Thread: The Four Stages of Handloading Competence

Greetings,
There are an awful lot of things around now that were not dreamed of in the early 1970's, the internet being a major one. Those of us who came of age in the 1970's will remember a very different NZ to the one we now inhabit. It was a more frugal time and we had to work hard for things we wanted. Not as hard as our parents though who were mostly children of the depression as mine were. Knowledge was contained in books which you needed to read and understand. For handloading the books were load data manuals and magazines like Handloader. Today the internet has largely replaced the printed word. This, together with an expectation of instant results and a decline in critical thinking has resulted in "A new kind of stupid" as mentioned by @akaroa1.
Some, wanting loads for their rifle, will search the posts and use the first one they find. This together with some posts just parroting something they read or remembered somewhere is filled with danger.

Perhaps it would be best to finish by roughly quoting Terry Wieland.
"Competence in handloading is like driving from New York to Los Angeles. We don't all take the same route or stop at the same places but the end result is the same. We can only hope that we all arrive safely and with all body parts intact".

Regards Grandpamac.

I morphed at step 3 into a cowboy bullet makin lazy arse.
It's been fun and a good way to slow down my consumption of components during this last couple of years.

Well wrote piece here, grandpamac
Certainly chuckled to myself there a bit.

I think I'm at tier 2 on this 4 step process eh.

I wasted a lot of money and time for me to figure out I should spend a lot more time shooting 22lr and 223 consistently accurately before Reloading my own ammunition. Since I made that revelation about my own skill level I certainly had a few eye raising experiences dealing with other amateur reloaders like myself. I certainly have thought and could be projecting here about how one's skill level at shooting could be drastically affecting their Reloading.

My 303 I load for service rifle has me shooting consistently average but I do not notice a difference between factory ammunition. (Quietly happy)

My 3030 reloads shooting my iron sights 464 I can't tell the difference, tbh I don't think my eyes at 100 yards are good enough to make a thorough comparison between factory and handloads. But a dinner plate from the lever at a hundred yards is acceptable to me shooting irons.

223 and 308 are sub par not quite recreating factory rounds, I do wonder if the cheap skate in me (only using 2208) has something to do with that.

It's a lifelong pursuit and wish all good luck with this hobby.

This thread seems totally correct to reloaders that are still alive to grin about it . :-) i started off with a 30/30 that i couldnt seem to hit much with but learnt the basics of reloading from a mentor that used to cook his sausages over a pot belly with his rotweiller drooling into the fry pan while they cooked. i remember that as much as the lessons in consistancy. Next was a 223 that of course i tried to get 22 250 speeds out of. Needless to say; all the primers fell out of the pockets after firing and usually only when i tried to chamber the 2nd round to get the stag.. i learnt the hard way; if you want bigger cartidge performance ; buy the bloody thing & load it reasonable . About 8 calibres Later; i got sick of all the tedious steps & semi gave up on it but then a son coming into shooting age revived the interest & the passion . Like every keen reloader now i think: ive got some well stocked cupboards of componants & keep thinking of 2-3 years time with the way these governments want to tighten up & ban all legal firearms & ammo from Law abiding citizens .