Remembering back in time.

S

Sure Shot Mc Gee

New member
I'm curious.
What was your very first reloading that got you hooked into wanting to Home Reload there after?




Hopefully y'll have a story. I'd be Pleased Sir if you would comment those: Memory thoughts.

Regards, S/S Mc G.
 
in the 70s with the lower income/dollar value.....ammo was expensive...reloading back then was around a 70% savings....starting with the Lee.1972....after having a primer detonate....I saved up my few spare dollars....invested in a RCBS JR press..1973....which if memory is correct was all of $35 with one set of dies included..mine being 38/357...and added the "Reloader special package".around a $100 ..which had the RCBS scales....powder measure..a Speer reloading manual...lube pad...and various odds and ends...still have that press and assessories to this day....only God knows how many rounds that old hunk of cast iron and steel....has produced in the past ...geebus....43years....

38/357
44/44mag
223
308
9mm
45acp
45lc
40
380
 
1974 I did a Penn State internship at the Erie, PA police department. Great time, learned a lot about how a PD works. Spent as much time as
I could at their indoor pistol range and the officer in charge said I could with him supervising, but I would have to reload. Can't remember what kind of progressive it was, but it was red and spit out a .38 with every pull of the handle.

Did I mention what a great bunch of guys at the PD? I was there three months, and at least once a week I was invited to dinner at an officer's home. There was lots of civil unrest in the country in those years, and I was a long haired college kid that was accepted without judgement.
 
In 1968 in high school senior English class, Alan Hale, would ask any other boys, "Know anything about reload'n?"

In 1978 my youngest brother was casting bullets for his 1911 in my parent's fireplace.

In 1999 someone said to me, "If you are buying all these guns and so obsessed, you need to start reloading." I ordered a rockchucker kit. I did 223, 308, and 44 mag.

By 2016 I am up to reloading over 65 different cartridges, but typically only mess around with a few of them in a year. In the last year I have reloaded 6.5-06, 300WM, 6mmRem, 45/70, 44-40, and 32-20.

During the next year I expect 250 Krag Ackley activity.
 
Back in the 50s stationed at the Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, you could bring your firearms onto the base as long as they were kept locked in your car or stored at HQ. I had a .270, an '06, a .45 and a .38. A friend working in the radio section also had a .38 so why not reload for them. We acquired the necessary tools and components which included an orange Lyman press for 7/8" sizing dies. So where to set up was the question. Since my friend was working the radio room night shift, that seemed to be the perfect place. So we did just that and got underway. One night the Captain in charge of the section walked in and we were thinking Court Martial or at least an Article 15. However much to our relief he was quite interested in what we were doing, expressed no concern that we would blow the place up, and we were allowed to continue. We must have had some reloading instruction material since we had no hesitations on how to proceed. All went well.

This was during the time when Chuck Yeager was a test pilot in the various X-type aircraft. I was an aircraft mechanic at the base. My greatest surprise and honor was when Korean War fighter ace Col Royal Baker came rolling in flying a T-33 aircraft that I was directing in.
 
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first, when I was 10 or younger, my dad would let me help cast roundballs for his muzzle loaders. around 12 or so, he taught me to reload. then we mostly loaded 5.56, but we never did it much, because ammo was still so cheap, it was more for fun than necessity. now, I have my own gear and am starting to teach my son little by little... I think by the time he is grown, it will be an even more important skill.
 
12 gauge shells. I shot trap for the first time when I was about 20 and I immediately thought about how satisfying it would be to blast a clay with something I made myself.

I think a lot of people get in to hand loading to save money, I got in to it for that satisfaction and it has never once disappointed!
 
In the mid 1960's I would sit in my father's lap while he loaded his .243s on his old Lyman Jr. turret press. He would let me run his home made trickler.
I still have that trickler today and still use it.

His rifle was a 1946 model 70 he bought used off of one of my uncles.

He started me on 30-30s around 1970 when I was 12 and under his supervision he taught me to load on a Redding Jr open frame press. That old press got so loose and the pins kept falling out of the handle, I eventually junked it and bought my first RCBS Rock press in the 1980s.

Some time in the early 80s I took over all the reloading for the family and really dug into the advanced parts of it. Then I got into pistol reloading in the late 80's and bought my first progressive in 1992. A Lee Pro 1000 which still sit's beside my LNL-AP. All I use the Pro1000 now for is re-sizing .357mags.

All my rifle shells and .41mags still get loaded on my Rockchucker.
 
1974 I was 14 years old and was introduced to the sport of handguning as my best friends dad called it.
My dad was a WW2 vet and had no love of guns after the war so I was introduced to them through my buddies dad.
He started us boys with a Ruger 3 screw shooting 38 spl and told us if we want to shot more we had to learn to reload the ammo.
He started us on a Lee single stage.
Once we had that caliber mastered he moved us up to 357 mag and then on to 44 mag.
Up until I shot 44 mag reloading was just a way to have more ammo.
Once I shot the 44 mag I was hooked and hooked hard.
Reloading was not just a way to have more ammo it had become an obsession of how far can I push a 44 cal bullet and still load an accurate round.
By the time we were 18 yr old me and my buddy bought a used Lee progressive and started cranking out the ammo.
We shot almost every week and the days we shot we burned through 1500 rounds on average. We had jobs to support our love of guns, cars and girls and pretty much in that order.
By the time I turned 21 I had bought me a Hornaday progressive press and my buddy keep using the Lee until it wore completely out and Lee claimed “Abuse” was the cause of the press failure and would not repair or replace it.
How many of y’all remember pistol powder for less than $4.00 a pound and the shelves were always stocked with your favorite powders?
 
Got my Discharged papers in the Fall of 68. Applied for and got a good paying job at a newly built USA made vehicle plant. On the drive home from work one afternoon I noticed a hill side covered with broken clay targets. Scouted it out the following weekend and found a single Trap & 5 lane indoor Pistol Range hidden back off the road away's residing in a closed gravel pit not three miles away from my work place. Talked to the range manager a bit. Got to thinking how neat it would be to shoot some trap after work. Talked to a couple co-workers at work to see if they too were interested. Idea immediately caught on with 21 of us doing. Shooting for highest score once a week hoping to win a case of beer got to be a real challenge. A number of my fellow co-workers got to be pretty darn good at shooting trap. I and two or three others managed some how to shoot 25 straight. Honestly: Those beers we won seldom made it home.
Oh my thinking back~~fun times in a troubling US time. No doubt about that.

16 yr old Range Manager was charging us 3.00 a box -2.00 a round. Most of us shot a warm up round before shooting for high score. $10.00 bucks was the average cost per guy to shoot. I bought a little Mec 600 Jr hoping to save a little money in making my own. That doing blossomed into everyone wanting me to reload 12 ga for them as well. Given all the new fired AA hulls after each shoot. I began reloading for my co-workers also. To recoup my supplies costs. I found it necessary to charge $2.00 box. Being the Gun Range belonged to a park district no harm was caused by my reloading for my co-workers. As told. The range had no intention of making money on ammo sales. Ammo sold there was shelved for the convenience of its shooters and sold marginally above Range cost.

My co-workers shooting from Spring to Fall once a week went on for 3 years before we tired of doing. During that Trap experience I also got involved with pistol shooting and joined a league. Got pretty proficient at it. To where my/the team won a couple first place trophy's. By then a Lee Progressive 1000 and a Hornady single stage press were my chosen bench tools and a Lyman Mag 20 furnace was purchased to smelt my purchase of 1-1/2-ton of Linotype from a closing print shop.
Over time my reloading bench has turned Green with a cast iron Rock Chucker and associate tools. All those previous Red reloading tools were either retired or plain to see worn out and all simply store away.
Still casting ~reloading ~and shooting yet. In my 70s now. I highly doubt I will retire from this life long hobby. Yup!! Hook for life I guess. :)
 
My dad reloaded so I grew up with the "powder room" out in the barn. After I left home I would save my brass and take it back to the farm whenever I got a chance to visit. About 10 years back my Dad passed. When everything was being settled my sister ended up with the farm and the barn with all the equipment in it which included the reloading equipment.

I still made my visits count and would bring my brass for a reloading afternoon. My brother-in-law only had a 9mm when Dad passed and I set up one of the presses for 9 and the other for 44mag (I had 2 back then). They now stay set up for 9mm and 380 as that is what my BIL shoots. When I visit I will press out any 9mm and whatever else brass that I may have with me.

I have a single stage mostly for rifle but I do press out a few pistol with it. I visit the farm often enough I don't see a need for another press.
 
My Dad came home from the office one evening, probably around 1974-1975, with an RCBS rock crusher and a bunch of related stuff that he bought from a coworker who was getting out of reloading. I would have been about 10.

After that, it was pretty much all over for me. I quickly started reloading with him, and by the early 1980s, when I was starting to purchase handguns, I was doing most of the reloading.
 
It was back in about 1973 or 74 while I was stationed at Ft. Riley, KS with the Big Red One. There were several of us who bird hunted together. One of other guys had a Pacific Reloading Set for 12 gauge. He was reassigned and sold it to me along with components and a few general instructions. I still have it and still reload with it.

Then I bought one of the Lee pound a mole kits for about ten bucks new and started reloading .243 Winchester at about the same time.

It has progressed to the point I reload for 8 handgun calibers, 6 rifle calibers and 3 shotgun gauges.
 
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I just recently started reloading 45-70 and I found it not to be a chore, but to be entertaining as well. I have since started reloading the following:

7-30 waters
.357herriat
30-30 Winchester
.222
.22 hornet.

I plan to start reloading for all of my ammo eventually but I did just start a month ago. it gives you a feeling of " hmmmm... I did that and it performed flawlessly... time to do another batch". I did not know the word to describe that feeling but I get it every time I shoot one of my reloads.

it has gotten to the point where I look forward to picking up all of the spent brass laying on the ground, and I get quite upset when I cant find one lol
 
I first started in the early 80's. Had some shooting buddies that "taught " me how. Never heard about measuring cartridge length or trimming. Fortunately
we lost track of each other and I quit shooting for a few years. I got lucky and never had a problem with my reloads. Now 20 some years later I am back at it. Doing it right this time with checking everything twice and doing proper load work ups. Now I just need to practice shooting to get accuracy back.
 
I started back in 1972... My father in law gave me a rem 722 in 222 rem, and a mod. `94 win. 30-30..The 722 was made in 1949...just like me... I shot my first coyote with that 222, and my own reloads...I remember it like it was yesterday!
I started with a lyman c press, and later went to the lyman spar-t turret press.
I use RCBS RC II and an old redding 6 station press. still loading 30-30, and 32 special...along with .223, .308, 7mm-08, 243 win, 22-250, 300 sav. .44 mag, and special, and 38-357, have other dies in different calibers...just in case!
 
Up until well into my twenties, the only guns I ever had were .22s.
Then, motivated by all the tv westerns, I acquired a couple of Ruger Blackhawks, one in .357 and the other in .44Mag.
After buying just a few boxes of factory ammo, it was clear that it was going to be expensive shooting.
Fortunately there was a shop nearby with reloading stuff, including a used Lyman turret press and scale.
Along with a Mec Jr. for 12 gauge.
With a few other goodies, I was in business.
Been doing it ever since.
The original equipment and revolvers are all long gone, replaced with a Dillon press and such.
Can't imagine ever not reloading most of my own ammo.
 
In 1969 I got my first center fire gun; a 3" .38 Special. When shooting one day I picked up a case I had just ejected and thought "I wonder what I could do with these"? I picked up a gun magazine and saw some references to "reloading" so I researched, listened at the local Police Range, and bought a Lee Loader (this was waaaaay pre-web and I didn't know any "Lee Haters"). I pounded out very good ammo for the next 18 months, or so, and then started purchasing texts on reloading, followed soon by a bench press, dies and scale. And so it began, 6 presses (still have 4), 13 die sets, 5 beam scales, two digital scales (just one left) and 3.4 tons of assorted reloading tools ago...:rolleyes:
 
After my Dad passed away, Mom quickly got me on to guns as I had wanted to do for so long. First was a trip out to the house of a friend of the family and after that, a local sportsman's club in the next town over. Together... we began skeet shooting and Mom bought a Citori Skeet on the recommendation of many old guys at the club. She would shoot a round or two on Sunday mornings and I would shoot four rounds and shortly after, I began shooting four rounds on Wednesday evenings. It became VERY obvious quickly that we'd need to load shotshells so we had that same FFL friend order up a Mec-650, as spec'd out by club guys and seemingly overnight, I started spitting out 20ga shotshells with #9 in 'em, loaded in Win AA and Remington Premier hulls.

I very much enjoyed the shotshell production on the Mec-650 but I knew what I really, truly wanted -- and that was to get in to metallic handloading for handguns, and my only centerfire at that point, my S&W 686-3. Mom funded my first press (Lee Challenger "2000", an O-frame single stage) and Lee dies and powder dippers. No tumbler... no scale! :D Just the slide-rule card thingy that came with the powder dipper set.

With this rig and Federal brass, CCI-500 small pistol primers, Hercules Green Dot and Speer swaged 158gr LRN and SWC bullets... and a brand new copy of Speer#11, I went to work all on my own. This was 1988 and I had no internet and no mentor. I had some cranky, nearly EVIL old gun store turds who sneered at every component or tool I asked about or purchased. I was mere months shy of my 17th birthday and I took my first loaded rounds to the range and I stood at the 100 yard line and loaded my S&W 686.

I extended my arms -- then turned my head almost entirely! :D I had done so much reading up to that point, I couldn't imagine this whole thing was a scam for the select purpose of blowing up my prized revolver, and I was rewarded when the first shot went off without a hitch and I sent that slug a hundred yards in to the berm.

I knew I was hooked on handloading but honestly, I kind of knew well before that first shot. I was an avid Guns & Ammo reader and guys like Bob Milek had me constantly dreaming of rolling all my own ammo.

.38 Special was first, .45 was next. Then .30 Carbine and 10mm, then .223 and 9mm at some point later. These days I am set up to load pretty much all of the known/common/popular handgun rounds and I also load a couple of the less known ones, too. (.327 Federal, .460 Rowland, .357-44 B&D) I dabble in rifle, mostly .223 to feed a prairie dog gun for an annual trip.

I keep a strict count of my production because I've always enjoyed keeping counts of things. I've been punching out 15-20k a year over the past five years and enjoying almost every moment of it.
 
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