When did you start reloading ?

1973 while in college. 35 Rem on a Lyman Spartan for my 1963 336 Marlin.
Today still use the Lyman plus three Dillons- 357 SD, 45acp SDB, 550 multi caliber

1968 (or somewhere around), was just back from the war, a buddy and I were in a surplus shop, he convinced me to buy a Schmidt Rubin 1911 ($34.95), after we fired the 20 rounds that came with it, then discovered that the ammo was more than the weapon... bought a Lee hand loader, some primers, Norma brass (damn expensive even then) borrowed a belt of 308 from Bragg, knocked them down, used the powder and bullet... I was hooked

In 2002 I bought. 25-06. Walmart had 3030. 243, 270, and 30-06 and lots of other popular stuff but no 25-06. I was telling my friends dad about it and he said come over I have bullets I’ll give you.
I got there and was shocked to see it was just bullets. He and I sat down and spent the day cleaning, prepping and loading (20) 25-06 120 grain core locks. I had my deer rounds. a short time later I went in my favorite GS looking for some factory 25-06. Nothing on the shelves but there sat a Lee reloading kit for $80.00 the guy (who I really liked) opened the box and we lined everything up to see what all was there. I bought it and headed home happy.
he told me of a hardware store near an hour away that would have powder, primers and anything I might need. The next weekend I went there. I came home with 1lb of IMR 4350 100 new brass 100 primers, Lee dies for a 25-06 and a Lee auto prime. no bullets. That guy(who was also very helpful) told me about Midway. I ordered 500 Remington 120 grain corelocks. I used this setup until this year when my friend (son of the guy that first got me started) called and asked if I was interested in a RCBS pro 2000 deluxe reloading kit?
I bought it for $250.00 about a month back. I can’t get she’ll plates for it as of now but I’ve spent the cold snap prepping lots of 223.

JD Fla1 said:

Hey all.. Unbiased and unafraid.. I started 6 mos. ago, but have not produced a single round yet. No primers... Maybe that's good, because I am learning a lot along the way, especially from here. been lurking for months
I have 2 presses now, an ABLP and a Challenger. Finding some dies, and accessories has been a chore. I refuse to buy anything with jacked prices.
2-1/2 five gallon buckets full of decapped and cleaned 9mm, 308, and processed 223/556 range brass, and some 762x39 await the powder I have found.
Still have a nice stash of factory ammo bought 2 and 3 years ago. I had some... foresight.
So, I started, but I haven't.
This is my first post to this forum, and I'm stickin' to it. Now, back to sit back and learn mode. Thanks everyone-

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No shame. Welcome to the group! My biggest piece of advice for new reloaders....

Ask questions.

No distractions.

Pay attention.

Don’t rush.
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Verify your load charges with at least one other source.

If you think it’s possible you did something wrong, stop and start that cartridge over. If it’s after completing the cartridge, pull the bullet. It only takes 1 minute to save your gun, and a potentially an expensive hospital bill.

If you get tired or sleepy, stop. Put everything up and come back another day.

This one is very important.....Only keep one powder on your bench when you’re loading. And learn what they look like. You think you’re loading 56gr of H4350 in your 30-06 but you accidentally poured 56gr of H-110, you’re going to have a VERY bad day when you pull that trigger.

Pay attention and Verify. Verify. Verify. When you get the hang of it, verifying won’t actually seem like a step in the process.

about a year ago. I thought it was longer, but I went back and looked up old threads and Dec of 2019.

KandBA said:

At age 8 (1967) my father started me quail hunting with .410 shotgun. It wasn’t long before we moved on to 20 and 12 gauge. In the off season we shot trap almost every Saturday. We had two MEC 600’s and reloaded constantly. I didn’t have any money for supplies and Dad didn’t have the time to reload, it worked out well for me, I gained a lot of experience.

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Amazing!!!! At age 8 my father started me on skeet and trap, 2 rounds each for both of us on Sunday. I’m not going to quote a year but it was 6 decades ago. Our one MEC 650jr was automated by me, and reloaded a lot of champion paper hulls. At 14 I bought a used 700BDL in .22-250 with an RCBS jr and all the RCBS gear to go with it at Creekside gun shop - that was back in the day when you could. Eventually I added the progressive and haven’t stopped since. It’s nice reading about everyone else! Good luck all!

Would like to see some younger folks posting here... there are a lot of new reloads that could learn from all of the experience listed throughout this thread.

I started March 2020 as something to do while in quarantine. I got hooked. I continue to read, reread, watch videos, ask questions, etc. There is so much to learn and reloading does not treat mistakes kindly.

1969 C-H Super C with my dad.

Around 1965 I started loading 20 ga with paper wads & cork, I was 12 then. My dad watched me and then he bought a Mec 600 setup for 12 ga. Around 1974 I started in with metallic, 30 carbine, 357 mag, 308, 7mm Mag.

December 2019 is when I got started. I was gifted a Rock Chucker from a friend that decided not to get into reloading from the 70's that worked like a charm. I was gifted a ton of other stuff from the same era. It was everything I needed to get started to include all the components. They had been shoved aside in a corner of this guys place for decades! When I looked at it all, I knew I could use it. It all worked great. Old beam scale, and even reloading manuals from the 60's and 70's.

But I knew that there were a bunch of the stuff that I could upgrade to newer stuff to make reloading life a little easier. I've slowly upgraded most everything except the press. I'm still going at it on the singe stage rock chucker. It's slow going. But I'm not a competition shooter that needs to have 1000 rounds made up in one sitting. I ended up winning a bunch of stuff from an estate auction as well. And then, I built an 8' long bench and brought it in the house despite my wife not wanting it in the house. But I won that argument to turn one of our kids play rooms into my room. Kids have gotten older now and we didn't need the play room anymore.

I love looking at the old reloading manuals and compare them to the new ones.

1974. a box of Norma 7.62X54 aka 762 Russian, Was half the price of the gun. Thought I would save money. All I got was an addiction.

1976. Pacific press I bought from the Sidney NE Cabela's store. I lived across the street from a pistol range

Summer of 1950 when I was 13, my Dad said Son, If you’re gonna keep shooting my old Colt DA 38, you’re gonna have to learn to reload and cast your bullets, too. Loaded several years with an old Lyman 310
Nutcracker tool. Did my casting with a plumbers furnace and lead pot. Found an old Ideal sizer/luber. Still have all that but now use more modern equip.

2013. In my garage. So glad I did, keeps me supplied through weird times like these. Worked up 50 rounds of .38 Special last night for pennies on the dollar to what they go for online.

Ya ever get to a point where you go and buy a gun in a specific caliber for no reason other than an interest in hand loading for that caliber??

Nearly there. Looking at 38/357 revolvers and 6.5 Grendel seems appealing again.

herkyguy said:

Ya ever get to a point where you go and buy a gun in a specific caliber for no reason other than an interest in hand loading for that caliber??

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Well, I have purchased a firearm (3-screw Ruger 41 Mag) because I had dies for it.

Does that count ?

LightninST said:

One perk of reloading for Revolvers is you don’t have to bend over or look for your brass
And the load only has to be hot enough to make it out the barrel

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That's what I was thinking, thought I'm headed the other way in terms of spiciness of the load. See my longish range handgun thread. Plus if I go ahead and find dies now I'll be ahead of the game when I finally buy the revolver.

I bought a Lee Classic 4 die Turret press Dec 2020 to start reloading at age 70. I didn't get my first handgun until five years ago but i'm making up for lost time (which i'm running out of LOL) Now I've got a dozen 38 & 357 revolvers that need feeding so I started making 38spl after Christmas and shot my first 357magnum reloads last week. I saved 10K pieces of brass in the last four years anticipating reloading and a friend sold me 3K SPP. Scored six pounds of HP-38 and bullets so i'm keeping busy this winter. Great hobby for a retired guy who's got the time and it's very satisfying to shoot ammo I made myself. Learned a good bit right here on this forum. Thanks.

Mark_Mark said:

are Jack Rabbits tasty?

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If you're a coyote, I suppose.
Just kidding around. I remember my dad telling me that young jackrabbits aren't too bad. But then again, a buddy once told me that jackrabbits killed in the winter aren't too bad either, so I killed one out in the pasture in the middle of January that year. My wife is a great cook, and can make just about any wild game meat really shine, but even she couldn't make that jackrabbit edible. After one bite, we threw the rest of it out.

.308 Norma said:

If you're a coyote, I suppose.
Just kidding around. I remember my dad telling me that young jackrabbits aren't too bad. But then again, a buddy once told me that jackrabbits killed in the winter aren't too bad either, so I killed one out in the pasture in the middle of January that year. My wife is a great cook, and can make just about any wild game meat really shine, but even she couldn't make that jackrabbit edible. After one bite, we threw the rest of it out.

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it can’t be that bad. let me look this up!

youtube university here I come