180 grs. of powder in the .40 S&W???

I have loaded some 9 and 40 for family and allowed family to shoot my reloads with my guns at the range with me.

I have had a couple folks ask what I would charge for reloads. So far I have not given any quotes. Easy enough to figure my cost for components, not so much for consumables like cleaning and lube etc and have so far not bothered to track my time. Add cost of tools etc and my true cost in order to make some profit would likely be at least as much as sales prices on factory ammo.
Liability would be a major concern but if something were to go wrong, even without any law suit etc, I would feel terrible if there was even a possibility that my reloads caused damage or hurt someone. Even something as simple as a squib can get ugly if the shooter isn't paying attention and fires another behind it.
Still at a components cost of about $10/100 (using range pick up brass) when the best sale price going is pushing $20/50 it is tempting to sell mine at say $15/50 or actually it might be 48 in a box since I am also making my own boxes using 18pt paper (about twice as heavy as 110 pound card stock). I have developed a set of templates for several calibers that folder up without using tape or glue or staples and so far are working very well. Maybe I should post them for others to use, although not sure where you can get the heavy paper, I consult for a printing company and they hooked me up. Chipboard would also work and a bone folder is also helpful. Or maybe I should sell the boxes. Could ship em flat.
 
I'm with the poster who asked about reloading for the guy if he's a handloader himself, let him do it. It,doesn't sound like he is competent to be shooting OR reloading, and I would personally keep my distance from him.
 
Mcwsky09 said:
Still at a components cost of about $10/100 (using range pick up brass) when the best sale price going is pushing $20/50 it is tempting to sell mine at say $15/50 or actually it might be 48 in a box since I am also making my own boxes using 18pt paper (about twice as heavy as 110 pound card stock). I have developed a set of templates for several calibers that folder up without using tape or glue or staples and so far are working very well. Maybe I should post them for others to use, although not sure where you can get the heavy paper, I consult for a printing company and they hooked me up. Chipboard would also work and a bone folder is also helpful. Or maybe I should sell the boxes. Could ship em flat.
Click to expand...
This is also illegal w/o an ffl, but of course never stopped anyone. Just keep in mind on incident & your small profit is wiped out along with the rest of your livelihood.
 
fredj338 said:
This is also illegal w/o an ffl, but of course never stopped anyone. Just keep in mind on incident & your small profit is wiped out along with the rest of your livelihood.
Click to expand...

Yeah there is that too. I don't think my homeowners insurance would cover that.

Plus, as with a lot of hobbies, if you start doing it for profit it quickly becomes a job rather than a hobby.
 
I only load for myself just simply due to the fact if I screw up a load, it blows up on me. And I also do not let my friends use my equipment. I do my best to educate them on the subject the best I can. I encourage them to get several reloading manuals and research to see if reloading is for them. But that's just me.
 
Better one loads his own or sticks with commercial grade. I used to know a handloader who was constantly exceeding SAMI pressures, experimenting with black and rifle powders in non mag handgun calibers, and sometimes trying flamible household items not ever otherwise remotely considered as bullet propellants. Buyer/mooch beware.
 
A good friend of mine who is an experienced and careful reloader was gifted some supplies by an older friend who was a long time reloader and was "retiring" from the hobby. Upon loading a few rounds with the newly acquired open can of powder he started getting some very odd and unexpected results. After he pulled and checked some of his charges, he went back and asked his "friend" about the powder. The moron had dumped together several partial cans of leftover powder to a single container on the assumption that "powder is powder." Fortunately, no permanent damage was done to my friend or his gun, but the "free powder" became fertilizer for his garden! So much for trusting "experienced" reloaders or giving or taking reloads from others.

Froggie
 
Buy him a reloading manual and wish him the best of luck in his endeavors.
 
If this neighbor lives within one block of you, you should move...:eek:
 
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I would never reload for anyone but myself. With the way things go these days, you could end up getting sued even if it's not your fault. I recently let a friend shoot my guns (I was with him) and we both enjoyed doing that. During the course of the shooting though, I encountered a squib load at which time I stopped firing, cleared the gun and removed the stuck bullet from the barrel. After I got back home I got to thinking. This friend is very hard of hearing, was wearing ear muffs and was not a regular shooter. Had he encountered the same thing, it was quite possible that he would not realize what had happened and fired the next shot. There would no doubt have been catastrophic results. After giving it some thought, I decided not to allow anyone to shoot my guns. In his case, I never tell him I'm going shooting and that way I don't get any arguments. If he has his own guns I'd gladly ask him along but would provide neither gun nor handloads for his use.
 
Whether you want to load for him or not, you should explain to him that it's not 180 grains of powder, at a minimum. I would feel somewhat guilty if he lost a hand because of it and I said nothing to discourage him from trying it.
 
If they ARE a friend.....

If they ARE a friend rather than an acquaintance, tell them you wont load their ammo, but invite them over for a session where you show them how it's done.

Also, if that guy can't read the scale and doesn't know which numbers to use for powder weight, what else is he going to screw up????
 
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Maybe the guy misread 18.0 as 180 which would still be hard to get into a 40 case. Mistaking the bullet weight for powder weight seems more likely. I wonder though how stupid can you be if you throw 180 grains of powder and see that it is several times the volume of the case and not stop and say oops I must have something wrong and go back and start over and double check everything you are doing.
 
This reminds me......

Of the friend that knew all about A/C and borrowed my 30# can of Freon and returned it empty. He said the A/C had '300 psi' labeled on it so he tried to achieve that pressure, on the low pressure side. 300 psi was the test pressure of the system. The correct fill pressure was about 1/8 of that. I hope he didn't decide to take up reloading.
 
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I'm definitely going to steer clear. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet. I know my friend has already set him straight on the matter of bullet vs. powder weight. He's relatively new to handloading and I had to show him how to properly use his scale. He did not know that the scale had to be zeroed and was about to load a few grains too much powder into the .38 Special. This was a nice Model 64 that I had just sold to him and he would've destroyed it if he had followed through with his initial powder charge. Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to stop by and have a chat with him.

Dave Sinko
 
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