An esteemed visitor dropped by the other day asking about good resources for getting started in the hobby. The ultimate authority on reloading has to be the Mighty Johnny!
Johnny has what amounts to a fully equipped home ballistics lab. He tests reloads, barrel harmonizers, seating depths and arcane gunny theories under lab conditions. He dissects factory ammo and tries to reproduce it. (The factories have access to powders and components we can’t get). His methodology is about as good as it gets - for the most part. But the beginner doesn’t need all that crap.
Ya REALLY need to be careful of the gun forums. My favourite forum - Cast Boolits - has probably some of the most knowledgeable gunnies you could ever hope to meet. But the place is crawling with morons and retards too, and they make as much or more noise than the experts. Ya don’t want to take advice from idiots. Take your time on the forums and learn who’s who.
If you have any questions or problems let me know and we’ll talk about it. If I can’t help, I know experts that might. Reloading for rifles is generally pretty easy. Watch your powder choices (stay in the manuals), and your powder charges and you should be good. Set your dies up according to the instructions and get after it! Be careful with pistols and shotguns, their powders have higher energy densities.
I hope you’re ALL reloading by now. It’s a great hobby.
Cheers,
Filthie
Thank you SO FRIGGING MUCH ! Greatly appreciate the pointer to Johnny. I just cannot wait to get into it - we are coming into the rut right now, and taking meat for the freezer is a fantastic privilege here. Being able to humanely take one with my own specially tested, lovingly crafted, hand-rolled 7-08 rem cigars will be off my pleasure scale. One day I might even graduate to your favourite deer calibre, the tremendous 25-06.
ReplyDeleteOh chit - 7-08 is a great calibre too! When you get into this you will notice that all the calibres that have been around for awhile will have "classic" loads that have consistently turn in good results over time. I'm going from memory here so take this with three grains of salt ... but I *think* the classic for the 7-08 that I saw was a 140gr pill on 41.5gr of 4831... but double check that. The classic load is your starting point and then its off to the races.
DeleteI seriously considered the 7-08 when I rebarrelled my burnt out 25-06, actually. The only reason I went with the 243 is that I am largely a close range gun club duffer now. If I were still seriously hunting I personally would have gone with the 7-08 or another 25-06...
Thanks Glen. I have a copious supply of one all-round powder (AR2208) with the same batch number, and over 10,000 primers (CCI & Federal) carefully stored - been reading you for a while now, LOL.
DeleteMy rifle shoots just under MOA off the bench with factory 139gn "superformance" from Hornady. I have a solid stash of a variety of lighter 7mm projectiles from Hornady, Nosler, Berger & Barnes, and a local supplier Outer Edge to ensure I have plenty on hand and can find something my Tikka really likes.
Planning to learn the basics of doing it safely, with the traditional loads and then transition to the lighter Barnes & Outer Edge copper projectiles for meat hunting. (Shots always kept under 200 yds - hunter not "shooter").