How did you start??

Lots of cool stories everyone! Thanks for sharing.

My Grandfather bought a reloading set up sometime in the late 60's. A Gentleman from the local gunshop came to Grandpa's house one night after work to help us get started and Grandpa wanted me to be there. I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old at the time. I ended up being the one to do most of the loading. I read through a Lyman book to familiarize myself with the processes before the Gentleman came over and have been hooked ever since.

I still use some of those original tools but have upgraded many of them and have added a lot of new ones since then.

Neither my Dad nor my Brother were interested in reloading although they were avoid hunters. Only one of my two Sons are interested in reloading although both of them are avoid hunters.

Hi...
I was raised around guns, shooting and hunting. My father didn't reload...he thought it was dangerous and would have nothing to do with it.
My mother sold or gave away all of his guns when he died. I got a 16ga Ithaca pump action and a 20ga H&R single shot.

I bought my first rifles at 16 years of age at a hardware store. A .22LR pump action and a Remington 788 in .30/30.
Started buying handguns at the age of 21 and acquired a carry permit. Joined a pistol shooting league and a gun club sometime in my late 20s.
Shooting in the pistol league soon became an expensive activity with matches and practice so I taught myself to reload. Started with .357Magnum which was what I was shooting in league matches. Second caliber was .45ACP and then .41Magnum and then the floodgates opened up. I load for most popular handgun cartridges from 9mm through .44Magnum and .45Colt as well as some not so common cartridges such as .357Maximum, .375SuperMag and .45AutoRim.
Also load a fair number of rifle cartridges from .223 up to 7mmMagnum including .243, .25/06, .270, 7x57, .303Brit, .308 and .30/06.

Never reloaded shotshells despite shooting thousands of rounds hunting small game and missing clay birds. Never seemed cost effective...yet. Always seemed to be able to find case loads of 12ga shells at auctions for pretty cheap prices until this past year where nothing is cheap at auctions or anywhere else for that matter.

I started loading as a child by cutting the white tips off of those strike anywhere matches & loading them into bicycle spokes, then plugging it with another match. When heated the match heads would explode inside the bicycle spoke & send the match flying. It not real reloading but it gets you over the fear that you are going to blow yourself up. LOL

Man, I would love to have 300WM at even 1.5 a round now factory. I reload for the same reason - but finding powder is my biggest issue right now, have a decent amount of primers. My start was on a homebuilt AR. I was raised by a single mom so didn't get too much experience with rifles at a younger age but knew it was something I was interested in. Figured the best way to learn would be to build one ground up - could only afford the cheap Andersen/PSA type stuff back on my 18YO budget, but hey I made it work. Fast forward to today, I have a full reloading setup, and many more rifles.

Mosin Shooter said:

I started loading as a child by cutting the white tips off of those strike anywhere matches & loading them into bicycle spokes, then plugging it with another match. When heated the match heads would explode inside the bicycle spoke & send the match flying. It not real reloading but it gets you over the fear that you are going to blow yourself up. LOL

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Very nice.

The old time local drug store up the street used to sell us kids saltpeter, sulfur, and powered charcoal. Maybe they figured we had a tummy ache. Every single weekend.

a lot of North Florida creeks got dammed and undammed with that Anarchist Cookbook bomb recipe in 12-year old hands

GBExpat said:

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

Folks, my apologies for my Off Topic wander.

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Why do I think that the same guys who are into guns are probably also into radios?

Bet you it’s true

lightman said:

Lots of cool stories everyone! Thanks for sharing.

My Grandfather bought a reloading set up sometime in the late 60's. A Gentleman from the local gunshop came to Grandpa's house one night after work to help us get started and Grandpa wanted me to be there. I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old at the time. I ended up being the one to do most of the loading. I read through a Lyman book to familiarize myself with the processes before the Gentleman came over and have been hooked ever since.

I still use some of those original tools but have upgraded many of them and have added a lot of new ones since then.

Neither my Dad nor my Brother were interested in reloading although they were avoid hunters. Only one of my two Sons are interested in reloading although both of them are avoid hunters.

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Are you saying that you literally had a home visit from a traveling salesman demoing reloading equipment?

I want to live in the old days instead of the new days

After pondering this topic a few days, I think I need to revise my answer a little. Technically I started reloading in elementary school. When I was in 6th or 7th grade there was a conservation officer that did a demonstration at our school about black powder hunting. He brought several different BP guns with him, and after a little instruction, he let each of us load and shoot a round while he watched and coached. (Boy times have changed.) After that, I nagged my dad to let my brother and me buy a .36 caliber flintlock rifle. All through school we shot that thing to death. I know that isn't cartridge reloading, but I guess technically it is reloading. Later on, we bought various cap and ball rifles, and at about 20 I got an 1851 Navy Colt replica. Kind of a scenic route to reloading.

I dabbled in reloading almost 30 years ago..... I stopped dabbling and got serious when I developed a unhealthy appetite for big bore revolvers....

I watched my grandpa do some reloading when I was 8 or 9. But I didn't really pay attention to it then. How I really got started was owning a bunch of 8x57 rifles and not being able to get decent hunting rounds for them. I knew it would do much better than the 30-30-ish ballistics from the Fed, Win, and Rem lawyer loads. I actually bought my first reloading manual (Lyman #48) not long after it came out in 2002. I read it, picked out loads to try, and then didn't do anything with it until about 2012. I had read just about everything I could for those 10 years when I finally got everything I needed to reload 8x57. I bought a Lee anniversary single-stage kit that has served me well. As of now, I load 8x57, 7x57, 257 Roberts, 30-06, 30-30, 223/5.56, 7.62x54R, 9x18 Mak, and 12 gauge (and probably one or two that I'm forgetting). I also have everything I need to load 6mm Rem and 308, but don't have guns in those yet. Yes, I like the 57mm case length Mauser-y rounds. 7x57 is my most favoritest. My 257 Bob rifle has never seen a factory round.

I've got most of the main reloading manuals that have been published up until 2018 when we moved. I still need haven't completely organized my reloading room.

I started reloading for shotgun with my father in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He was a competitive skeet shooter, and dabbled in pistol matches. I shot skeet with him, and some .22LR youth matches.

As I aged, girls became much more interesting than shooting, and my school activities took up most of my time.

Fast forward to this year... a back injury took me away from a long love affair with golf, and I needed something to scratch that itch. A friend took me to his gun club, and within minutes I was hooked!

Santa brought me a Dillon XL750... I must have been a good boy! I began by loading 9mm, and am now loading .45acp and .223. I’m looking forward to adding .308 soon, and I’m currently daydreaming about 6.5 Grendel.

When I was passionately perusing golf, I also built my own equipment. Reloading is the same on so many levels... attention to detail, precision, process oriented, and a plethora of components to capture the imagination!

I started loading 12 gauge back in the 70s. I was shooting quite a bit of trap and back then you could load it cheaper than you could buy it.
Fast forward about 40 years and I found myself shooting a lot of 9mm so I decided to reload for it. (to save money, right...well I shoot lots more now for the same price)
Started with a Lee single stage which got rapidly upgraded to a Lee 3 hole turret.
Gave the single stage to a friend, still have the Lee turret and a LNL progressive and various dies, goodies etc.
The etc can add up,
Need a case trimmer for .223, Hornady hand trimmer is to slow, need a WFT, need a bullet feeder, need a wet tumbler, need...
You all know how it goes once you go down the rabbit hole.......

Back in the mid 80's, got a Ruger Blackhawk in 38/357/9mm. Lived in a small town and .357 was non-existant...bought a RockChucker, Lee bottom discharge pot, dies, molds and started loading .357...took me years to decide to load 38 Special, later, acquired more pistols, mostly .45's first one was a Sig P220, then a flurry of 1911's, had to upgrade to a Lee Turret, more calibers, then up cropped a Dillon 550B (Father's Day gift from the 4 kids) I have 4 VERY generous kids. Brought my Grands into the mix, now enjoy time with only grand daughter (extremely focused shooter...better than any of the grandson's) and the grandsons. Loading is therapy for me...I get to share time with the grands, and a few close friends who share my presses and time.

Many moons ago, long before I was conceived, my dad used to reload for his service revolver. Back in ‘13 we decided to get into it together as a way to spend time together. As our reloading supplies accrued, so did the number of weapons we both acquired. Funny how that works.

pairof44sp said:

Are you saying that you literally had a home visit from a traveling salesman demoing reloading equipment?

I want to live in the old days instead of the new days

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I didn't really mean for it to sound that way. He was just a friendly sort of fellow that wanted to help us get started off right. It meant a lot to us, and especially me. We did buy a lot of powder and primers from them.

I started reloading 38 special in 1953 at 15 yrs old. here I am at almost 84 and still loading 38's plus several other calibers....38-40, 32-20, 40 S&W, the 44 family, 30-40 Krag, .45-70, 223, 220 Swift, where does it stop?

I am thinking of asking to have a couple lee loaders put in the pine box when I am set 6' under just in case.

Summer of '69 I was shooting my 38 Special up in the hills above LA and as I emptied the cylinder and the cases hit the ground I thought "I wonder if I could reuse these?". I was shooting my first center fire gun and knew nothing about reloading or knew anyone that reloaded. I did some research (library, magazines, asking at the LGS as this was waaay pre web). I bought a Lee loader, one pound of Bullseye, 100 CCI primers and had to wait for another paycheck to buy bullets; 158 gr LRN. I was on a budget but money was not the reason I started reloading, mostly just curious. Used that Lee Loader for maybe another year and then bought a Lee Challenger, Lee dies and a Speer manual (#10?). Still have that 38, but because of a messy divorce I sold all my reloading stuff in '84 and restarted in '89 or so and with what I had learned from my Lee Loader I jumped right back in...

I started in 1979 with a Lyman Spartan kit(manual included).The first 243 round I tried to load got stuck,which prompted me to read the manual in more detail.It opened my eyes enough that I figured out what that tube of greasy stuff was for.I wanted to reload so I could afford to shoot more because I was such an awful shot.When I was 16,I was deer hunting with a borrowed 94 Winchester 30-30 and I shot 7 times at a doe and missed her.I actually bawled over it.Deer weren't so plentiful in WV back then and shots were rare.That doe was 25 yards away,and must have been deaf and blind.One shot from my Granddad's 300 Savage dropped her in her tracks and when it was over he informed me that if I was ever to go hunting again,I needed to learn to shoot.I sniffed and whimpered all the long ride home.I bought a Winchester 243 and shot that rifle a lot.My uncle helped me along with learning how to develop loads for better accuracy,which powders worked the best and he also showed me how to properly care for my rifle and loading equipment.Two years after I began my handloading journey I won my first hunting rifle match in June of 81.I killed a deer at 550 yards that fall.I worked hard on my shooting back then,and I still do now.Other than a few years in the early 2,000's when my alcoholism was running its course,I have been heavily involved in loading and shooting.After getting sober in 2006,I got into it with a new passion and a renewed love.

I started out sitting in my fathers lap, with my Identical twin brother, while he loaded his 30-30s and 243s. I don't know if we were old enough to even size a pistol case, lit along a .243 or 30-30 case. We couldn't have been more than 8 years old.
When I was 12 my Dad had me loading my own 30-30 shells and before long I was loading everyone in the families rifle shells, including Dad's .243.
That was in 1972 so that's when I consider myself actually reloading solo.
I had to use a Lyman Junior turret press and it was pretty hard to size .243s with.
He also had a Redding Jr, which was an aluminum single stage that was like the cheapest Lee single stage they make.

It didn't last very long before it started falling apart and I ended up buying my first Rockchucker that I still have today.

My twin brother never had much interest in loading his own ammo and after maybe one hunting season, asked me if I would load his to.
In our homestead for as long as I can remember back there was a rifle leaning in every corner of house. That is just the way it was.

As kids, 10 or 12, we never played with his guns when Dad wasn't home, but when he was home, we would take off with a 22 rifle in the morning and come dragging back in later in the evening and no one ever thought to much about it.
Dad's biggest concern was that we shot all his 22 shells.

We had 1000s and 1000s of acres to play on with all the neighboring farms and no one cared what we did. All the farms new and relied on each other so there was no "stay off my land".
There was a lot of collaborating effort as far as driving woods out for deer, so we could all get our freezers filled up. I guess I'm rambling now.

Yeah, it was 1972 and I was 12 when I started loading for real.

Mine was about 2005. SHMBO had just gotten into cowboy action big time and was going through a LOT of the low velocity cowboy loads . Not cheap. I was shooting a lot of 9mm and that was ok But I got a Lee Enfield (first gun I ever shot) and .303 British was about $1 a round off the shelf. I had been thinking about reloading to lower the costs of the cowboy action ammo and I had just quit smoking so I figured what the heck and dived in. Got a Lee Loadmaster with money I wasn't smoking and a few manuals and a couple of friends who used to reload gave me a lot of advice and lots of bits and pieces. I have three balance scales and two digital ones now. Slow. Read the books (Speers 13th, Lymans 47th, Richard Lees Modern Reloading). Set everything up. Ruined a couple of dozen cases or so before those nice low velocity Cowboy loads started to crank out nice and steady. I actually sat down and figured it out and the press and everything else I bought was paid off in ammo savings in just over 5 months. Not to mention the feeling of accomplishment. I stopped reloading when we moved because we weren't shooting anymore but now we're retired and are back into it. Got everything set up then started looking for components and almost had a heart attack. I think we picked a bad time but we still have lots left over from before we moved. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Captain Quack.

I was inspired by my father in law. He was a great person. Started with the Lee beat and bang loaders.

I started reloading because I was under house arrest and could not leave my trailer. Well the case was drop, and I was addicted to reloading and kept doing it.

kalielkslayer said:

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?

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Both for me.
I found this forum & heeded the advise of buy a manual & read it cover to cover.
My local library had Lyman's 47th.
When Lyman printed # 49, I got 2 copies. Kept 1 & donated 1 to the library.

I wish I would've had a mentor.
I bought 4 presses before I settled on the 5th one, which was the best for me.
(a Dillon RL550B)

YMMV

I was taught by a neighbor and friend of my father. Both WWII vets. We were neighbors. I was taught by someone that taught me good habits and someone that I respected. That was 55 years ago. I still reload. I still enjoy reloading.