing and felt like it [...]

By: Jim Kinsey Suddenly stopping mid-stride, I slowly turned to Jana and whispered, “You’re going to kill this bear!” Not far below us a nice, fat, black bear stood, its hide glistening in the evening light. Quietly dropping our packs we both knelt down trying to make the least amount of noise possible. The slightest [...]

Written By: Justin Moore Last year I got lucky enough to draw a mule deer tag for the unit in Eastern Oregon where I grew up hunting with my family and friends. There really is nothing like hunting with family in the same area where you first learned to hunt, fish and enjoy nature. The [...]

Written By: Jim Kinsey Day 1 After arriving at the small Indian Village of Fort Ware, Hugh Huston, Jon Schulte and I met up with our bush plane pilot and readied our gear for a perfect day to fly into the bush of Northern British Columbia. The weather was bright and sunny. Not exactly what [...]

Reloading isn’t inherently dangerous, but it is important to remember that you are working with explosives, so proper precautions must be taken. Most of the reloading safety precautions are common sense, but there are a few things that are unique to reloading that require special consideration. Reloading accidents and injuries are rare and by following [...]

A reloading manual is the most important piece of equipment on the loading bench. Reloading cartridges without the guidance of a manual is simply asking for a disaster to happen. Reloading is a highly technical endeavor where seemingly small mistakes can have potentially life threatening implications. That isn’t to say reloading is dangerous, because it [...]

When you first purchase your reloading equipment, you will immediately want to get it all set up so that you can begin reloading. Before you do so, it is a good idea to spend some time planning where you will set up your reloading bench. Having a nice area to reload in will not only [...]

Single Stage Press The reloading press is one of the simplest yet most essential tools in the reloading process. Basically, all the press does is hold a die or dies which the casing to be loaded is forced into by the ram of the press. The press provides the leverage and force required to push [...]

Dies are truly the key to the whole reloading process. Dies are essential for resizing fired cases to the proper dimensions to fit into the chamber of a firearm as well as seating a new bullet into the mouth of the case. There are a variety of dies available for performing various steps of the [...]

Case Trimmer As cases are fired and resized, they will stretch and grow longer. The excess length of the case has only one direction to go and that is out the neck, so cases need to have their necks trimmed occasionally to keep the total case length within safe limits. A case that is too [...]

Priming Tool A key operation in reloading is priming your brass by inserting a new primer into the case. Most presses have an attached priming arm, but many reloaders prefer to use a separate hand priming tool. Hand priming tools usually incorporate a priming tray that holds primers and feeds them into the priming tool [...]

Scale An accurate scale is an absolute necessity for reloading. A scale is primarily used to weigh a powder charge before it is poured into a case. Even when a powder measure is used to meter out powder, a scale is necessary for initially setting up the powder measure to meter out the desired charge [...]

A Reloading Manual Without a doubt, the most important piece of reloading equipment is a good reloading manual. A reloading manual is absolutely critical to loading safe and effective ammunition. Reloading manuals published by either bullet or powder manufacturers contain a wealth of data that is the result of many thousands of hours of research [...]

Every metallic cartridge is made up of four main components, case, primer, powder, and bullet. There are a wide variety of cartridge components available made by many different companies. One of the enjoyable aspects of reloading is the ability to experiment with various component combinations searching for the perfect load. It is important to realize [...]

The primer is what ignites the powder charge thereby firing the cartridge. The primer also seals the base of the case, containing the pressure needed to drive the bullet down the barrel. Using the proper primer for the cartridge is absolutely essential to loading safe and effective ammunition. Primers come in several sizes to match [...]

Finding the powder and bullet combination that works best in your rifle is the heart of load development. Typically, there are a wide variety of powders that can be used in a particular cartridge. Powder development has been one of the largest areas of reloading component advancement in the last several years. The number of [...]

Of all the components of a cartridge, selecting the proper bullet for the intended purpose of the cartridge is the most critical. The purpose for which a cartridge is going to be used has little bearing on one’s choice of powder, primer, or case, but bullets are designed and constructed for specific purposes. Hunting bullets [...]

The first time you read a reloading manual, it will seem overwhelmingly technical and complicated. Once you have loaded your first few batches of ammunition, it won’t seem so overwhelming anymore. Reloading is highly technical, requiring close attention to detail, but to simply reload safe and effective ammunition, one need not overwhelm themselves with too [...]

Keeping detailed records is an important part of reloading. Recording everything you do will not only help you produce more consistent reloads, it can also keep you safer. A detailed reloading log will allow you to look back and reference loads that you have tried in the past. It will also allow you to troubleshoot [...]

Reloading metallic cartridges requires a variety of specialized equipment. Looking in the reloading section of any catalog will reveal a mind-boggling array of various tools and accessories. At first, the number and variety of items required seems overwhelming, but it is important to realize that many of the tools and accessories aren’t really necessary for [...]

Headspace is the distance in your rifle’s chamber from the front of the bolt to the point at which the cartridge “headspaces” in the chamber. This description is confusing at first as it uses the term “headspace” to define what headspace means. A simpler way to think about it is this, there has to be [...]

Developing a load to match your rifle is one of the most fun and rewarding things you can do as a handloader. Experimenting with and tweaking different variables such as bullet, powder, and Cartridge Overall Length gives you the ability to find the very best performing load for your rifle. The keys to proper load [...]