Thread: Notes for New and Newish Hand Loaders from an Old Fudd

Greetings All,
I've noted a couple of new and prospective handloaders on the Forum that are using the lock down to progress their knowledge. Admirable. I thought it might be useful to share how I go about the mechanics of handloading and keep myself out of trouble at least most of the time. This is my system and it works for me. You are not me and you will develop a system that works for you over time. This series of posts is intended to help with that process. I hope this does.

Post 1 Cases.

Initial Sort Out.
Hand loading starts with cartridge cases. If you already have a good supply of once fired brass, all of the same manufacture, fired in your rifle and in good condition you are indeed blessed. More likely you will have a motley collection of cases that you have remembered to pick up, of several makes, some of unknown history and perhaps a bit cruddy as well. The first step is to get them all out, sort by head stamp and put them in loading blocks. If you don't have any loading blocks make some. My first loading blocks were scrap lengths of 75 x 50 mm (probably called 3 x 2 at the time) with holes drilled part way through with a suitable size spade bit. Don't just make one, make several, you will need them. After the sorting select the largest lot of hopefully once fired Boxer primed cases to work with and put the rest away. All of my current use cases are stored in the 50 round flip top boxes and the reserve cases are stored in clear plastic takeaway containers labelled with type and number of cases.

Military Cases.
There are still a lot of military surplus cases about. I use them in .303 Brit, .308 Win and .223 Rem. Most .303 cases are Berdan primed and were originally fired with mercuric primers. These have a larger diameter primer and are scrap. Some like the currently available Greek stuff and cartridges made in the US and Canada are boxer primed and can be re loaded. Some ex military cases for .308 (7.62 mm)and .223 (5.56 mm) are also Berdan primed and need to be culled before decapping. You can check for Berdan primers by looking down through the case mouth with the light behind you to see if there is one large flash hole (Boxer primer) or two smaller flash holes (Berdan primer). You can reload Berdan primed cases but need some special kit and the Berdan primers to do so. I have both but so far have not loaded a single round, perhaps later in the shut down.

Basic Case Preparation.
Before we even start sizing we need to do some basic preparation. First the cases need to be clean. If you or your cobber has a tumbler great but remember to decap the brass first. You don't want grubby cases anywhere near a die so you can use a Lee punch and base set or a Lee universal decapping die to do this. I don't have a tumbler (probably should) so clean the outside of the necks and bodies if required with steel wool. Some may use a pot scourer instead. I mostly also decap the cases using a Lee punch and base set and give the primer pockets a good scrape out using a slightly modified small screw driver. A quick polish up with a dry Chux cloth and the cases go neck down in the loading block. ready for the next step.

Post 2 Tomorrow. Regards Grandpamac.