‘Tis the season for reloading, my Dad said. It’s already February and shooting matches are starting up soon. And hunting season is a mere 9 months away!
However, he lives in southern Washington, not Canada. -17° Celsius in Sherwood Park today, and no, we don’t have a heated garage.
But… wait a moment, we do have a Radiant Tank-top heater!!! It looks like this.. specs found here
We bought this heater at Princess Auto a couple of years ago, and to be honest, this is only the second time we have used it. Notice that only one head is lit? That’s another project for the Svengineer: check thermocoupler.
For today, it worked to take the edge off the cold in the garage just long enough to allow us to work. Barely.
So we wore vests and hats and good boots, and we took hand-warming breaks frequently. Still froze our butts off, but we had fun.
To clarify, this is not a post on how to hand-load ammo. There’s tons of those on YouTube. This post is about how to get a routine going on hand-loading ammo, when you don’t have a heated workshop, and you’re kind of lazy on the daily chores.
Sven and I are both feeling that we are behind on re-loading, and we need to re-stock our supply. It really is quite amazing how fast two shooters can go through ammo; one minute you have enough to defend the Alamo, and the next minute you are scrounging through the pockets of your hunting jackets looking for one last round. So I am putting together a couple of tips, in the hope that this will help others:
- Know Where Your Stuff Is. I cannot stress this enough. OCD runs strongly in my family; but unfortunately, I did not get a whole lot of this gene. My Dad’s system of re-loading is truly inspirational, and also a bit intimidating. Sven and I just aren’t that organized, nor do we have a whole lot of free space to dedicate to a full time re-loading station. Dad gave us pretty much all our gear, and I thank him and God that he labels EVERYTHING. Even so, Sven and I spent quite a bit of time today just collecting the tools we needed for the rounds we planned to load. What we need to do to improve this is two things: a/ do it more frequently so the inventory becomes more familiar and b/ keep lists of what we have vs. what we need. To that end, I created a shopping list on my phone dedicated solely to supplies that we need to re-stock. Also to that end: put everything back in the same place you found it!
- Pace out the Tasks. Today, we did the whole process out in the garage, and it took about 2 hours to load 50 rounds. For perspective, those same 50 rounds could be burned through at the range in less than 15 minutes. Today, we starting with setting the primers in the cartridges. Then we measured (by hand) and dispensed the gunpowder into the cartridges, and next, seated the bullets. Since we were using factory bullets, this loading operation was relatively easy. And yet, standing in the garage where we could see our breath and our hands were numb, we found ourselves questioning: how much of this work could we have done in the house? The answer: nearly all of it. So we worked out a few of the tasks that we are going to bring indoors and work on in front of the TV at night. For example, loading primers and measuring out the powder. We have lots of loading trays that we could fill up in the house, then take out to the garage where the loading press is mounted, to seat the bullets out there. Doing this would cut our time in the cold garage by two thirds. If we dedicate and hour or so to indoor tasks each evening, suddenly loading shouldn’t be such a chore. There is a TON of prep work that we could be doing on a daily basis to make it easier.
- Take Notes. This is a gene that I did inherit, and am very thankful for. You think you’ll remember the details, but trust me you won’t. I have books and lists and notes on pretty much everything I do. Re-loading notes are especially important. We are lucky that we have Dad’s notes for how he loaded all the ammo that he gave to us, and we just copy from that. He also taught us to keep notes at the gun range, to record the weather and wind conditions, and the performance of each load. Many times we have been at the range, and we watch guys pound through hundreds of rounds of ammo, and not a pen or a pencil in sight. I just don’t know what they are learning from that process. Practice is great, but you have to know what works and WHY. Again, you think you’ll remember, but you won’t. I also take notes in the field. I have a separate journal for hunting specifically, where I record location, weather, time of day, moon cycle etc. And when we are successful (and even when we aren’t) I record the loads we used. It helps us to decide what to bring along on the next trip, and what we need to load again.
Feeling good about what we accomplished today, and better about how to keep up the momentum. Its easy to get overwhelmed by all the things we should be doing, but aren’t. I feel like we need to break down our chores into smaller, more manageable tasks that can be done daily, instead of waiting for the weekends and doing everything all at once. Because despite good intentions, that never happens. We never get everything done.
Here are the results of today’s work: 50 rounds 30-06 hunting loads. Not a whole lot, but a good start.
Another day at the Hauer-Toft Homestead.
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