Thread: The Four Stages of Handloading Competence

Greetings All,
I am sitting at home here in Hawkes Bay and its raining. Again. There is a Heavy Rain Warning out for HB south of SH5 through until Saturday night. Clearly no testing will take place until next week so to keep me what passes for sane I thought I would do a few posts on the development of competence in handloading.

Stage 1 Unconscious Incompetent. We don't know what we don't know.
We all start out like this as I did around 50 years ago. Armed with a Lee Loader in .303 (my only centre fire rifle at the time), a box of 180 grain projectiles, scales, a tin of AR2201 powder and a copy of Cyril Waterworth's Reloading Simplified I was all go, or so I thought. The sized cases chambered hard and were significantly longer than new cases. A press, dies and a trimmer were purchased and eventually some start loads of 34 grains of AR2201 were loaded with the 180 grain Norma projectiles. These would have barely cracked 2,000 fps but they went bang and made holes in the target in reasonable proximity to each other so I was happy. Ignorant but happy. The late production CAC cases cracked in the neck on the second or third load which saved me the indignity of a head separation. All starting out handloaders need mentors and I had none. I bumbled along like this until I decided I needed a better rifle. This turned out to be a Remington 700 in .308 Win. Along the way copies of the Lyman 45th and the Speer No9 manuals had appeared on the shelves and a mid load of 37 grains of AR2201 behind the Norma 180 grain Flat Nose. Late in 1979 and early in 1980 a number of things happened. I did my first load work up, started keeping handloading records and took out a subscription for the Handloader Ammunition Reloading Journal. I had reached Stage 2.

Stage 2 Conscious Incompetent. We know what we don't know.
To be continued

I also started out with that book, it was given to me by an old reloader who said any questions? I had plenty and he was only too happy to answer them. Jeff was also responsible for introducing me to the world of black powder, bullet casting and all that stuff. God bless him.

just for grins n giggles I loaded up some trebly ammunition yesterday using whackamole...well I did half the job,resized and primed using it...because my methodical self was removing from holder after priming instead of then charging case and popping projectile in..... the years of doing a batch one step at a time caught me out
today I realised that checking loaded round for fit in chamber is dead simple with a break open gun...no bolt to shut and I only need the barrel section to do it..place round in,yip goes right in flush, manually move extracter to eject.....

Nothing wrong with the lee loader im sure a lot of us started out on one. Ive got a few of them in different cals

I started with it too.

https://youtu.be/eyiQy6f-SNY

Hornady blast from the past

Greetings All,
The rain continues.

2. Conscious Incompetent. We know what we don't know.
By now, with a few years of handloading experience, our handloader should know enough to keep themselves out of trouble but not enough to get themselves into it. Terry Wieland in his In Range column in Handloader described Level 1 as hesitant and Level 2 as careful. The handloader should have developed his systems to ensure safe handloads and some sort of record system. In my, case additional to my subscription to Handloader I had purchased Ken Waters Pet Loads book. Ken had done a report on the .308 in 1979 and one on the .223 in 1980. These were the two cartridges I was loading at the time and Ken together with the other writers became my mentors. Over the next few years Ken Waters and Bob Hagel wrote articles on their method for developing handloads. Kens method worked on duplicating or sometimes exceeding factory pressures and Bob worked on the maximum pressure that the case could handle.
About 1990 someone lent me one of the early chronographs. Another whole vista opened up before me. In short order an Oehler 35P chronograph was purchased, at the eye watering cost of $850.00 and I had entered the next stage.

3. Conscious Competent. We work at what we don't know.

More later Grandpamac.

Ah I think you've missed a step before Stage 1

The internet thingy has made a new kind of stupid.

This new stupid does not record what they have actually done with their reloads
They looked at so many recipes and they can't remember which one they used
And by the time they go to test it they have been down another 100 rabbit holes and lost interest in what it was all about.

Then they show up to test this wonder load they can't remember in a rifle they had never shot any base line factory ammo in.
They can't remember the load size or powder used.

So there is a new kind of stupid that slots in before your Stage 1

Originally Posted by akaroa1

Ah I think you've missed a step before Stage 1

The internet thingy has made a new kind of stupid.

This new stupid does not record what they have actually done with their reloads
They looked at so many recipes and they can't remember which one they used
And by the time they go to test it they have been down another 100 rabbit holes and lost interest in what it was all about.

Then they show up to test this wonder load they can't remember in a rifle they had never shot any base line factory ammo in.
They can't remember the load size or powder used.

So there is a new kind of stupid that slots in before your Stage 1

I think that stage is entwined with the "little knowledge, overconfident" stage
Learn a little, then stoke everything up super hot cause fastest is bestest..... kinda thing

Speaking of the latter, the loads Nick Harvey had in his book were often on the very warm side. He was never known for under-loading

1. Hey I can load ammo cheaper than factory
2. Hey I can make really accurate loads
3. Hey this is fun
4. Oh my god I'm sick to death of doing this punishing repetitive activity, I want a 6.5CM and factory loads

Originally Posted by akaroa1

Ah I think you've missed a step before Stage 1

The internet thingy has made a new kind of stupid.

This new stupid does not record what they have actually done with their reloads
They looked at so many recipes and they can't remember which one they used
And by the time they go to test it they have been down another 100 rabbit holes and lost interest in what it was all about.

Then they show up to test this wonder load they can't remember in a rifle they had never shot any base line factory ammo in.
They can't remember the load size or powder used.

So there is a new kind of stupid that slots in before your Stage 1

Greetings,
Fear not. There will be a summary at the end. I had in my mind the need to deal with the new kind of stupid (nice phrase by the way) as the internet did not exist for my early handloading stages. People actually read books to gain knowledge. Most also had an attention span not measured in microseconds as well. Stage 3 is more of braided path.
GPM.

Greeting Again,
After a cuppa and some cheese on crackers I am back.

3. Conscious Competent. We work at what we don't know.
In this stage the path forks in a number of places. Terry Wieland divided this stage into three sections, confident, overconfident and dangerous. Confident plodders like me carry on expanding their knowledge and understanding of handloading. We seldom go beyond book data and only with underloaded cartridges in strong rifles. The overconfident often work up beyond book data mining the safety margin built into most book data until it is wafer thin. The dangerous tell us that all book data is crap and that they can load way better ammo than that. Fabulous velocities and accuracy is loudly announced to those that will listen and many that would rather not. These are often shot with no one else present for some reason.

4 Unconscious Competent. We don't even have to think about knowing it.
This is the final stage in development of competency. Terry called it sensible or perhaps fearful depending on the handloaders prior experience. I don't think it really applies to handloading as new stuff appears every Monday and Friday, or so it seems to me. We are likely look forward to being permanently locked in Terry's confident section of stage 3 sifting through the new stuff and modifying our handloading practise where required. We would also hope that the overconfident and dangerous drift back to meet us over time without the loss of any body parts.

Almost time for lunch. Will be back shortly with some observations of the effect of the interweb on handloading competency.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by blip

Nothing wrong with the lee loader im sure a lot of us started out on one. Ive got a few of them in different cals

Used the 303 lee loader for a quarter century. Started with those silver Norma 180gr but they didnt expand. Must have been designed for Rhinocerus hunting. I must have lucked onto something good as my mixed bag of CAC winchester and DIZ brass lasted 6 or 8 loadings before the heads separated. Didnt even know there was anything to know either.