What kind of shooter/reloader are you really? Did you change over the years?

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LiveLife

LiveLife

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Didn't want to hijack another thread - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/no-i-won’t-make-you-ammo.913424/page-5#post-12486269

But it's fun to find out just what kind of shooter/reloader you are in the hierarchy of reloading/shooting world.

There are at least two major groups of shooters/reloaders. Which group/subgroup do you belong to? :) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-and-discussions.778197/page-11#post-12029687
  1. Shooter who use factory ammo
    • 1a - Shooter who hardly ever shoot
    • 1b - Shooter who is a recreational shooter
    • 1c - Shooter who is an avid shooter
    • 1d - Shooter who competes
      • 1d1 - Shooter who competes with any factory ammunition
      • 1d2 - Shooter who competes with tested most accurate factory ammunition
      • 1d3 - Shooter who competes with match ammunition
    • 1e - Shooters who wonder why they have guns but shoot anyways
  2. Shooter who reloads/handloads
    • 2a - Shooter who reloads
      • 2a1 - Shooter who dislikes reloading but likes shooting (Will buy factory if price difference is close enough)
        • 2a1i - Shooter who reloads on occasion
        • 2a1ii - Shooter who reloads regularly
        • 2a1iii - Shooter who reloads to compete
      • 2a2 - Shooter who likes reloading and also likes shooting (Will hardly/never buy factory)
        • 2a2i - Shooter who reloads on occasion
        • 2a2ii - Shooter who reloads regularly
        • 2a2iii - Shooter who simply views gun as unloading device (May not even enjoy shooting)
        • 2a2iv - Shooter who reloads to compete
    • 2b - Shooter who handloads (May also reload and likely enjoys reloading/handloading)
      • 2b1 - Shooter who handloads but has "practical" limits
        • 2b1i - Shooter who handloads occasionally (hunting, etc.)
        • 2b1ii - Shooter who handloads regularly (match shooting, etc.)
      • 2b2 - Shooter who handloads but has "realistic" limits
        • 2b2i - Shooter who handloads occasionally (hunting, etc.)
        • 2b2ii - Shooter who handloads regularly (match shooting, etc.)
      • 2b3 - Shooter who handloads and has no limits going down rabbit holes to pursue reduction of shooting/reloading variables
    • 2c - Shooters who wonder why they reload/handload but reload/handload anyways
 
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I am a 2b2 who has a few factory loads in the safe for testing purposes only, and I cast every bullet I think will offer a reasonable performance. I don't compete with my cast in metallic varmit out to 600 because I don't cast 223. Every round for fun in 357 and Compition for my son in metallic Silhouette is hand loaded and cast by my hand. I have developed a 158 sierra jsp for my son to hunt and none have been hunting yet, as he got his license last week. I shoot cast and jacketed in my 308. It's my learning gun and most familiar cartridge. If I'm doing something for a first time I'm doing it in 308. I've had the opertunity to shoot 888 yards once, but stuck at my local range at 300 as a limit. Dirty thirty is the new game, have dad's reloads and a box of 50 I've built in the last week. I intend on fully exploring this caliber like my 308 and competing in metallic Silhouette against my son with this rifle. This will also be my son's step up rifle so hunting loads will be developed in short order. I have a bunch of other projects at my parents and those will be rotated in as I complete a project.
Edit to add for topic adjustments. I went from shooting my dad's reloads to making my own... same same
 
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2a2 - Shooter who likes reloading and also likes shooting (Will hardly/never buy factory)

Vehicle: Mechanic, machinist,repair, rebuilt, restore
Fishing: boat, wrap rods, make lures, repair reels, etc...
Buy house: plumber, electrician, drywall, painter, landscaper, windows, doors....
Firearms: reload, cast bullets, build, load development, light gunsmithing.

I tend to go deep into all my ventures
 
1b - I started out as recreational shooter enjoying my first 10/22 plinking away having the time of my life ... happy memories. :)

1c - Then during Army bootcamp, they let us shoot all kinds of guns: machine guns, belt-fed machine guns, grenade launchers, claymore mines and throw all sorts of hand grenades ... then assigned to break-in and maintain my unit's armory of M16s and new M1911s ... Yes, I became an avid shooter right quick. :D

2a1iii - After Army, I naturally gravitated towards USPSA "action pistol" shooting factory ammunition but started reloading to decrease my group size at the urging of other match shooters.

2a2iv - Soon, I started enjoying reloading more and more and shot factory ammunition less and less.

2b1ii - Then I started going down the rabbit hole of reducing reloading variables but with certain sense of budgetary constraints.

2b2ii - But I started increasing my shooting/reloading budget.

2b3 - And after almost 30 years later having spent over $180,000 on shooting/reloading, I am essentially starting over reloading setup with unlimited budget.

So now, I am a 2b3 shooter/reloader for the rest of retirement. :p
 
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BBarn said:
I get pigeon holed into categories enough already. So, while I'm not opposed to what you are doing, I'm not going to volunteer for more. People are referred to as individuals for a reason.
Click to expand...
Well, I just complicated your life a bit more by adding "Did you change over the years" to the thread title. :p

OK everyone, take a deep breath and take us down memory lanes ... Ahhhhh, memories. :D
 
Full on 2A2
I did always buy the ammo for the Eastern Bloc, as even in the best of times, I couldn't load it that cheap.
With the exception of getting 2 boxes of ammo with my Ruger American 450, I haven't bought a box of factory ammo in 30 yrs.
Needless to say, I never saved a dime loading my own, but did an upwards of 4 times the amount of shooting for about the same price.
Funny a while back I found a box with 14 Winchester Super X 300Win cartridges in it. They looked the same Era as the price....$10.99. Got em at the Meijer, probably 35 yrs ago
 
Some of the above options......none of them quite match.

I started reloading to save money, but like many ended up just shooting more, embraced it and reloaded to shoot more. I reload to shoot, I reload to compete, I like reloading for both the vast majority of the time. I did bu a box of factory .35 Remington a few years back, bit also reload for it. I buy .22 LR to compete, which doubles as fun, but I also buy it to just play around.
 
Less getting to an alpha-numeric description it's simple for me.

I began shooting at 8 years old with a .22 Remington which was a gift from my uncle's friend. I added a few guns over the years till I was 19 and the Marine Corps gave me all sorts of guns and ammunition. While I was never a sniper type I was fascinated by them and their rifles. When I got home from Vietnam in '72 I just had an interest in making really good accurate ammunition for rifles to see what I could really get out of them. Rolling my own ammunition seemed the logical path so I started learning how to build high power as we called it. I was never really into it to save money while I did but more in a quest for really accurate and repeatable ammunition for my own rifles. Eventually I got into building my own rifles and accurizing rifles. So it all began a long time ago. I'll be 73 come February and my love of shooting continues. I retired at 63 and now I have plenty of time for the range so I load more. My real love is rifle but this is NE Ohio and my outdoor range becomes a frozen tundra, not as much fun as spring, summer, and fall days. MY winters are clean brass and reload as well as the indoor range. Indoor is OK but let's face it, a great rifle at 75 feet is not quite fun. I load and shoot mostly handgun in my off rifle season. Now I haven't a clue what little alpha-numeric group(s) that puts me in but it's where I am at. :)

Ron
 
I’ve just always reloaded. If I buy shelf box ammo it means I’m low on brass. I started handloading looking for that one specific load that would make my Marlin 94 .357 sing - my revolver loads either didn’t feed reliably or were not really taking advantage of the Marlin barrel, so I started experimenting with different combinations, not just refilling the cases with how they were made from the factory.
Reloading and handloading have just always been part of shooting.
 
I'm trying to remember the difference between a reloader and a handloader. Is it that a handloader tries harder?

Anyway, I inherited some loading equipment when I was a teenager, and loaded ammo for me and my dad for hunting. At some point I bought a .357 Security Six, which was the first firearm that I shot regularly for recreation. I used to buy remanufactured ammo that was quite reasonable but quickly upgraded to a Rockchucker and loaded my own. Then, when I was in my forties I wanted to compete again (I was on the rifle team in high school) and got a DCM M1 and started to shoot NRA Highpower rifle. I fell into that pretty heavily, and soon had a couple AR15's, Springfield 1903's, K31's, Swedish Mausers and various other rifles to compete in CMP games matches. While I did do load testing, I generally used proven recipes which gave me good results in the iron sighted as-issued rifles that were specified in the rules.

I always wanted a 1911 pistol, and after I got one I started shooting bullseye pistol to give me a place to shoot it. A Dillon 550 came about shortly after that, along with another 1911 and 3 .22 target pistols. Then, a couple of years ago, my club started an informal benchrest league. I jumped into that because I had a Savage Model 10 that was pretty accurate and gave me an excuse to shoot it there. That might be when I became a handloader if my definition is correct. We shoot on the IBS 100 yd. hunter targets, that in order to clean requires 1/2 MOA ammo in a .22 IMO. I got the Savage below .75 MOA (I shot a 99 in the last match) but hankered for something else to play with.

My newest project is a 6.5 Grendel Ruger American (don't laugh). We have to see how things play out, but my first attempts were less than .75 MOA with a couple groups around .6. Some load refinement is only going to improve and the bigger bullets are going to help too. There are a couple of custom rifles on the line, 1 6 PPC in particular, that are going to be impossible to beat (especially the X count) but its going to be fun trying.
 
2d. (Other)

I shoot a quite a bit. Mostly handguns. My reloading efforts are not normally "fun", but they provide me the satisfaction of supporting my hobby in a very cost effective manner.

I got into reloading as a teenager very soon after starting to shoot (mid 1970s). I have never purchased centerfire rifle or pistol ammo. It has been more than a decade since I bought any kind of ammo.

For the 5 types of ammo I load in the largest volumes, my cost is close to $0.03 per round based on "old" prices for consumables. Based on current prices for consumables, these would be closer to $0.04 per round. These prices reflect market prices for lead even though most of my lead is range scrap that I harvest and process.

I cast bullets.
I make bullet molds.
I reload primers.
I buy powder on-line in bulk orders (32 lbs is typical).
I uae Milsurp powder to the extent practical.
 
AJC1 said:
Do any of those holes have n530 or n540 loads for 30-30.... ;)
Click to expand...
Not yet, but the next round of 30-30 testing will include some W760 and maybe some N555 loads. Pushing Hornady 160gr FTX bullets of course.
I have been getting excellent results with less economical, powders that are considered a bit slow for a given cartridge, some times requiring fire forming to fit an overbook powder charge in. Such as I did with 8x57js and H4350, book max in new brass just didn't fit enough H4350 to get the bullets moving fast enough to hit an accuracy node. Fire formed allowed me to fit 2 more grains of powder and that did it.
 
2b3 here. Sometimes I don't know of I handload to shoot or shoot to handload. I have waaay more time to reload than I have to shoot...
 
N555 said:
Not yet, but the next round of 30-30 testing will include some W760 and maybe some N555 loads. Pushing Hornady 160gr FTX bullets of course.
I have been getting excellent results with less economical, powders that are considered a bit slow for a given cartridge, some times requiring fire forming to fit an overbook powder charge in. Such as I did with 8x57js and H4350, book max in new brass just didn't fit enough H4350 to get the bullets moving fast enough to hit an accuracy node. Fire formed allowed me to fit 2 more grains of powder and that did it.
Click to expand...
I've already replied/submitted a request information on their site. Those are both logical in bound selections, they just don't have data. When seeking top velocity I had copper solids in mind and the 140 monoflex and the 150 tsx were the ideal application.
 
2b4

We have 98% of the equipment in the shop to make pretty much anything gun related from scratch. Two of my four boys have PhD's.... one is chemistry,the other physics. I stay healthy mind/body shooting competition archery. We have a 3D range,indoor and outdoor gun ranges. There's not much I wouldn't invest in towards digging the cast bullet rabbit hole.

And still find handloading to be probably my most relaxing pastime. Old shop equipment rebuilding is second.
 
I do three primary things firearms related & don’t know which of your categories apply.

1. Reloading & following THR—entirely recreational. Haven’t bought factory ammo since I began. Don’t care if I’m saving money. Always available ammo is great.
2. Shooting—overwhelmingly recreational and pistol only. Love shooting my own ammunition but have never (yet) tried to determine if load x is more accurate than load y or other such intricacies. Have never shot while sitting.
3. Practice drawing & pointing concealed pistol for muscle memory and avoiding getting tangled in clothes—no aiming nor shooting.
 
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2a2ii/I.
I'm somewhere between those two categories. I enjoy shooting. But I really enjoy finding the best load I can. The research and testing are equally fun. Once I have the load nailed down. My wife takes over and I moistly use it for hunting purposes. Then I move on to the next rifle or pistol.
 
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