Do you hunt with your hand loads?

[Poper]

Do you hunt with your hand loads?

Of course. So does my son. So does my brother.
Custom ammo with superior accuracy with a bullet selected for its terminal performance. Why wouldn't a guy?

 

[JeffG]

Most of my of my guns have never seen a factory round. The exceptions are my EDC and SHTF guns. AR, AK and Glocks are all factory fed. For reliability and consistency.
Hunting is for pleasure and accomplishment. The experience is greatly enhanced with handloads.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Yes I do, nothing else is shot in my guns.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Most definitely, all my life. I have bought factory loads with obscure type bullets but they are just for fun or I caliber is new and I can't get brass.

 

[JimKirk]

Yes ....only .22RF and a few 20 gauge shotshells are factory ( I do shoot reloads mostly for 20 ga)...

 

[Duster340]

Dust, please be carful those old 303s have far to many case head separation issues and people can get hurt.... good luck and have fun

Thanks. I've heard that as well. Put a few thousand of my reloaded 303 rounds down range so far without a problem of any type. (I love shooting them old milsurps!) I don't full length size them, neck only. And carefully inspect each case prior to reloading it. Having a ton of good brass in my rotation helps a lot too

Be well

 

[brewer12345]

Just confident enough to use handloads for deer this year. I also cast the bullets. Have used shotshells and handgun reloads for hunting. Will use jacketed reloads for elk as well.

 

[mgmorden]

I do, but not 100% of the time. For me reloading is generally about either shooting in volume (so I reload for all my handguns where I target shoot a lot), or producing ammo that is no longer easily available via the factory.

For a hunting rifle, I generally will keep dies and bullets on-hand for anything I own, but when a $15 box of factory ammo lasts me years at a time it's hard to get around to loading too much for a lot of the rifles. FWIW, I've never really had trouble out of factory loads but here in SC most of our shots are pretty short. Typically 75 yards or less. Just because they're cheap and the brass is reloadable I usually buy PPU/Prvi Partisan factory ammo if its available.

 

[Axis II]

Sure do!

45-70govt 300gr JHP and IMR 4198 took two large Ohio whitetails last season.

 

[cfullgraf]

Yes ....only .22RF and a few 20 gauge shotshells are factory ( I do shoot reloads mostly for 20 ga)...

When I was shooting competitive skeet, I shot alot of reloads in tournaments. Then I decided to shoot factory in the matches in part as a means of generating hulls to reload. Also, I did not have to worry about using a hull near the end of its useful life during the tournament. If I remember correctly, there was some ammunition checking rule implications that favored the use of factory although I had never seen it done.

My annual prairie dog adventures are shot only with my reloads, lots of reloads.

 

[Patocazador]

Yes I do, nothing else is shot in my guns.

Same here except for rimfire and some steel waterfowl loads.

 

[GBExpat]

Ok guys so question “do you hunt with your hand loads?”

If I still hunted I would.

 

[Slamfire]

Since I hunt with milsurp rifles, 303 British and 7.5 x 55 Swiss, reloading not only allows me to squeeze the most accuracy from the old rifles, but also practice and plink during the off season without going broke.

Leave a light coat of lubricant on the outside of the case, that will break the friction between case and chamber, allowing the case to slide to the bolt face without stretching the case sides. I have been regularly doing this to fireform new cases, sometimes if I had not used lube, the cases would have separated first or second firing. This 30-30 Marlin has a huge chamber. But, lubing new brass, the cases are fireformed, stress free, to the chamber. It does not take much lube either.






Shoots fine.



Some characters were recommending putting rubber "O" rings on the back of their 303 British cases, to keep the things against the bolt face. I thought that was nuts, it may have worked, but I did not try it. Now Parashooter ran a rest, leaving lube on his 303 British cases, and what do you know, 35 times reloaded without a case head separation.




These 300 H&H Magnum cases are $2.00 apiece, first firing, lubed them.




shot well at 100 yards



shot well at 300 yards



If I were to carry new cases in a hunting situation, I would coat the things with Johnson Paste wax. I have been using Johnson Paste wax on my Garand and M1a ammunition for decades. The stuff dries hard, buffs to a smooth surface, and does not attract dirt. Greases and oils are messy and I primarily use them at the range, fireforming ammunition, because I am too lazy or pressed for time to coat cases with paste wax. Paste wax works, I am certain it has ceresin wax in it, and ceresin wax plus a solvent is what Pedersen used to coat his ammunition. If his cases were not lubricated his rifle would not function.





This is from his patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/US1780566

Patented Nov. 4, 1930 PATENT OFFICE JOHN DOUGLAS PEDERSEN, OF SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 11,0 Drawing.

This invention relates to a process for coating cartridges and more particularly the affixing of a coating of hard wax to the metal case of a cartridge; and the object of the invention is to provide a method whereby cartridges may be coated with great uniformity with an extremely thin film, and also whereby a relatively large number of cartridges may be coated in a short time and at small cost.

In the preparation of cartridges having metal cases for storage and for use, it has been found desirable to apply to said metal case a relatively thin coating of some protective substance which will preserve said metal case for comparatively long periods of time against-deterioration, such as season cracking. In the present invention, the material for said coating has been so chosen as to perform the additional function of acting as a lubricant for the case of the cartridge, both for facilitating introduction into the chamber of the gun and the extraction thereof after firing. The most suitable wax which I have found for this purpose and which I at present prefer is ceresin, a refined product of ozokerite; but I wish it to be understood that other waxes having similar qualities may exist which might serve equally well. Some of the desirable features of ceresin are that it is hard and non-tacky at ordinary temperatures having a melting point somewhere between 140 and 176 Fahrenheit. It is smooth and glassy when hard and does not gather dirt or dust. However, when the ceresin on the cartridges is melted in the chamber of a gun, it becomes a lubricant.

Other lubricating waxes have been employed for coating cartridges, and the method most generally pursued for applying said coating to the cartridge case has been to prepare a heated bath of a solution of the wax in a suitable solvent, dip the cartridges therein so that a film of the solution will adhere thereto, and finally withdraw the cartridges to permit the solvent to evaporate from the coating film. This former process is comparatively slow and has been found lacking in several important respects.

It is of great importance that the protective film 0n the cartridge be of uniform thickness so as not to vary appreciably the ganging fit of the cartridge when working through the automatic loading and extracting mechanism of. a gun. It is also desirable for commercial reasons that the process of coating be accomplished as rapidly as possible.

Under the former method, when a large batch of cartridges at ordinary room temperature is simultaneously dipped into a heated bath of the dissolved coating material, the bath is lowered in temperature by the introduction of the charge and the thickness of coating adhering to the cartridge casings will vary since it depends largely on the viscosity of the solution, which in turn is dependent upon the temperature of the bath. Due to the difficulty under such methods of maintaining the solution at uniform temperature, the thickness of the film on different cartridges is likewise non-uniform. Furthermore, the evaporation of the solvent from the coating after the cartridges are withdrawn from the bath is comparatively slow, and this is particularly true in the case of a ceresin wax coating. Attempts to hasten the evaporation in hot rooms or by heated air exteriorly applied to the cartridges have not met with the success to be expected from the amount of heat thus employed. Possibly the reason is that the coating film when dried by an outside heat forms first a thin insulating skin which impedes the penetration of the drying heat. In any event, such drying is slow and the production in quantity of cart-ridges coated in this manner becomes unduly expensive.

To avoid these difficulties. I have proposed a method for affixing the film coating to the cartridge case which involves first the preheating of the cartridge cases, said preheating being to approximately the same temperature as that of the heated bath. Then when a charge of cartridges is introduced into the bath, no change in temperature of the latter will take place; and furthermore, when the charge of cartridges is withdrawn from the bath, the still heated condition of the cases will greatly accelerate the drying or evaporation of the solvent in the coating film, thus speeding up the process. It has been found that the interior heat of the cartridge case is much .more effective in drying out the coating film than heat exteriorly applied thereto.

More specifically, my process consists in preparing a solution of coating material, preferably ceresin wax dissolved in carbon tetrachloride, and in heating said solution to an approximate temperature of 100 to 120 Fahrenheit. The amount of ceresin in the solution will be approximately 7% of the entire liquid bath. The cartridges to be coated are also heated to approximately this same temperature. so that there will be no heat exchange when the cartridges and the coating solution are brought into contact.

 

[Charliefrank]

Almost exclusively

 

[.308 Norma]

Ok guys so question “do you hunt with your hand loads?”

Of course. So does my wife, daughter and grandson.

 

[Lee Q. Loader]

Taking game with your own hand loaded ammo adds a great deal to the satisfaction of great hunt. Back in the late 70's and early 80's I took more ducks and geese with my reloads than you imagine. My dad and I hunted every weekend from October till the end of the season in December. When the change to steel shot was made around 1988, I think, we bought some steel ammo and still hunted, but we slowly hunted less and less and replaced it with fishing.
Now we don't waterfowl at all and I believe the change to fishing was fueled by the fact that we didn't load our own shotshells.

 

[LoonWulf]

I almost exclusively shoot handloads.
Each new gun get at least one box of factory ammo just to make sure everything is working right and to get a baseline.

Reloading honestly doesn't save me money, and I don't particularly like doing it, but it's the only way to get the bullets I want, for the cartridges I shoot.

 

[entropy]

Yes. It's why I started handloading rifle, to get accuracy out of a 742 Carbine.

 

[horsey300]

I almost exclusively shoot handloads.
Each new gun get at least one box of factory ammo just to make sure everything is working right and to get a baseline.

Reloading honestly doesn't save me money, and I don't particularly like doing it, but it's the only way to get the bullets I want, for the cartridges I shoot.

I like reloading, but I was drawn in because factory ammo is limited around here and I wanted to be able to test bullet c vs bullet x vs bullet q without paying nosler custom grade prices. ......and we shoot a lot. .....a lot alot, and knowing where each round is going and how it performs due to my own consistency is a field value i can't put a price on. E.g. buy a box of good bonded, partition, or btip, loads vs the price i load them for and my hunting ammo quickly becomes my year around practice ammo......except for the stw, brass is too rare to burn up year round, and thus is treated like so, but she hunts the prairies with 162 Hornady bullets that i normally would pass on in factory ammo even if i COULD find it locally, which i can't. And knowing that i loaded a 300+yd pdog popping .243 with the same ammo that will drop all deer at varying ranges provides me great joy

 

[Godsgunman]

Never had a handload not go boom. Had plenty of factory go click, click. Picked up a new .270 for longer range deer which I don't handload for yet. Planning on having my tags filled during bow season though.