Tell Me About Reloading Ammunition
 

Tell me about reloading.

I'm starting to wince at the cost of shooting .45 cal. A day at the range, 150 rounds, and I've spent $40. I'm trying to go 3X week now and the cost is really adding up.

Either I need to (1) make more money, (2) reload, (3) switch to .22LR, or (4) shoot less.

1 and 4 I'd say!

I've given a lot of thought to this...my .44 mag is costing me tons, and it's damn hard to find wadcutters other than online.

Get a Progressive Reloading press...for reloading 45 Acp.

I've reloaded for many years, but mostly for rifles to achieve either velocity increases, or for additional accuracy with custom tailored rounds, or both. I wouldn't hesitate to reload for hunting purposes, still do in fact.

Handguns are a different deal. First, you shoot a lot more generally unless you shoot a rifle competitively. I think that a progressive reloading press makes a lot of sense for pistol shooters, in very short time you'll recover your initial outlay of cash for the press, dies, and so forth.

Buy several good reloading manuals first. I have them from Sierra, Speer, Hornady, and Nosler and a few others. I have some more than 30 years old, but I buy new ones to keep up with current powders and ballistics. These manuals contain a wealth of information on what you need to get started, and of course safety information. Reloading is not risk free, but you probably knew that.

The one thing that I don't reload for is self defense. The actual ammo that I use, no matter whether shotgun, rifle, or handgun; for self defense is factory loaded only. The rate of failure to fire with factory ammo is one in several million, or better. That is never true with reloads, no matter how careful you are. I view self defense firearms as life support equipment, and I demand as close to 100% reliability as I can get for it.

I've done a lot of reloading. Once you become a smart shopper, it can cut your ammo costs by about 2/3. I mainly reloaded .44 mag and .45 ACP.

Before you go dropping cash on the press, dies, scales, etc., why is it costing you $40 for 150 rounds? You can get that much ammo at Wal Mart ofr $30 and get it on www.lancerammo.com for about $22. Buy a batch of 1000 rounds from Lancer and see how it goes.

Depending on wha kind of .45 you have, you may be able to buy the cheap lead semi-wadcutters, which punch a perfectly round, crisp hole in paper targets. It doesn't feed very well in some guns. The trade off with smooth-feeding ball ammo is it tears the targets and makes your groups a little harder to see.

If you get a modern reloading set up and really learn to crank them out, you can make huge batches of ammo for little money. My dad put me to work on our assembly line on our kitchen table when I was about 6 yrs. old. I'm just too lazy now and don't have the space for it in my tiny house.

That's why I shoot a 9mm at the range, the ammo is cheap and I like my Beretta 92FS and (soon to be) Sig P239, both in 9mm.

Pat is right. Don't use homemade stuff for self-defense. Until this past Thanksgiving, my dad insisted on keeping the batch of hollowpoints he and I probably made 25 yrs. ago in his night table .45. I finally bought him a box of Federal Hydr Shoks and insisted he give me that old ammo and keep my factory stuff. A few days later I went to the range to shoot that old ammo. Guess what....in a clip of seven I had two failures to feed (FTF). The lead tips had become so coarse or pourous over the years that they were like sandpaper on my SIG's feed ramp and hung up. If a SIG P220 won't feed it, it needs to be thrown away. Thank God he never had to use that old ammo to save his life.

Besides, ammo is cheap. Life is expensive!

$40 is $10 range fee, $30 for three boxes of ammo. You're right, I could save some money buying in bulk. Thanks for the Lancer link. I'm also going to the next gun show to see what they have. Even in bulk, I think it'll still cost like 18-20 cents/round for hardball.

My current 1911 won't feed SWC; I'm going to insist that my next one does.

Someone told me he reloads his .45 IPSC ammo for 6.7 cents/round. That got my attention.

I don't have the space for it just now, but I'm interested in reloading as soon as I can clear out some space.

I just don't trust old ammo. I recently fired some 9mm hardball that had been sitting around for over 10 years. Out of about 25 rounds, I had two squibs.

1911's can sometimes be made to feed SWC's pretty well. You just have to have the feed ramp polished by a gunsmith. Newer 1911'a probably have this done at the factory. On my old Commander, I had to have it done by a pro.

Rick, this is my Detonics w/ 3 1/2" bbl. The feed ramp is already polished. I'm not hopeful . . .

I've had good results with the Lancer stuff in 9mm. I buy 1K rounds at a time. I looked at .45ACP prices and that's one reason I stuck with 9mm for the second Sig. I think I need a p220 though...but the next one will be a Mosquito so I can hve *really* cheap days at the range. I've got a year membership at two local ranges (same ownership) so each visit is "free" (ie I can go as much as I can afford ammo for). But the .22LR prices are really attractive...

You can get .22 inserts to fit in your .45. This would save some money as the .22 stuff is cheaper. I reloaded some a few years back to save money. The .357, .44, and rifle cartidges seemed to save me the most.

I shot lead a few times, but would not load to lower velocities to hopefully lead the barrel less. Once I loaded the jacketed stuff, the gun seemed easier to clean after a session and that became my normal mode of operation.

I still have the reloader, but have not used it in several years.
If you decide you want one of these, email me. They have a no BS lifetime warranty.

http://dillonprecision.com/template/p.cfm?maj=24&dyn=1&cookieClean=1

Another option:
http://www.natchezss.com/ammo.cfm?contentID=productDetail&ammoRecID=2&brand =ZY&prodID=ZYSBA04501&CFID=1804042&CFTOKEN=1891890 7

If you find Wolf ammo works for you (some people complain that it's too dirty; I've shot a good bit of Wolf's 9mm without problems):
http://www.natchezss.com/ammo.cfm?contentID=productDetail&ammoRecID=2&brand =DZ&prodID=DZ45FMJ&CFID=1804042&CFTOKEN=18918907

Or Fiocchi, it's good and inexpensive: http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/copy_of__45acp.html

Can I hijack the tread to explore the .22 options? To late....

I was looking at some of the Ruger .22s for target shooting. Any opinions on these guns?

John, I have a Dillon Square Deal B almost new which I don't use anymore. I think that has .38 Super dies, but I should have the .45 ACP dies somewhere.

I was a 100 rounds a day 6 days a week type of person, reloading is the only way to go.

Let me know if you want it. Is your for the cost of postage.

My Ruger Mark II was my first gun; I can't say anything bad about it. I did get a blued one, but am planning on getting one in stainless steel eventually.

I love my Bearcat, but some people don't like the small size.

I have Ruger's SP101 in 9mm and plan on getting one in 22lr eventually too.

Ditto that! I can't get to the range as much as I'd like, but when I go I typically do 100rds through whatever I've brought, plus at least 200rds of 22LR through the Ruger MKII! Point is the 22LR is a lot of fun and so cheap that it's a no-brainer to bring it along every time. I've got a bunch of the Federal bulk 525rd boxes which are <$12! Even the upper quality stuff is like $3/100rds.

Personally I don't see reloading as a viable option for me unless/until I get to the point of shooting a LOT of large-caliber and/or powder-charge loadings [$1/rd starts to add up quickly], and also am comfortable with the lead and chemical exposure aspects...

(Disclosure: ATK is one of my customers so I don't mind buying their brands/products, which happen to be great ones IMO)

Jordi, I sent you a PM.