Handloading Tips Then and Now – By Patrick Meitin – I began reloading rifle ammo when I was maybe 12—unsupervised and living in a house of decidedly non-hunting parents who viewed their son’s fascination with firearms and hunting with some small amount of horror. I was lucky enough as a kid to be befriended by an elderly neighbor, who invited me to the large annual family deer camps. My parents, remarkably, made an early birthday present of a Remington Model 700 ADL rifle in .243 Winchester because they did not like the thought of me borrowing our neighbor’s rifle. I shot a forkhorn buck during that first hunt, on my own, using Remington factory Core-Lokt ammunition and iron sights.
As a kid I also enjoyed 2-mile-hike access to an endless supply of black-tailed prairie dogs and jackrabbits, sparking varmint-shooting passions. I also had—through the same kindly and patient neighbor—access to not only annual deer, but semi-annual elk camps. I was deeply emersed in outdoor literature by that time, learning that varmints required specialized bullets and, especially, that my .243 Winchester was hugely insufficient for elk—though the legal minimum caliber for New Mexico elk in the late ‘70s was .24 caliber. My solution was to handload the mighty Nosler Partition. I shot a 5×5 bull on that inaugural elk hunt with my own reloaded ammo
It’s important to understand shooters did not enjoy the seemingly endless array of factory ammunition we take for granted today. Reloading was the only way to shoot specialized varmint bullets, or those reliable Partitions, for instance.
Another reason I label my early reloading start “remarkable” is because I grew up in an age when a young boy could ride his bicycle 10 miles to Wilson’s Sporting Goods in downtown Roswell, New Mexico, and purchase things like bullets and primers and smokeless powder without dragging a parent along—which would have been difficult to schedule given my folk’s workaholic lifestyle. I cannot fathom even an intimate mom-and-pop outlet like Wilson’s selling handloading components to one so young today, even if that boy did spend every last cent earned in said store and amuse the owner with nonstop guns and ammo and big-game hunting queries. Mr. Wilson had never met my parents. He frequently related to other customers that I was his best customer, something that wasn’t true but nonetheless made me very proud.
Handloading Tips Then and Now – Like many serious shooters of the time, my reloading efforts began with a Lee Precision Classic Lee Loader (though the “Classic” may have been added later). Those kits are still available after 60 years of uninterrupted production. Loading with the Lee Loader involved a lot of hammering. A fired case was driven flush into the neck-sizing die using a hammer requisitioned from my stepfather’s scattered tools—one with yellow plastic striking surfaces to avoid marring the soft brass. The sizing die was turned over and a decapping-pin rod was driven through the die and case center to dislodge the case and spent primer. The case was set on a spring-loaded plate with a live primer set in the center divot and tapped into the primer pocket. The resized/primed case was then placed in another die, a yellow plastic scoop used to dispense a charge of powder and the seating stem attached to the primer plate base used to seat a bullet with taps of the hammer. All that banging, and the occasional detonated primer, drove my parents to distraction. All loading was therefore conducted while they were away toiling for wages. Start to finish I could bang out a round a minute—typically loading 100 per session—to be summarily burned in a weekend of burrowing rodent and jackrabbit shooting.
As my curiosity grew a Lee Powder Measure Kit holding 15 yellow powder scoops and an “improved slide card” was purchased. This expanded by options to 95 powders (aside from the H-380 and IMR-4350 I had employed to this point) and more than 1,300 loads! I had even developed a system to introduce improved uniformity, carefully scooping powder from a bowl and using the flat edge of a butter knife to scrape the charge level.
I don’t remember shooting a lot of paper in those days, but I did snipe small varmints in great numbers at ranges to maybe 350 yards and never felt inclined to blame my ammo should I miss. Checking zero prior to a big game hunt usually involved pacing off 100 steps and setting a soda can on a stump. Knocking the can off its perch meant you were good to go.
Handloading Tips Then and Now – I think back on those days with some amusement now, contemplating my current stacks of precision die sets, $1,200 Area 419 ZERO Reloading Press, precision powder scales, precise trimming tools and calipers, bullet run-out tools and other assorted instruments used to assemble straight-shooting ammunition. Because today I do shoot a lot of paper, seeking groups beating the ½-MOA mark to meet my minimum varmint-shooting criteria. If a varmint rifle—in particular—is unable to meet those standards, it is quickly sent down the road.
Many friends consider all of this so much mental gymnastics. But I now not only beat my ½-MOA benchmark, but shatter it with groups measuring in the .2s and occasionally even .1s—which translates into minute of prairie dog at ranges stretching well past 500 yards. It only took me 45 years to get there…