Worst Job in reloading!

[Ivan the Butcher]

Maybe your wife will help you move some of your stuff to the sewing room?
What ya think?

Thanks for the laugh!

I'm into it about 6 hours of work and about half way.

Navada Ed; there is no such thing as too much stuff! especially in reloading! However there is the problem of too little space!

Someone said I should be glad I had a dedicated reloading room. I was glad until we moved to the condo 5 years ago. I went from 14 running feet of loading bench to 5 foot. From a 12x15 foot room to part of the laundry room! From walking outside anytime day or night and testing a load, to neighbors and in city limits! HOWEVER: This is what I have, it is mine and I am grateful. I can walk to 10 restaurants in 5 minutes, I don't spend time mowing or landscaping. The couple on my south are pleasant to speak with, the 25 year old blond to the north of me is very entertaining! She and her friends like to sunbathe sans tops in hot weather. Her all night parties are the quietest parties on earth! So, LIFE IS GOOD! I just like to grumble about cleaning.

Ivan

 

[Cdog]

My family and I moved to our current home last September.

I went from loading in my garage to a dedicated room in my basement.

I have filled a full wall of built in shelving, my storage locker for dies, loading trays, priming tools, and miscellaneous other items that came from garage is packed and I still have some stuff in the floor on one side of the room that I don't know what to do with.

The only significant change is my larger powder stores are now with the rest instead of inside a closet at my previous home. I don't know where I kept it all before.

A person accumulates a lot of "Stuff" over 35 years of handloading.

Some of it I may not use again, but it's still good stuff.

I think many handloaders are in some way related. We all carry a common gene. Maybe a scrounger gene?

 

[Cdog]

Perhaps I'm different, but I like reloading, all aspects of reloading. I enjoy checking/researching manuals for determining loads. I don't mind inspecting brass, or bullets. I don't mind cleaning brass, processing brass, setting up my press, powder measure/scales, weighing a lot of charges, double checking dimensions, making labels and boxing. I think the only part I don't like is picking up brass at the range...

No, there are those of us that love the pursuit of excellence.

I love the sound of two or three tumblers running while I'm reading the history of a cartridge.

It's an escape for me and a personal challenge to load the best ammo I can.

If I ever get to thinking, let's see how many cookie cutter loads I can churn out I'll likely give it up.

 

[upcountry]

My reloading area was in the basement when we lived on the NH/MA border. During the winter I dressed warm--a thermometer down there once told me once it was 42 degrees. Then we moved to NM, houses are all on slabs down here, and I had a spare bedroom that was great. Now in AZ, I'm in the garage, but that's OK. Today I was out there tumbling brass and cleaning a couple of guns and it was 68 degrees. Couldn't do that back in MA in February.

 

[terry_tr6]

I got disgusted with too many gun and reloading parts jumbled in the same boxes and plastic bags of bullets and brass piled on the bottom of my reloading cabinet. Turns out you can get a variety of sized clear plastic storage containers at Dollar Tree from one to 4 containers depending on size for a dollar! I now have stacks of containers holding brass by caliber depending on state of preparation. I now also have gun parts separated my gun type and labeled containers of various small reloading tools all for about $12

 

[Univibe]

I have no dedicated reloading bench. On the workbench, my press is mounted by through-bolts with wingnuts. If I need more bench space for some other kind of work, I unscrew the bolts and remove the press.

My other tools (powder dumper, bench primer, primer pocket swager) are mounted on hardwood boards. These are easily clamped to the bench with a large c-clamp.

The whole thing takes seconds to set up and tear down. There's no question of the reloading bench becoming disorganized, as it has to be re-organized every time loading is to occur.


I keep cleaned empty cases in plastic ammo cans. I keep bullets in four pound peanut butter jars. These are strongly built and hold lots of bullets. They are clearly labeled by caliber and weight. I nailed pieces of 2x4 between the garage's studs to serve as shelves to hold these jars, and also boxes of bullets not yet opened.

 

[Racer X]

What does reading your water meter have to do with anything? Everywhere around here they are all outside. Even the really old homes.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

What does reading your water meter have to do with anything? Everywhere around here they are all outside. Even the really old homes.

A very good question, and one I ask 4 times and got a run around answer of "They need to perform routine maintenance." If I don't get a real answer, they don't get in! However the meter is in the basement, and they are wireless remote read. I assume the remote is not sending.

Ivan

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

After a great deal of frustration My loading area is "presentable", and vacuumed. As soon as they are gone I have several projects I want to start on, and will begin to mess the whole thing up!

Right now it is "A Model Reloading Area", everyone knows what a model is right? A non-functioning replica!

And as soon as I can there are 1000 FN plated 357 Sig rounds that need put together! (the bullets arrived via Unimpressive Parcel Service back in April 2020 after only bouncing around for 3 weeks!)

Ivan

I'm going to take a photo and text it to my reloading friend that always laughs at my loading area. His solution when his loading area gets to be a mess is to MOVE! Since I hate to move, I have to clean. ITB

 

[Green Frog]

My least favorite reloading related job is breaking down mis-loaded rounds in hopes of salvaging some of the components (or in some cases just one valuable component.) I recently accumulated nearly a dozen such rounds in one session with a dirty, out of adjustment Dillon 550. I kept bulling forward in hopes of getting a box of usable 38 wadcutters loaded... I should have admitted defeat and stopped to service the machine. Did I mention I can sometimes do illogical things?

I was once given a couple of hundred 357 rounds loaded “wrong” by the husband of a colleague. My Father was recently retired at the time and looking for something to do, so he broke down all of them with a Whack-a-Mole inertial bullet puller to save primed brass and semijacketed hollow points. Glad I didn’t have to do all of those!

Froggie

 

[mikld]

I gave up trying to keep my reloading bench "straight". It isn't dirty, but could be considered by some as cluttered, but I know where everything is (and when reloading I have the area neat with one powder, one bullet, one primer out). I took a pic for a "show us your bench" thread on a forum, but on a 2 D pic the area is too "busy" and difficult to look at...

 

[RobertJ.]

I actually like cleaning and reorganizing, as it gives me a chance to inventory what I have.

My most un-favorite job in reloading: Case trimming!

 

[Buford57]

I have been reorganizing too, and inventorying. Last night I discovered 12 boxes of .308 diameter bullets and 6 of 6.5mm I had forgotten I had. Frankly, I doubt I will live long enough to shoot all of them if I first have to take the time to load them. Stand by for a classified as soon as the loading cabinet and holster boxes are all sorted.