Reloading with my son.

[DWS1117]

All of us who have or has had young kids know how they want to help you do everything. Tonight I set out to load some .45ACP on my Dillon 550. I was about 50 rounds into the session when the plea to help come from my 4 year old son. Instead of brushing him off I put him up on the bench (since he is too short) with the boxes for the completed rounds. When a round fell into the hopper he would pick it up and place it in the box. He was having a ball. I would pretend like I was racing him. He even got to the point where he would try to catch the round as it fell and place it in the box before it fell. It was the most fun I've has reloading. For him it was a game and for me it was quality time spent with my son involving my favorite hobby since he is still too young for the range.

(BTW, I wasn't really racing him, but don't tell him that. Gotta watch the powder drops and the whole process.)

 

[armoredman]

My 5 year old son has to "help" me with the handle when it's decap/resize time. He loves it. I just don't let him to close when live powder/primers are out...

 

[HSMITH]

Put some glasses on him, a primer WILL go off in the press if you load enough. Wash his hands well when done and make sure he isn't chewing on his fingers or anything in the mean time (kids do strange things at strange times as I am sure you know).

My son is 6 now, and 'helps' every time I load. The lead exposure is a concern, but not something you can't deal with provided a little effort is made. I sure enjoy his company when doing my chores like reloading.

 

[dakotasin]

both my girls help me every chance they get.

my oldest daughter is 6, and really enjoys seating bullets.
my youngest daughter is 2, and she thinks sizing/decapping and seating primers is great stuff. she refers to it as 'can i play w/ you now?'

i see nothing wrong w/ letting them help w/ reloading (or decapping the fun way). my oldest daughter cannot fathom not handloading what you're going to shoot...

 

[antarti]

My 5 year old son has to "help" me with the handle when it's decap/resize time. He loves it. I just don't let him to close when live powder/primers are out...

Same here, the kids can help in the repetitive tasks where no powder-measuring/primer-seating are being done, mainly depriming brass, loading the tumbler (kids love that damned thing, especially how it shines coins, which i find much later in the media) and resizing.

After the other steps are done, they get to run some pistol ammo through the FCD and box it, if they did a good job on the other items. They almost always do.

"Making bullets" is fun, good education, good concentration excercise, and good bonding time with "Papa".

The only downside is that I've gotta keep on 'em so that little fingers don't end up in mouths, noses, or eyes until after the hands have been well washed.

 

[Sunray]

The best reloading is done with no distractions. However, what a kid remembers, when he's 25, is doing stuff with his da.

 

[dmftoy1]

That's pretty cool! My boys haven't had much interest since they were 10-12 but when they did they liked to sort brass by headstamps, etc. I found that if I had a couple of split cases to show them that they'd even do some preliminary inspection of the brass trying to find more. I always double checked everything when I was priming, but they did a pretty good job of matching up headstamps.

Have a good one,
Dave

 

[JDGray]

My 8 year old son loves to help dad! I let him size cases, and my favorite, tumble, pick brass out of tumbling media. That saves my back! The boy loves to shoot with me too. Ill have a life long shooting companion

 

[Smokey Joe]

Kudos to y'all!

Sounds like you guys are all doing it right, and more power to you! We need to be developing the next generation of reloaders and shooters.

Good on ya!

 

[cracked butt]

My 3 year old loves to help. I let him work the press when I'm seating bullets, the hard part is getting my fingers out of the way before he pulls the handle.



I'll have to take the safety glasses thing into consideration next time, its the one area where I never perceived a danger of a primer going off, but I won't take chances anymore.

 

[dakotasin]

2 year old:

 

[Henry Bowman]

However, what a kid remembers, when he's 25, is doing stuff with his da.

He'll remember it (an choke up) when he's 55 and Dad is on the other side of the grass, too.

 

[JDGray]

cracked butt, I know all about the bullet seating step, had a few pinched fingers!

 

[Randall]

I set up an old press for my son to play with on a small bench, gave him some junk brass and we would both go to work on our own press. He figured out it was work when he was around 12 tho after he had actually been resizing cases for about 4 years.
Randall

 

[greatgoogamooga]

Glad to know it's not just me and my daughter (4). She has her own stool and some rubber gloves to wear. I hadn't thought about the lgasses either, recon I need to take care of that. I also have to sloooooooooow down when loading with her. I explain to her that this is very impoprtant stuff and it has to be done right in order to keep daddy safe.

I should blame my lousy IDPA scores on my daughter's reloads. Yeah, that's it

Goog

 

[dakotasin]

why not?? my brother in law blamed a miss on a deer this year on my daughter's load...

 

[cidirkona]

My kids know very well to not exsist yet.

-Colin

 

[scout26]

Here's my voice activated wad seater:

Dakotasin, I see your daughter prefers the tactical pink Scooby Doo shirt.

The Load-All in the background is my 12 yo daughters for her 20 ga Mossberg. I got my son one of those .410/.22LR NEF combos for Christmas. Anyone got a .410 reloader they want to get rid of......cheap ???

Looks like we all need to have our kids wear safety glasses while we/they reload. :banghead:


edit: I'll see if I can make that picture a little bigger next time.

 

[HSMITH]

The upside to making the kids wear glasses is you will have to set the example for them. If I had to guess I would say at least 75% of us don't wear glasses ourselves when loading even though we know darn good and well we should...

I know I get complacent and don't always wear them.

 

[cracked butt]

The lead exposure is a concern, but not something you can't deal with provided a little effort is made.

The lead *twitch* what was I talking about? *twitch* Oh that's right the lead *twitch* *twitch* is something to be concerned about with kids.

I used to watch my grandpa cast jigs and sinkers at the kitchen table at night before he'd take me out fishing on the river in the morning. Good memories.

 

[cracked butt]

If I had to guess I would say at least 75% of us don't wear glasses ourselves when loading even though we know darn good and well we should...

I pretty much have only worn them while priming cases- that's the part of reloading that I've always had a bit of fear of. I've had a recent eye injury (not reloading related) and don't want to go through that hell again wondering if my eye will heal or if the vision in my dominant eye will always be like looking through a piece of glass smeared with vaseline.

 

[The Bushmaster]

For those that take the time to spend with their children doing anything and of any age...MAY GOD BLESS YOU.....MANY TIMES OVER...

 

[pierrebazukhov]

My son is 2 but I've already had him help me with some loads. I let him use my extra single stage press and some brass for a rifle I no longer own. We got to play together and I got some more ammo loaded. He loves to go to the store to get supplies, too. He somehow always manages to find stuff I like when he's looking around- like Ruger Blackhawks in the pistol case. This weekend he discovered ground blinds and played in them for 45 minutes or an hour- when we get in the car he yells to "go to Daddy's store!"