Why I have become such a handloading PITA.

[Rodentman]

I have always valued Sam's advice and his good company!

[JoeH]

I just have to say that a number of us, here on this board, started to handload during the last 1-3 years. I'm one of these.

In discussing the art of handloading with other newbies, we all take it very seriously, checking several legitimate sources of information, and begin with starting loads and work up from there with everything that we load.

We aren't all bad.

[mnglocker]

As the newbie bonehead who got Sam going on this tirade, I feel compelled to say a few words in my own defense.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any.

So I will just take my lumps and the excellent advice that I have received and work to become a responsible and trustworthy handloader.

Oh ... by the way, Sam: It was my HEAD that I almost blew off, not my ass.

IF you compress the load.... /nevermind

[Pinnacle]

Go slow - check your work and if you run into a problem STOP and figure it out or ask someone.

Get some manuals - read them - heed them. If you can't afford manuals ask someone who has them.

Powder manufacturers advice in their free publications is an excellent place to start as a reference.

There is Seismic to ask - ask me and well - John Walton will help too.

There are loads of people to ask and learn from. Hell ask and you can come over and we can work on your reloading project and I can get you started anyhow.

There is a huge difference in different reloading goals. Sam there is a freak (in a good way) looking for the ultimate in rifle accuracy and in constant pursuit of perfection - a good thing.

I reload a ton of handgun stuff - ask JoeH how we roll. Different animal - fundamentals are the same.

We reload a lot of machinegun ammo - whole different animal alltogether.

You get out of reloading what you put in to it. Simple or complex techniques the basic premise and fundamentals never ever change.

Be safe - don't do anything stupid. Like overload somethig carelessly and grossly - how about this - perhaps you could care less about your gun or yourself - how about someone standing near you on the range catching a piece of steel in the head and dying? It can happen. The worst part is - you get to live with that.

So take Sam's warning to heart.

[1911fan]

ALways seek out collaboration between manuals. Even they can make mistakes, but if you have two or three manuals from reputable companies, or even (gasp) web data from the same, which all seem to be the same rough equivalents, then feel safe in doing the work and properly work yourself up loads starting at starting loads and progressing on up until you find something that works.



Now a Nosler book is going to list Nosler bullets, and Speer uses their bullets for the manuals, but a 150 grainer in .308 is a 150 in a .308 and if you find two or maybe more manuals that list say 41.5 (+/- 1 grain) grains of Supergood powder as starter loads and 45.5 grains (+/- about 1 grain) as max loads and suddenly you find that Edition 6 of Joes bullet Company has a starting load for Supergood powder that is some 4 or 5 grains higher than anyone else's max load, be very, very leery of that.

This is not to say that they are wrong, but once in a while, an aberration can happen, where because of a host of reasons, one companies data shows that what would strain another gun, will work in theirs. A slightly larger bore diameter, a sloppy reamer, a less hot batch of primers, a soggy or old or weak powder sample, and/or different case capacity can all add up to a load that is perfectly safe in gun one, but pushes or exceeds the limits in another.


So like the SALT treaties, Trust but Verify.

[Seismic Sam]

Be safe - don't do anything stupid. Like overload somethig carelessly and grossly -

how about this - perhaps you could care less about your gun or yourself - how about someone standing near you on the range catching a piece of steel in the head and dying? It can happen. The worst part is - you get to live with that.

So take Sam's warning to heart.

This reminds me of a wonderful afternoon at the 50 yard range at Oakdale a few years back, and I was shooting some revoltingly large caliber as usual, and there was a guy directly to my left with a 44 Magnum shooting away. Click! BLOOEY! Click! BLOOEY! Click! POOT! Click!

Thankfully the guy didn't pull the trigger again, and thank God he was slow firing rather than timed or rapid. Yup. It was a squib, and the 44 bullet was tightly lodged in the barrel. I was going to start a lecture on handloading safety because these were handloads, and the guy said his Uncle had loaded up this box of ammo for him. I just about went ballistic. That 44 had been less than 4 feet away from my head and on the same level, and somebody's incompetent, lazy arse, dipshyte, dumbphuck Uncle had come within a second or two of getting me killed or seriously injured. Thanks an EFFEN lot, you careless dumbazz!! I can just picture this Uncle in my head, too. Fat as a trophy hog, wearing one of those undershirts (dirty, of course) that just have the shoulder straps on them, with a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth, and a couple of empty beer cans on the reloading bench, and the Packers game on the TV at the same time.

As a general matter of safety, shooting other people's handloads is not a good idea, unless you really know that the handloader knows their ****. Accepting handloads from a relative is almost laways an invitation to disaster.

[hammAR]

......I do not watch the Packers...............

[MNCarry]

If this happens, the ability of the American public to resist a Socalist tryanny by force of arms will be severly crippled, and as I have said above, handloading will be the last bastion of armed resistance in this country. I am too old to die young, and with my health issues I may not be able to last very long in the Brave New World of Obamanation, so yes, I would prefer to go out firing rather than rot in a Government run nursing home.

You senile crazy old pfart......American public and armed resistance in the same sentence.......
just exactly how many of those young-gun, keyboard commando, sheepdog pin wearing, pantie wastes do you think even understand what you are talking about.......
Screw the demographics - we got all the Gulf War vets, and all the current deployed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then we got a SHYTELOAD of Vietnam vets who are ALL too old to die young, and the ones with Agent Orange problems are going to be virtually unstoppable because they WANT to die for REAL freedom, and every civilian nut job in a Western Red state.
let alone how many are going to be standing with you in armed resistance when the SHTF for real......
I don't want anybody near me who will screw up my concentration or field of fire, so that's irrelevant
you are going to be all by your lonesome.......
Just like I have been my whole EFFEN life, and BTW, my property is a 3D labrythinthe with 100% tree cover that Sat IR can't get through, and if the .338 don't do you, the .308 AR-10 may, and you will NOT get past the 50AE rounds
hope Sasha likes aged meat.......Cheers Brother......
And as I have seen with my own eyes, the nearness of death brings a calmness that will probably increase my effective range with the .338 to nearly a mile - See you in hell, HammAR

READ carefully what Sam says above. He KNOWS whereof he speaks.

Especially the part about us old vets. We may be on the way out, but we'll be more than happy to take a few along for the ride.

It's a GOOD day to die.