How long did it take before your reloads were as reliable as factory ammo?

[JLStorm]

I will be starting to reload in a few months, and sometime next year I will be attending two training courses requiring a total of 5,000 rounds of 45 ACP ammo. If I could reload these it would be a big $$ saver, but I would rather spend the money on factory ammo that goes bang every time if the learning curve on reloading will be too long.

I just want to get an idea of how many rounds it took you guys to reload before your rounds were as reliable as any factory new range ammo so I can get some sort of time line together.

I will be using a dillon progressive press of some sort (not sure which model yet) if it matters at all.

 

[K3]

My very first batch of handloads was better than any factory rounds that I have ever purchased. They all went bang, and my group size at 100y decreased significantly. 2MOA to right at MOA. Of course, I spent 3 hours making 20 rounds, but that's another story.

 

[DMZ]

My reloads were always much more reliable than factory fodder.

Reasons?

Better quality control, in that every round is inspected by me at every step in the process.

 

[Noxx]

I started reloading this year, and have been through about 5,000 rounds.

I have had no failures to fire.

 

[KI.W.]

Me first loads was for Arisaka 38 / 7x57; 1,5 MOA like PRVI PARTIZAN factoryloads witch iron sights. Now Arisaka has .308 T Win heavy barrel.

 

[JLStorm]

I mean not only primer failures but FTF and FTE as well, human error types of things, the kind of stuff where practice makes perfect and all that jazz.

 

[davinci]

I tell ya, I've not had a failure to fire in either reloads or in factory ammo since 2001... I picked up a box of remington UMC and two of the primers dimpled but did not fire from one box of ammo. got em at walmart, 40 s&w.

I reload with wolf primers now, never had a problem. 45acp is a great round to start reloading on. Seriously, for 5000 rounds, you need to check out this site... www.powdervalleyinc.com
get 2lbs of Hodgdon Titegroup ($26),
5000 CCI or Wolf primers (about $90),
projectiles (using 200 grain, about $46 per 1000... so $230 for 5000)
and a whole lotta time.

I can give you the email address of a fella in colorado who will ship you 45acp brass 1400 pieces for $53 including the shipping. send me a PM if you need it and I'll look it up. ;-)

You're looking at total of $400 for your 5000 rounds....or 8 cents a piece. Walmart white box stuff is $28 per 100 or 28 cents a piece here.

 

[The Bushmaster]

First .357 magnum round loaded to the last 9mmX19 just the other day have all gone down range...Over 20 years worth...

 

[presspuller]

I expect any factory ammo that I may buy in the future to be less reliable than what I load.

If you are going into reloading thinking that you are gonna have problems then you may not need to take it up.

All it takes is paying attention to everythingand you will not have a problem.

 

[ClarkEMyers]

A day or two so really an hour or two.

- but I started by weighing every powder charge - for my .45 Auto match ammunition I loaded thousands of #130 semi-wadcutters over 3.5 Bullseye casting my own bullets and visually inspecting then weighing every one to avoid any chance of voids - a given lot of my own match had headstamped matched cases with the same number of reloads and bullets weighed to match to the limits of my scale - a tenth of a grain more was another lot and a tenth of a grain less was another lot. Got pretty tedious but I am reminded of the story of a man whose handgun loaded with factory ammunition went click instead of bang for a lock of powder - he survived but after that he weighed and gaged every factory cartridge.

The school may have a policy about reloads - many do because it holds up the whole class - but I wouldn't hesitate to use my own reloads.

You can weigh yours - on a balance beam scale no need to wait for the scale to settle, a good estimate can be made from watching the beam swing - not good enough for precision weight but good enough to catch empty cases or double charges. It's easy enough to gage using something like the EGW gage or the barrel from your own pistol. Likely not a good idea to run cartridges through the action in a routine way - can be done but it's important to watch for setback - a bullet pushed into the case too far will hold up the whole class when the case head blows from excess pressure - if I thought it ncessary as I might on rifle ammunition for an African hunt then I'd gage over all length before and after running a cartridge through the action.

On the other hand a true bulk purchase such as you describe will often get a significant price cut from retail - I've know serious shooters who bought all factory loads in bulk and sold their brass - guaranteed fresh truly once fired same lots - and figured they came out ahead on time, effort, and free space at home.

 

[Piney Woods]

In 32 years, out of maybe 70,000 rounds I've loaded, I 've only had two handloads fail to go off. One was a paper 12 ga that had gotten wet, and the other was a .357 that didn't go off (the first time) due to a light firing pin hit (shooter's fault - I let the gun get a bit too dirty).

 

[koja48]

In 40 years of reloading I can recall 2 rounds that wouldn't chamber (resolved that by getting & using a .223 case gauge) & 1 high primer (and that was long ago).

 

[Blakenzy]

What makes you think that handloaded ammo MUST start out being less reliable than factory?

One of the great misconcepts of all times is that handloaded ammo is somehow inferior to factory.... why is that, lack of self esteem amongst shooters?

 

[Walkalong]

From the first to the last and still going.

 

[the pistolero]

So far my Kimber's eaten all my 10mm reloads. I pay attention at every step of the process, from before the first case is decapped to after the last cartridge is loaded. It may be slow going at times, but if it gets me quality ammunition I'm all for it.

 

[Ala Dan]

I was very fortunate to have a good instructor in basic handloading
techniques~! He's THR's very own Capbuster who spent many a day
and night, teaching me the basics on a RCBS Jr. press; way back in
the fall of 1972. After loading for the big S&W .41 Magnum during
the first three days, I felt confident that my handloads were going
to work. Using 13.0 grains of old Winchester 630P ball power under
a 170 grain JHC, proved to be a powerful and accurate load in my
S&W model 57 with a 4" barrel. You gott'a have patience, and be
willing too learn the proper techniques; or else you are just wasting
your valuable time~!

 

[ranger335v]

I've been loading since '65, forgot how many rounds. The only "failures" I've had were due to experiments in trying various ideas, a few of which were bad. NEVER had a conventional (correctly loaded) round fail in any way.

 

[RugerOldArmy]

I have a small box of rejects to be pulled. Pretty much setup pistol rounds that failed the case gauge. All pretty much due to the full lenth size die not being screwed in far enough. They've never made it to the range, and I can either save the components or scrap them

There are a few that showed signs of pressue, that are also in the rejects box.

I've loaded test load batches that didn't meet my accuracy requirements, and they go in the plinking pile.

I'd take the VAST majority of my handloads over factory ammo. I'd take my .308 Win over Fed Gold Medal Match or Black Hills in a heartbeat, (both primo factory), since it's tuned to my .308 and shoots better. I'd take my 6BR Norma over Lapua loaded rounds as well, for the same reason.

Folks seem to get into reloading, hoping to save money. For most, it never happens. You just shoot more, and build better ammo with better components than you would find in factory ammunition.

I have several rifles that have never seen factory ammo, and I hope they never will. They're happy guns that are well fed, and my buddies at the range believe they are better guns than they are, since they shoot well due to having ammo tailored to them.

Your AR can have significant variety in it's diet. You'll soon feel sorry for those lost souls on AR15.com just hoping to scrounge any 55 or 62 Gr FMJ on sale, cheering for Wolf. You end up shooting 69 Gr MatchKings for the same price, with 60 Gr V-Max for some spice.

What is also great about reloading, is having purpose built ammo optimized for your rifle. I've got favorite loads in pistol rounds for IPSC, steel targets, personal defense, and bullseye. I've got favorite loads for my benchrest gun that serve for targets, and another for varmints. I've got .270 loads tuned for big game with 160 Nosler partitions, deer with 130 gr bullets, targets with 135 Gr MatchKings, and wickedly accurate varmint loads with 110 V-Max and 90 Sierra BTHP Varminter rounds. Then there is that fact that I can feed my 6.5-06...where are you gonna get that at a store, and what would it cost you?

Once you reload, you'll hate the idea of factory ammo. They can just discontinue your favorite round, or change it and it will no longer shoot well in your rifle.

Reloading will forever raise your expectation of what good ammo should be. It's the gun equivalent to sex, after you start, the world is different

 

[LeonCarr]

Immediately

The first rounds I handloaded (.44 Magnum, 240 Hornady XTP, 24.0 W296, Winchester Brass, CCI 350), were more accurate and had higher velocity than any factory load I had shot.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

[Cheesemaker]

Reliable : straightaway. I have loaded ~5000 44mag and several hundred 454 Casull. The only failures to fire (2 of them) were with the 454.....this (I believe) was due to bad primers. I have reasons to believe that the box of primers had been opened, dropped, spilled, repacked at least once.....proabably resulting in contaminated primers. I need to get rid of the remainder of the box (~90 primers).

Accuracy : Excellent. You can produce more consistent ammo by reloading. Find a load that works well for you and your gun and you are good to go.

 

[Kimber1911_06238]

the second time I ever reloaded. The first time, the OAL was too long and didn't feed reliably...woops. after that, much better than factory

 

[jvik]

I agree with the other responses - reliability should not be a problem. My question would be about how fast you have to / will want to produce the reloads. You could make up all 5000 ahead of time, or you could figure on loading the amount for the first course then reloading them for the second course. The thing is, if the courses are even slightly close together, cranking out 2000 to 3000 rounds can take some time unless you load with a progressive press.

Often new reloaders are advised to start with a non-progressive press - it keeps things simpler since you can concentrate on the basics of the reloading process. But for that quantity you might want a progressive press - a Hornady or a Dillon - then you will want to leave some time for that learning curve.

Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind.

 

[Master Blaster]

Factory ammo is made on high speed equipment with little quality control, especially the cheap stuff which is what all the factory ammo shooters look for. I have loaded and fired about 100,000 rounds of various centerfire ammo in the last 10 years, I have had 3 squibbs in all that time, two from loading on a single stage and one from my LNL AP, I have never produced a double charged or squibb load on my Dillon 550. You will use better quality control than factory and better powder and components if you are serious about reloading. When I first started loading .45 acp I had been shooting speer lawman ammo, I got dinner plate sized groups from my gold cup at at 25 yards, when I started loading my own using the proven bullseye load, I suddenly went to baseball sized groups, as I tinkered with my loads the groups got smaller.

In my ar-15's good surplus or Q3131 will shoot 2-3" 5 shot groups at 100 yards on my best day. I have a load that uses $35 per thousand winchester fmj that shoots 1" groups out of all my ars, and a load using 69 BTHP match kings that goes under .5" out of my heavy barreled varmint gun. I have never found any premium factory ammo that comes close to this load.

The only factory ammo I have shot in the last 8 years is .22lr, and shotgun shells which I don't reload.

Examples of problems with CCI blazer ammo are discussed along with a picture at this link to another forum.

http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/410601935/m/3781038001

 

[spalit]

I am 100% self-taught with reloading and my first batch of .357 magnum loads were more accurate out of my 6" S&W 686 than any factory loads.

My rifle loads have never let down in the accuracy department. Only 3 times have I set primers too high, and that was when I was getting used to the RCBS APS priming tool that I switched to from the Lee; since I wanted to safely use Federal primers.

 

[jeepmor]

As long as you remember not to put primers in your dummy rounds for setup, they won't ever get mixed in with real loads and you won't ever have a squib.

Don't ask me how I know this, it should be obvious.

Give yourself plenty of time, don't rush, and start with small batches. Learn a little for better throughput, and adjust accordingly. As for pistols, don't separate headstamps, don't trim to length, don't chamfer flash holes, don't worry, if the cases are not split, they'll be fine. Particularly in the case of a .45 round, it is mild in regards to pressure when comparing it to the likes of most other autoloader rounds. It really doesn't make a significant difference. Since you need 5K rounds, by the time you're done reloading that many, you will be quite an expert, I assure you.

With that many rounds as your initial need, time and money will be well spent on a progressive press right out of the gate. Think roughly 5000 +/- 100 handcranks on a progressive compared to 15,000 handcranks for the same output on a single stage. Also, at that volume, I think you would save money and pay for a good press very, very quickly.