How do you store/transport your pistol reloads?

I store my bulk handgun rounds in .50 cal ammo cans. I used to use old Folgers coffee cans when I would go out & shoot but I'm not storing handgun ammo in Plano 100 round ammo boxes. All of my rifle rounds are stored in Plano ammo boxes.

Plastic boxes to the range...50cal cans @ home.

Ok so in light of the responses, this is probably a dumb question. When you put your finished bullets into a plastic box like MTM, does it matter if they are bullet up or bullet down? Thinking about powder distribution if they are stored for awhle. Probably over thinking.

Ok so in light of the responses, this is probably a dumb question. When you put your finished bullets into a plastic box like MTM, does it matter if they are bullet up or bullet down? Thinking about powder distribution if they are stored for awhle. Probably over thinking.

Click to expand...

It makes a difference in how easy they are to get out of the box. Try it and see. (some will be easier base up, and some bullet up) Other than that I don't think it makes a difference.

cwbys4evr said:

Ok so in light of the responses, this is probably a dumb question. When you put your finished bullets into a plastic box like MTM, does it matter if they are bullet up or bullet down? Thinking about powder distribution if they are stored for awhle. Probably over thinking.

Click to expand...

It doesn't make a difference.

I use the MTM ammo boxes. They hold up to 1.3K of bagged 223 bagged in Qty of 100. For pistol, I use same cans and store them in cheap card board boxes or old ammo boxes.

The biggest issue I have with the boxes is the older stuff is always on the bottom without constantly re-boxing. Always have to empty the can to get to the oldest loads.

-178S

Unread March 13, 2013, 03:37 PM #1
Triumph
Member



Join Date: October 19, 2010
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 329 How do you store/transport your pistol reloads?

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When reloading pistol how do you store your bulk reloads?

I saw a thread with one of the THR members that put his .45 ACP reloads in a 50 cal ammo can. It looks like he had a whole can full. They appeared to be cast reloads. I've lost track of the thread now & cant remember which one it was.

Is this o.k. for pistol rounds? I realize people probably don't transport like this but just talking about storing in your home.


Trumph, Quietly, I do not have loaded rounds that can rattle and rub. All of my ammo is placed in organizers I have recovered from dumpsters and g-cans at firing ranges with the approval from the operator and shooters, on occasions the shooter placed the fired cases in the ammo boxes first. Makes no sense to most but when I go to the range I keep cases separated by head stamps, after tumbling the cases are sorted by head stamp and placed back in the same box.

Loading ahead, I have the components, I have no interest in having a 2 year supply loaded in advance. I form cases with success, problem, formed cases that are loaded and stored can cause neck splits, not fair, everyone has case snap back, spring back and or jump back, my formed cases do not have snap, jump or spring, my cases have bullet hold, no matter what, my necks will not loosen their grip, I am the fan of bullet hold, cases that are annealed after forming behave like new cases with less bullet hold.

F. Guffey

I only keep about 500 of each cartridge loaded, and stored in CaseGard boxes.
The rest I store in my powder jug, primer bricks, and bullet boxes.
That is always enough for me to shoot for a week or so. Sometime after shooting I always have time to catch back up on my reloading.
This also makes it easier to keep my newest rounds on the bottom of the stack so I don't let a box get old on me.

I use plastic ammo boxes for all my pistol brass. The MTM cases with actual hinges are great because the lid stays open, as seen holding the 460 Mag below. For most of my pistol ammo I use dillon boxes which are pretty inexpensive. I also use old berrys bullet containers and jacketed bullet boxes to hold misc. ammo and some rifle ammo. The plastic 1 pound folgers cans work well too.

I prefer the 100 round boxes. They make it easy to see if I have enough ammo for an outing.

eer ah, CGT80, don't you know that is the color for 38 Super?

Nope. Do you use green boxes for 38 super?

I don't shoot overgrown 9mm. If I shoot expensive brass, I prefer to not have it eject out of the gun. It is bad enough trying to recover 9mm from some competitions. To give you an idea of how much 9mm I load, a Dillon 1050 and bullet feeder are setup on my bench only for 9mm. I try to keep 3,000 rounds of 9mm loaded at a time, although that is for 3 shooters.

All of my dillon boxes are blue for 9mm, 40, and 45 acp. I do keep my hot 460 loads in a 20 round orange box, as I don't shoot a lot of those.

I like many others use the plastic ammo boxes inside both 30 cal and 50 cal ammo cans. Very handy and easy to store.

I use ziploc bags also with all the load info written on baggy, 50 or 100 rnds per bag. Then store them in the plastic 50 cal ammo cans. Easy to grab what u want and go shoot em!

I use either J&J or MTM plastic boxes for transporting and some storage, and metal ammo cans for storage only.

For what it's worth...

My .357 boxes are marked for easy identification (in addition to the info labels that come with the boxes), with no colored dot for cast paper punchers using Herco; green-colored dot for jacketed 125's using TiteGroup for paper punching (almost never used now); orange dots for the 125 JHP flame-throwers using 2400; and red dots for 125 JHP's using H110.

My .40 S&W rounds are but a single type- 180 FMJ's with 7.5 grains of Longshot- so there is no need for color-coding.

I may use color-coding for my .405 Winchester rounds but that's still in committee.

cwbys4evr said:

Ok so in light of the responses, this is probably a dumb question. When you put your finished bullets into a plastic box like MTM, does it matter if they are bullet up or bullet down? Thinking about powder distribution if they are stored for awhle. Probably over thinking.

Click to expand...

Handgun ammunition is stored bullet down in the box. Makes it easy to extract from the box.

Rifle is stored bullet up so that the tip of the bullet is not damaged during transport.

Most rifle cartridges are pretty much full of powder so powder position really would not be an issue, cast or ultra light loads not withstanding.

Many handgun powders/cartridges are position sensitive when fired. Powder against the bullet versus powder against the primer. The performance will vary between the two powder positions

Where the powder is in the case is relative to how the gun was handled just before aiming and firing, barrel up versus barrel down.