How did you start??

My brother gave me a Lee reloader & showed me how many years ago but when the Obama panic hit I hadn't gathered the components together & got left out of reloading. I had to breakdown & pay high prices for my ammo I made myself a promise to never let my supplys drop again.
So about half way through the Obama years I talked to a buddy that had a reloading press that he wasn't using that he said I could use. I got it set up & he came over to show me how to reload pistol. I had to teach myself how to reload rifle. It wasn't long & he wanted his press back, by that time I had my own press so it wasn't a problem. It was just last year than I had to show him how to reload rifle, he was trying to use a crimp die as a powder through die. LOL

kalielkslayer said:

I have several boxes of factory around here somewhere with 5 rounds left in them.

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Yeah, I'm familiar with that scenario, tip of the iceberg. For the most part, if it is a set of less than 100 for a rifle or at least a couple of hundred for a handgun, it's an "odd-lot" for me. Mixed headstamps drive me nutz for, admittedly, no good reason.

I started earlier this year and doing quite well. Been patient looking for components and have been able to find them every so often and have been able to create a small but modest cache of components.
Really started because of a death of my mother-in-law and my wife out of concern for her dad asked me to find a way to relate and spend time with him. I do like and admire my father-in-law and knew he was into reloading. So together we started to hang out, dust off his stuff. I was able to buy a press dies and components. I have used him as a mentor and have found others out there, as well as this site for some pretty good advice. All in all I have been able to have a tighter relationship with him, have a zen moment other than running and wood working. Saved enough money for my press and tools to already have paid for themselves. You see I was patient and found equipment on sale and found components at normal prices. I did not pay scalper prices. That’s how I got into this wasn’t really looking, didn’t grow up around it. Just kinda fell into it, I am hooked though wouldn’t wait in line for ammo anymore or even buy it when things are normal. To me it’s about the zen moment and relating to some one who is just plain lonely.

one other thing I did read three different loading books and I did buy a Lee value turret. I’m not a bit concerned about speed, like I said the Zen moment.

swg1 said:

Yeah, I'm familiar with that scenario, tip of the iceberg. For the most part, if it is a set of less than 100 for a rifle or at least a couple of hundred for a handgun, it's an "odd-lot" for me. Mixed headstamps drive me nutz for, admittedly, no good reason.
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WOW! these are life goals man!!!

My older brother started reloading in the late 60’s / early 70’s with a Lee whack a mole (which I still have). If I wanted to shoot, I had to help....even though I have a bunch of Dillon and single stage presses, I recently purchased another whack a mole (own several)...just the knowledge of being able to reload with nothing more than components, a whack a mole, and a ROCK provides a certain degree of comfort.

As someone said earlier about whack a moles....”Life comes more into focus when you realize you are setting primers with a hammer”

Started in the late 80s, when I became an instructor. One of the other instructors suggested that I reload, and use that ammo but keep the factory ammo the club provided for us. Then started collecting brass from the local police academy where a friend asked me to help out now and then. Been at it ever since. Glad that I did.

Cookie223 said:

Started in the late 80s, when I became an instructor. One of the other instructors suggested that I reload, and use that ammo but keep the factory ammo the club provided for us. Then started collecting brass from the local police academy where a friend asked me to help out now and then. Been at it ever since. Glad that I did.

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was reloading as big in the 80’s as it is now?

Mark_Mark said:

was reloading as big in the 80’s as it is now?

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Popular, yes, but not to the point of not having anything on the shelf like now for reloading. Everyone that I knew that was even semi-serious reloaded.

Been shooting since I was about 10, always used factory ammo as "reloading can be dangerous", and yes, it can be dangerous if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.

Anyway, at some point I bought a brass 1851, was measuring and loading powder, a wad, a ball, pressing it in and doing ok. It dawned on me at some point that if I can do that with a BP revolver and not blow myself up, why am I paying so much for 45 colt ammo for my 1873. Bought a single stage press, scale, powder, and some dies and started loading for the .45 Colt "saved" me about half the cost of buying factory (yeah I know not really). I even did a spreadsheet to show that once I loaded up X number of rounds, the reloading gear pays for itself. Again, I didn't blow myself up, so, then I figured, why not reload for the .38, then the 223, then the 243, 270, 30-30 another expensive round to buy. then I wanted a 6.5 Creedmoor, but it was a wildcat and ammo was expensive, but hey, I can reload now, so why not, more recently, I saw an I.N.A Tiger in .32 S&W long a guy wanted to get rid of for a fair price because ammo was hard to find, you know how this story goes from here.

I have dies, powder and bullets for everything I shoot now (including the 9mm which I thought would never be worth reloading for because ammo was so cheap to buy - boy was I wrong)

Pay attention, don't get distracted when reloading, and have fun.

d

I started reloading as a boy of twelve or so. My dad and I shot trap both locally and the surrounding states. It became my job to load the shells for the weekends. It was a chore that I enjoyed. I would turn on a transistor radio and listen to my favorite DJ and stomp out 12ga trap loads.

Mark_Mark said:

was reloading as big in the 80’s as it is now?

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Don’t know for sure, but I think it’s become more popular now especially with all the nonsense that’s been going on.

Boy, I hope this is graded on a curve!

I grew up around my Dad reloading, Mom and Dad shootin', going to Dad's club to watch him shoot, Dad casting in the basement that we were living in as he built our house (yeah, that was then) blah, blah blah.........

Dad passed over 28 years ago and Mom gifted me all his reloading equipment. It sat (unfortunately), a long time before my interest peaked.

Fast-forward to about 8 or 9 years ago, I got the bug. Reading old manuals, finding THR, and with the help of a friend of a friend, I am now in the game for life! Added quite a bit of tools (toys?) to the equipment and have no reason to look back with any regrets other than wishing I had started earlier!

Armored farmer said:

I would turn on a transistor radio and listen to my favorite DJ and stomp out 12ga trap loads.

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WLS, Chicago!

I read up and started in 2014 on my own with my 223 Rem Lee Loader. I now load 6 handgun and 4 rifle calibers on a Lee turret. It's been an enjoyable journey, but I still have plenty to learn.

Armored farmer said:

I started reloading as a boy of twelve or so. My dad and I shot trap both locally and the surrounding states. It became my job to load the shells for the weekends. It was a chore that I enjoyed. I would turn on a transistor radio and listen to my favorite DJ and stomp out 12ga trap loads.

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Same here, but I started 3 years before you, at 9. I wasn't even shooting Trap yet, I just liked being with my dad in his basement reloading shop, and he taught me how. Once he was convinced I knew what I was doing, he let me load most of his Skeet loads. (He originally started with Skeet because he shot at the front wheel of a perp's car with the riot gun, and hit the door.) When I was 12 we moved close to a Trap range, so we both started shooting Trap instead of Skeet. He let me use his back-up 1100 for Trap and later duck hunting, and I shot open (practice) rounds with him, until I started working there as a trapboy. (I told you how that came about, AF. ) The club president coached me, and I joined one team, then another, etc. I was on 4 teams at once. A lot of time spent with the 600 Jr., the same one I still use.

I started loading rifle at 14 when I bought my Aunt's Rem. 742 Carbine, which shot better with IMR3031 pushing a 150 or 165 Nosler at about 2500, and it didn't beat the gun or me as bad. Shot my first deer with a handload from that gun.

I started loading handgun at 15 when my dad gave me his Trooper MkIII (only to take it back 3 years later), so I started with .38 wadcutters, then fell into the "Super-Duper Compressed Blue Dot" craze that was rampant then and when my Dad grabbed a box of them to qualify with, it broke the hammer on his Python. He came home, grabbed the Trooper, and finished qualifying with that. I had to fix the Python, and never did get the Trooper back. I bought the Python and his matching 2.5" Python from him when the St. Paul PD went to Glocks, that kind of made up for it.

I started reloading this year when I ran into a deal at my local pawn / gun shop. I’ve also been able to watch for deals and trade for some stuff (just scored a Lyman case prep station for helping a neighbor with a full break job)
I’ve always shot a lot and never really looked at how much I spent on ammo as long as it stayed with in my play money budget. My wife said her dad used to reload and has been telling me to start to save some money. I watched idk how many hrs of videos, read 4 books I bought and borrowed from my local library. This forum has been another valuable reason every for me! Thank you all!

I got my start in the early 80s, I must have been 13 or 14. Dad gave me a .30 Carbine and a case of ammo. I shot up that case before the week was out. Dad then presented me with one of those Lee “whack a mole” kits, telling me if I was going to shoot that much I’d better make my own. I never really had anyone to coach me, I believe my father’s sage advice was something along the lines of “ don’t blow yourself up”. Lad data came from the little card included in the Lee kit. Powder was measured with a scoop. Soon thereafter I graduated to a RCBS reloading kit, which came with a book and scale, reading that book was how I learned how to really reload. When I got tired of the single stage life, I moved my high volume stuff over to Dillon 550s. Keeping the RCBS for low volume stuff. I load around 12 calibers now.

I got my start in reloading in January 2020. My wife of 42 years died a few months before that and I was looking for a new hobby to keep me occupied. The timing was good since I jumped in with both feet and bought a lot of supplies before the shortages hit. I loaded up almost 20k rounds in 2020, and I still have about 7k rounds on hand today plus enough components to load another 6k or so.

I bought a couple paper manuals but did most of my research on the internet.

Armored farmer said:

... I would turn on a transistor radio and ...

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Transistor Radio. I read that and the memories flooded back ...

Folks, my apologies for my Off Topic wander.

I sold a calf I had bottle fed and (my Father) bought a 357 magnum with the money. I quickly figured out the “buy in” was not the only expense. Luckily my Brother was a little jealous, I think, of his kid brothers revolver so he bought one later that year, then we split the cost of the press and components to keep them fed.

kalielkslayer said:

Reloading.

Did you have a mentor, Dad, Granddad, friend, neighbor?

Or did you just read a manual and go from there?

Or if you started reloading in the last 15 years, maybe it was Internet forums?

My shotgun reloading started in the 70s and although my Dad was an old paper hull reloader from his trap/skeet days, he may have answered a few questions, he never sat down and showed me anything. It was just me and an old Lyman manual.

Rifle in the 80s was because a couple of friends convinced me that was the way to milk the most accuracy out of my rifles. And I was impressed with both of their shooting skills. Each of them ran a few bullets off of their respective setups for me, but my actual reloading was just me, a RCBS Rockchucker and an old P O Ackley manual.

Pistol, just started in 2020 although I started buying dies and components every since the Clinton shortages, just in case. This time it was a combination of internet input, articles, searches,(many of which came back to THR) and a couple of manuals.

Interested to hear other’s stories, especially ones where a parent or grandparent got ya started.

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My start went like this:
Couldn’t do sports any longer, so I bought a gun. It was a Smith and Wesson 692 3”.

I bought two boxes of 44 magnum and saw what I’d paid and said, “Never again.”

Found out that $30 gets you a Lee Classic Loader in 44.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos, picked up a mallet and started going tink, tink, tink in my garage thousands of times in a row.

Two years later, I went online to buy a second gun, and watched as the last six examples in the country dropped to four examples, then two, as I searched. It was the 2020 Gun Panic. I bought those last two and joined the panic.

Several weeks and many guns later, I started wondering how I was going to load them. A drive around the County netted me the last 14,000 pistol primers in the area. Some spending online later, and all the lead and dies and a turret press etc started showing up in the mail.

And today I stand, next to my swimming pool filled with gleaming handloaded pistol ammo, ready to dive in and swim around as the neighbors hang on my chain link fence watching with admiration.

1976B.L.Johns. said:

WLS, Chicago!

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That's right li'l snot-nosed Tommy!

My father reloaded. As early as I can remember I would always help him. That was our father son time together. I joined the Air Force out of high school and spent the next eleven years overseas. Once back on U.S. soil I started reloading on my own. Now my boys help me reload. My father passed away a few years ago. I have a lot of his old equipment and its neat to see the reloading cycle go full circle from my dad to me to my boys.