A long , long time ago.

[Ben]

I'm now 70 yrs. old.
Yesterday, I was thinking of my early days in reloading.
I had a Herter's Catalog. In 1967, there were not a lot of places
near my home that I could buy any type of reloading supplies.
I ordered a lot of reloading hand tools , etc from Herter's , along with primers
( seems like they were .40 a pack ) and powder $4.00 for a 1 pound can.
In 1969, I bought a used Lyman Spartan C press ( the grey one with the red handle ) for $10.
The fellow that I bought that press from said he didn't know
how much longer it would last ? I took it home , gave it a thorough
cleaning and re-lubed all of the linkages with a good grease.
That press still works great.
I remember ordering a new set of Echo ( do you remember the brand ? ? ) .38 Special reloading dies ( 3 DIE SET ) for $8.00
Obviously , they were not carbide dies. A little
lube on the fired cases and they were sized and deprimed just fine with those dies.
My very first attempts at bullet casting was with a Lee single
cavity 148 gr. wadcutter mould for my .38 Special.
I got lucky , the mould dropped cast bullets at .3575" all day long
with my clip on WW's. So there was no real reason for a bullet sizer.
I rubbed some Johnson's paste wax into the
lube rings, let them sit over night before loading them in my 38 Spec.
cases.
I must have shot a bazillion of those in my 8 3/8 " barrel, Smith and Wesson K-38.

I didn't have a powder measure or a scale.
I made a powder spoon ( from a .22 LR empty case ) for 2.7 grs. of Bullseye using my friends scale. A little file work with a flat file , a copper wire soldered on the case, a wooden dowel for a handle and I had a VERY reliable source of 2.7 grs. of Bullseye without a scale or powder measure. The spoon I made back then looked a lot like this one :

It was all slow, but it was an excellent vehicle for teaching me the basics of
reloading and safety. It provided me with a source of ammo when my friends didn't have any ammo.

All of that was a long time ago, a lot has changed, a lot hasn't changed....................

Ben

 

[Cherokee]

I'm 78 Ben, similar kind of start although the details are different.

 

[Ben]

We all started in some way and some manner.
Not all the same.............

Ben

 

[Cherokee]

My first reloads were 30/06 with 100 gr 1/2 jacket and HI Vel#2 for an old 1917 Enfield. Used a Lyman nutcracker. Still have the 1917 & the nutcracker. Casting came along a few years later, starting with the 358495 for 38 Special, Lyman pot on hot plate and Lyman ladle. Old C press eventually given to BIL to get him started.

 

[dale2242]

I started casting on a Coleman white gas stove with single cavity Lyman molds.
Just when you got everything up to heat and I got good bullets I had to stop and pump up the stove.

 

[Trapperscott]

Ben, as you said, some things change, some don’t. My dad had a RCBS junior kit gifted to him when I was 14. That’s what I started on. I still have it and use it. I’m 53 now.

I have an uncle who is extremely recoil sensitive. Along about the time I was 16 my uncle came up with a Winchester model 70 featherweight 30-06. I fell in love with it. I wanted it bad. But my uncle wouldn’t sell it to me. He couldn’t get it to shoot worth a darn and brought it to my dad and I to see if we could work up a load for it and get it to shoot. I told dad that I would work up a load for it. Ha! I had came up with some 220 grain round nose 30 caliber bullets somewhere. I loaded 20 of them pretty warm. A day or so later dad asked if I had worked up anything for it yet? I told him I had but the only load I could get it to shoot was the 220 gr loads. He knew I wanted that rifle.

Dads have a way of figuring out their sons pretty quick. It didn’t take him long to figure out that if uncle had shot that 5 pound rifle with my hand loads, that I had planned to buy it cheap and wouldn’t let me do it. LoL.

I still have that old press and dies that I used to load those bullets with.

 

[Rick H]

71 now. I still have a Herter's Model Perfect magnetic dampened scale and an old micrometer adjusted powder measure. (Both still work fine but are in reserve status.)
My first reloading "die" was a Herter's whack-a-mole set in .308W. It worked but was supplanted by the Lee Target Model with the neck reamer. My first press was a brand new Lyman SparT...the 6 station turret press...it still works too.
I never resorted to making my own powder scoops, but purchased a Lee set of red plastic scoops and use them a lot even today.

 

[Ben]

Not a single thing wrong with the Lee spoons.
I have the black set.
They are roughly 40 yrs. old.
Ben

 

[Ben]

Ben, as you said, some things change, some don’t. My dad had a RCBS junior kit gifted to him when I was 14. That’s what I started on. I still have it and use it. I’m 53 now.

I have an uncle who is extremely recoil sensitive. Along about the time I was 16 my uncle came up with a Winchester model 70 featherweight 30-06. I fell in love with it. I wanted it bad. But my uncle wouldn’t sell it to me. He couldn’t get it to shoot worth a darn and brought it to my dad and I to see if we could work up a load for it and get it to shoot. I told dad that I would work up a load for it. Ha! I had came up with some 220 grain round nose 30 caliber bullets somewhere. I loaded 20 of them pretty warm. A day or so later dad asked if I had worked up anything for it yet? I told him I had but the only load I could get it to shoot was the 220 gr loads. He knew I wanted that rifle.

Dads have a way of figuring out their sons pretty quick. It didn’t take him long to figure out that if uncle had shot that 5 pound rifle with my hand loads, that I had planned to buy it cheap and wouldn’t let me do it. LoL.

I still have that old press and dies that I used to load those bullets with.

So, did the feather weight 30-06 get away from you ?

Ben

 

[Hawk]

I started reloading with my dad in the 70s.
A Lee hand tool in .270 Win. that you pounded the cases into them with a wooden mallet to resize them.
A client of mine (project manager for SWBT in the 80s) gave me 50 lbs. of Lino and lent me a double cavity 358429 to start.
Dad and I cast over a Coleman white gas, two burner stove.
Before that, we used to cast fishing sinkers, fishing slabs and roadrunner jigs from plumbers lead and scrape lead.
Dad worked for Dallas Power & Light Co
, in their underground and there was a lot of scrape lead and solder that was always being thrown away.
He used to tell me about 20 lb. pots that were glowing cherry red, being lowered into manholes, to be poured over cables the size of your thighs that were being spliced together. You'd pour the lead over the cables and smooth it out wearing asbestos gloves.

 

[FrankCVA42]

Ben, brings back memories of way back when. Used to cast bullets for an old trapdoor. Whatever melted was cast into 500 grain bullets. Wouldn't shoot for beans. Then learned about slugging the bore and sizing bullets to properly fit the barrel. Place where I worked had a dump out back. Used to check it out on the off watches for stuff the splicer crews used to throw out. Scraps of lead trimmed off splicing joints and cut off pieces of bar solder. First press was an aluminum made by Eagle. That later got donated to a buddy who wanted to reload for 38 special. He got tired of the lousy accuracy of the then commonly used commercial reloads that everyone used. Bullets were so soft you ended up with more lead in your barrel than sent down range. All my reloading stuff would fit n a 20mm ammo can. now have a whole room. Thanks for the memories. Frank

 

[Charles Graff]

I am 77 and started reloading in 1959 with a Pacific Super C press, Lyman 55 powder measure, Redding powder scale and a set of CH 30-30 dies. Lots of water under the reloading bridge.

 

[Ian]

Ben, that's almost exactly how I started, except it was with an RCBS Ammomaster reloading kit that I begged everyone in my family to go-in on for a single Christmas gift. I left it set up at home when I went to college, but starting my fourth semester living in a travel trailer instead of the dorms offered me some freedom, so I set up camp. Forgot my scale and powder measure so I made a scoop with copper house wire looped like an old fly swatter and soldered to a cartridge case for a handle and calibrated it with a file using the chem lab's precision scale when nobody was looking. I cast bullets with a bent spoon and saucepan on my three-burner stove and stuffed a gillion of them through my Dad's JP Sauer K38 Target Masterpiece clone. I wasn't old enough to own a revolver but back then nobody cared and the only things that got hurt were the cans, rocks, and occasional rats at the dump.

The other thing I needed was a tumble lube. I hated LLA and made several attempts to improve it (again with college lab "assistance") and finally settled on turtle wax with all the water cooked off and rehydrated with paint thinner. Straight turtle wax worked pretty good too.

 

[Ben]

I find ALL OF THIS very enlightening.
Thanks to all of you for your contributions.

Ben

 

[CZ93X62]

I relied upon Herter's mostly for fishing tackle and fly tying materials, which I was already ardent about at age 12 (1967). Shooting supplies were never a problem, Berman's & Sons was a couple miles away and that shop had EVERYTHING. Dad and I went there 1-2 times a month, often accompanied by Leo Reyes--who became my reloading mentor. I miss both men greatly. Berman's is still around, and it is still the best place to find Winchester or Browning firearms locally--if not cheaply.

I still use the Lee powder spoons once in a while. I have a set that I bought 20 years ago, they are yellow plastic critters if that matters. It didn't take long for the Lee whack-a-mole tooling to get obsolete, and launching the case drive rods during primer seating hastened that upgrade. One does learn the power unleashed by a CCI #400 primer in short order in this manner, though. Duly noted. RCBS Jr took over the metallic reloading venues c. 1978, and by that time I lived in Indio and discovered the reloading section of Yellow Mart in the downtown section not too far from the office.

 

[RicinYakima]

I actually started casting bullets, round balls, for the centennial of the North South war in 1961. Older brother and I worked in the tobacco fields all spring till the 4th of July to buy a 36 Navy and 44 Remington from Dixie Arms. There was so much mil-sup ammo in the 1960's I never reloaded for rifles, as they were illegal to hunt with anyway. Only shot AF surplus 38's and GI 45 in handguns, besides the .22's.

While posted to Ft Lewis, I bought a post-64 Winchester 30/30 from the PX and found out commercial ammo was expensive! So when I got out I bought one of the Lee Loaders, just like everyone else, but used it in an arbor press. After I set off the first two primers, I learned moderation on the handle.

 

[Ole_270]

I'm 67, started loading 12 ga back in the mid 60s, MEC 600 jr with extra 20 ga dies we swapped back and forth for my older brother. Started loading for the 270 in about '72 with a Lee whack-a-mole kit. Still have it and the Lee spoon kit I used a few years. Later move up to a Texan C press outfit. The old Texan balance beam scale still gets the job done, an RCBS deluxe weight set verifies the weights. Used it for 20 years or more before buying a Rock Chuckar, still not convinced it was an upgrade in accuracy. Started casting in the mid 70's after getting married. A Lee 4 lb dipper pot and a Lee C358156 double cavity mold fed my 357 Blackhawk, wish I still had that 3 screw Ruger. A few years later I moved up to the 10 lb drip o matic and a Herters sizer/luber that looks alot like a Saeco but takes Lyman dies. Still use it, though I've got a Lyman Mag 25 pot these days.

 

[StrawHat]

I started loading with black powder and round balls. Not a lot of variety with muzzleloaders back then. I was competing with rimfire so no (at least not easy) reloading there. First cf I reloaded for was a 45-70 rolling block. Than a 6.5 Swedish Mauser. Then I started competing with a revolver, PPC. Started going through pallets of ammunition. Started reloading. NBC was nearby and I used their 148 HBWC. Ended up with a pallet of them. Loaded over 2.8 grains of Bullseye and lit with any SP primer I could find. Eventually started casting 150 DEWC from two, double cavity molds. Scores stayed the same and cost dropped. I still have all my loaders from the 310 to the Dillon 450. Use them all at one time or another.

Kevin

 

[Ben]

Kevin,

Should that read 2.8 of B'Eye ?
-------------------------------
OK Kevin,
I corrected that for you.

Ben

 

[MikeN]

I got a Lyman turret press and a set of 30-06 dies for my 16th birthday in 1962. Nobody in the family or anybody that I knew at the time had ever reloaded, so I went down and bought a Speer #6 and figured started figuring it out. Started loading 12 ga. a year later. After 58 years it still brings hours of enjoyment. About 1971 I cast about a 1000 311291's and then wife, kids, life got in the way and am trying to get back to casting. I found most of my old 311291's the other day, but they only miked out about .308. I might give them a try anyway.