The Predator, me and Hornady

The wife is down with the sickness, it's raining outside, and I'm taking advantage of the ebb in the mayhem of this house by passionately loading sweet sweet booooolits while watching Predator.  I was trying to explain the humor in the Predator post from the other day to my wife, but as it turns out she had never seen it.  I thought it went along nicely with bullet making today:


Here I'm just finishing off the 123 grain Hornady AMAX bullets that I had left over, stuffing them into once fired Lapua brass (for fun, try saying "LAPUA" like Arnold: "LAH-POO-AHHH!! GET TOOO THE CHOPPPAAHH!") Next up is to kick out about 200 loads with the Nosler Custom Competitions in new brass. Fun stuff. I also have 200+ rounds to load in .380 ACP, and I have the equipment now to start progressively loading lead target ammo for 9mm. Too bad I don't have time for all that at the moment.

Casting bullets before swineflu

I have successfully come back to the land of the living now that the sickness has released its grasp, so to celebrate I thought I'd show off what I was doing on Saturday, which was during the worst of it. I felt like a pale, clammy, fever-filled fireball casting oh-so-beautiful boooolits in the backyard!

Actually, I was mostly casting lead ingots using my wife's muffin pans:



If you buy wheel weights from the scrapyard, you would be surprised at how you can turn three mostly filled buckets of lead, steel clips, razor blades, and dried up dip balls into lead pucks by melting them all down in a iron pot. Just know that when you melt down what you put in it, don't try to dump any more into the hot melt or molten lead will literally explode all over the place; the melt doesn't like anything cold or wet to touch it.

Afterwords, it's best to not use the muffin tins for food, or even bring them into the house again. Tinseled muffins may look delicious, but it really settles into the bottom of your stomach!

Here's a pic of me warming the shiny new Lyman 9mm mold that I got:



Yes, my gloves are flashing gang signs.

I sorted the bullets last night that I had made on Saturday and only about a third were good. There's a couple of reasons for this, the first being that new molds take some time to "learn;" and second, I was paying more attention to casting ingots. I had a couple of buckets of wheel weights sitting around, and now I have one bucket full of clean lead pucks that fit nicely into my LEE 10lb melter. Being able to grab a handful of lead ingots when making a batch of bullets is way easier than trying to melt individual wheel weights in your casting melter, and makes the mass production of target bullets a snap. Now that I think about it, I'm going to start looking for either a 115 grain or 124 grain semi-wadcutter mold for mass bullet production. I'll save a ton of lead that way (pun intended).

In other news, my Concealed Carry Concepts Shaggy holster came in the mail yesterday:



It has excellent fit and finish, but sadly doesn't have a lick of duct tape. Here you can see the "wedge," which is much better done than the one I did:



I'm thinking he must have a die or something to make the wedge so clean. I really dig the leather backing on the holster; it should make high round count range sessions a lot more comfortable.

I was also able to redeem myself Saturday night by making my brother a serviceable holster for his Walther PPQ. I was embarrassed that he was walking around with the one I had made the other night. I still haven't been out shooting for some time, which is unfortunate because I've got all sorts of things going on that I need to get done. For one, I've started reloading some quality .380 acp ammo for a Ruger LCP for my mom, as promised to her; I've got some more ammunition weather proofing tests to do; I've got a full sized Mosin Nagant to sight in, and I want to nail down a target load for the P30 with my new 147 grain cast bullets. Too many irons in the fire!

Range Report

I left work on Friday and headed straight to the range to shoot. I wanted to try out the latest batch of handloads in the P30. So how did it pan out? Well, as usual I clicked off five factory Speer Gold Dots, 124 grain +P, just to get another data point under higher temperatures (81 degrees), and my velocity was 1,191 fps, with an extreme spread of 34 fps. A nine round group of my 124 grain Gold Dot handloads gave me - 1,191 fps and an extreme spread of 24. I can't do any better than that.

The tenth handloaded round went into denim clad water jugs to find out if they do as well as the factory rounds I water tested, and I don't have a picture but the expanded bullet looks identical, and measured almost the exact same -- .55" at the widest point. Denim has a way of slowing the expansion process a bit, but it doesn't seem to be able to stop a Gold Dot.




Also, the handloads shot to point-of-aim at 25 yards and 50 yards, just like the factory rounds, so no sight adjustment is necessary. Something I've never tried before until a few days ago is sealing the primer and case mouth, and I did it because CCI/Speer seals the primer/case mouth on the Gold Dot line. I've read that it doesn't make a bit of difference in real world testing, but I found out from my testing that it certainly does. I submerged three rounds each of non-sealed and sealed handloads for five days; one round of each tip up, tip down, and on its side, and I had two of the non-sealed rounds give me lower velocities than normal (801 and 851 fps), and one of the sealed rounds gave me 1,018 fps. Since the sealed rounds were my very first attempt and my technique sucks, I'm giving it another try against factory Gold Dots to see if I can match or beat their standard.

While I was there my brother and I ran another 250 rounds of Federal 115 grain loads through the P30, and he shot his M&P Pro at the plates. That puts my trouble-free round count at 1,798 rounds, and my brother's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 rounds he reports. Plastic guns are super reliable these days.

Saturday I was home with just me and my two youngest sons, basically kidless for me, and I took the time to wash approximately 4,000 9mm cases in preparation for some bulk reloading. I've decided to cast 147 grain bullets for this gun, so that's going to be underway here very shortly.



I also got a chance to make a double epi-pen ankle holster, a picture of which I didn't get a chance to upload yet. My wife halfway mocks me on the matter, considering what a huge dork that I am, but I'm not out to win any fashion shows and I remind her that I am now carrying both epi-pens with me at all times. My next move is to make that medical ID bracelet I've been bitching about.

That's what I've got for the moment. Anyone else have a ranger report to share?

Long weekend

I left work on Friday with full intentions of hitting the range while it was sunny, but that never happened. This asshole I've reluctantly known for half my life, who lives in dilapidation on the corner of L-5 and S-1, decided to come and stay with me for the last month or so, against my wishes, and had annoyed me to the point that I instead raced home to hang out with my friend Jack - a true Gentleman. Jack brought me much needed comfort, and I know I'll be hanging out with him for some time until I get this problem with said asshole sorted out.

On top of all that, all of my kids have the latest sickness to be making its rounds in the form of high fevers and super-snot. Things went bad last night when the kids' fevers spiked without warning within an hour's time, and as I was imersing them in semi-lukewarm bathwater to quickly cool them down, I had a sudden nasty allergic reaction to the turkey burgers I ate a half an hour before (I've made them exactly the same since the begining of time). I was alone, so I'm frantically swallowing all the meds in my tactical pillcase while texting my brother to please please please get here quick so that if Ana breaks through my defenses and knocks me out, there will be somebody who can pull the kiddos out of the tub. I'm done with this sickness stuff, and I'm done with the damned allergies. And it's not just that my kids are sickly; everyone I know has been fighting the sickness in their kids since fall, and we all bitch about it. I don't remember being in a constant state of sickness when I was a kid, so this has got to be either a government experiment gone horribly wrong or we are in fact in the end times.

Despite all this, I managed to crank out over a hundred beautiful Gooooooooooold Dots over the course of two days, two rounds at a time. My handloading doctrine has been so fine tuned over the last four years that I can maintain a high degree of consistency and quality control even with the constant interuptions from the kids.

6.6 grains of sweet sweet Vihtaviori goodness per 24 carat gold nickel plated case:



There's no chance of double charging a case, either; in order to have the room to seat the bullet over one charge, I have to lightly tap the case with my finger for a few seconds to get the powder to settle, kinda like a bag of potato chips.



1.129" is close enough. The varience from one bullet to another can be as much as .008", so you have to accept that you won't get that last digit right where you want it. I'll accept .004" inches of variation in total, or .002" in either direction.




Loading cartridges makes a mess on the bench. Being the neat freak that I am, I have to accept that there's going to be stuff laying around everywhere for awhile.




I learned that my oldest son enjoys watching 24 with me while I'm at the press, which is way cool. My boys also like to help pull the press handle down to seat booooolets, which is good to go as well. In time, I hope to teach them the secret art of accurate cartridge making so they can go forth and win shooting matches.

Lastly, my wife and I started watching The Walking Dead on Netflix this weekend, and we're hooked. Ever since 24 ended, there's not been a whole lot to get my attention on TV, but I'll make an exception for this show. Good stuff.

I love GoooooooooolllllldddddDots

I was fortunate enough to escape the melee at my house for a quick range session to test the next batch of handloads for the P30, and I have settled on a load. But first, check out the expanded Gold Dot that was shot into water jugs, the second one from left:

The one furthest to the left is a 147 grain HST, and the 124 grain Gold Dot expanded just as much - .708" at the widest point, and I didn't bother to get the average because it was so uniform. The third from the left is the same 124 grain Gold Dot bullet that I fired through denim, and thinking about it now so is the HST. The bullet to the right is a .45 caliber 230 grain Remington Golden Saber that I recovered from a bucket of damp dirt that I was firing into a couple of years ago. I haven't put calipers on it yet, but to my calibrated eye its expanded diameter is the same as two of the 9 millie bullets sitting next to it. Here's the back end where you can see what I'm talking about:

Now you can see why, with modern self defense loads, the 9mm performs in the same league as the .45 ACP. When bullets for the most popular defensive handgun cartridges - 9mm, .40 S&W, .357 Sig, and .45 ACP - are all calibrated to expand while penetrating to the same depth in ballistic gelatin, why not go with the round that has the least recoil and most capacity? It makes sense. If we were all stuck with ball ammo, mind you, I would chose the .45 ACP every time. That's a bit different.

As far as the Gold Dot handload I've settled on, the 6.6 grains of VihtaVuori wins the day again with a 1.692" five-shot group at an average velocity of 1,193 fps and a 17 fps extreme spread. It matches up close with the factory Gold Dots that gave me a 1.565" five-shot group at an average velocity of 1,182 fps and a 27 fps extreme spread. The last time the 6.6 grain VV charge gave me a 1.421" five-shot group, so I know this isn't a fluke. I'm also not going to dicker with the seating depth as I'm quite happy with inch-and-a-half 25 yard groups from a sub-compact length barrel. Also, I have to workat it to get that much powder settled in the case so the bullet can seat down all the way.

My brother also put some rounds through his M&P9C while the chronograph was up and the sun was shining. He thought the 147 grain HST +P rounds in his gun were recoiling a little excessive, and after shooting it I have to agree. You could feel a hitch in the slide when it went back, like it had some overtravel and was going back further than it should. Fortunately, the 124 grain +P Gold Dots did well in his gun, so he's switched to those under the promise of a steady supply of free ammo since I can make them so cheap.

Also of some interest, I broke down and added some duct tape to my home made appendix holster this weekend:

To go the extra mile on my trashiness, I couldn't locate my roll of duct tape and, because I was in such a hurry, as always, I had to use the duct tape from my Glock AIWB holster. This time though I'm using some soft gel and a synthetic shammy cloth to pad the holster, and I'm content with it at this point.

Optimal Charge Weight and Optimal Barrel Time

For the OCD handloaders out there, there's a thread at 6.5 Grendel forum about these two theories that deal with internal ballistics (what goes on inside the barrel/chamber when you fire a gun), and there are good links to some lite reading on the matter. Some smarty pants weighs in with pictures, links, and all sorts of convoluted nonsense in an effort to explain why OCW and OBT go together like peanut butter and Nutella. Mmmmmmmmm. . . . .Nutella!

Go check it out!

Future plans

I should say near future plans, since I'm itching to get back to cranking the press handle:




My goal is to match a handload with these bullets to the factory Speer Gold Dots that are my carry load. I can manufacture them to a higher standard of quality control than factory, and keep the costs way down, too. What that means is that I can practice with a ballistic match to my carry load cheaper than I can if I bought boxes of it from a store. How's that for savings?

My plan is to load them in the fired nickle coated cases from Speer under this here Vihtavuori powder, which I've heard is so spectacular that it's lovingly plucked off Finland's shores by elves as it falls from the heavens. We'll see about that.

New 6.5mm hunting bullets from Barnes

At SHOT Barnes Bullets anounced their new LRX lineup that includes a 127 grain bullet in 6.5mm. Word from a 6.5 Grendel forum member who talked to Barnes reps at SHOT is that the bullets not only offer a better B.C. for long range shooting, but offer expansion at velocities as low as 1,400 fps. If that's true, than it expands 400 - 600 fps slower than other hunting bullets on the market, which translates to an extra 200+ yards of killing range. At an advertised price of $38 for a box of 50, Barnes has made all this possible by making these bullets out of solid gold.

A relaxing evening

After putting the kids to bed last night, I was gifted with something very rare: a couple hours of peace. With the 5th season of 24 playing softly in the background, I was able to load up my next batch of Nosler Custom Competitions for the 2nd phase of my OCW test.



After that I sized/deprimed the rest of my once-fired .264 LBC brass and primed them with Federal 205Ms. It's nice having prepped brass already on the bench; it saves time when you think up something to load, like 123 grain bullets a full grain over the book maximum.

When I was done reloading I thought I would slip off to bed, but I ended up comforting one of my kids who couldn't sleep due to coughing. Such is life.

Bullets are cool

I received a box of 6.5mm 123 grain Nosler Custom Competition bullets yesterday and I'm doing mental back flips trying to figure out what powder I'm going to put behind them.



Single base spherical powders like Winchester 748 or Accurate Arms 2520 will give me lots of velocity, but their downside is that they're temperature sensitive; the double base extruded powders are generally insensitive to temperature, though not as much of it fits in the case, lowering velocity. Fish or cut bait?

I've decided to stay with Hodgdon's Extreme lineup of powder, but I can't quite commit to a choice just yet. My options are H322, Benchmark, or H4895, all of which are made of awesome. Consulting with burn charts is about as accurate as talking to the dead, and despite there being a forum dedicated to the 6.5 Grendel, there's not much real data using any of these powders. Most folks are using IMR 8208 XBR like I am, but I came to the conclusion that though it's not temperature sensitive, it's sensitive to something, I'm guessing humidity.

There's no reason at all to not try a different powder with the new bullets, if only for the sake of science. I've already primed the once fired AA brass with (gasp!!) Federal Match primers, instead of the voodoo CCI Magnum primers that everybody and their brother uses. I've yet to see an adequate explanation for them, but that's what's recommended on every gun board. People sure can be fickle, or maybe I'm just a dumb-ass. We will soon see.

From the picture there, you can see the Nosler looks a touch shorter than the 123 grain Hornady AMAX and 123 grain Lapua Scenar, but that does come with its advantages: the super steep boattail and shorter length makes for more room in the case, which the .264 LBC is in need of. So that's the trade off -- a little more powder in exchange for a little less aerodynamics. So, fish or cut bait? The B.C. (ballistic coefficient) of the Custom Competition and AMAX is advertised at .510, while the Scenar comes in at .527, but those are for much higher velocities than the .264 LBC can give, making those numbers not as realistic as one would think.

Are you bored yet? If you haven't noticed, I'm the kind of guy who has ballistics charts just lying around. Just sitting there, all over the place. I'll find some coffee stained drop/drift table that I printed out 8 years ago for a caliber I no longer have, and after reading it over and over for a month, I realize that acquiring a firearm in that caliber will settle the problem that I've manufactured in my head. How much do I have in savings right now? Hmmmmm.

When I decide on a powder and start some load development, of course I'll take pictures and walk you through all the fun! Stay tuned!

Booooooolits!

Nosler went and did me a huge favor and released a 123 grain Custom Competition match bullet in 6.5mm. Saahweeet! The CCs use a J4 jacket which is thinner than most match bullets, meaning that they expand when they hit the sweet sweet flesh of delicious animals. Also, they come in affordable packs of 250 bullets!

Looks like I'll be testing some of those puppies out in the MK12 here in the very near future.

Reinventing the steel

Good album; and also a way to make something old new again. I didn't realize that steel cases could be reloaded, but Mike at Mike's Spot talks you through all the important stuff that you need to know to load steel.

Of course, my imagination is asking the question of whether steel cases will allow more powder than brass cases, and also whether steel will handle higher pressures. I sometimes like to push the envelope during load development, and if I can jam another grain or two of powder in the case or load up another 3k psi above SAAMI specs, then I'm all about it.

To boldly go where no handloader has gone before

Last night I was talking ballistics gibberish with a dear friend of mine and fellow reloading addict, when I got the notion to give Reloder 17 another try in .264 LBC. From all I've read, that gun powder won't work in the 6.5 Grendel/.264 LBC cartridge because, it's argued, there isn't enough room in that little case for enough of the powder to push a 123 grain bullet. Well, I think that there is.

Consulting Quickload-the-Wise about this, it warns me of all sorts of impending doom if I try to do what I'm about to do, but I've been there before when I was shooting 208 grain AMAX bullets out of a .308 AR with RL-17 -- I'm not skeer'd. I've found that I can game a certain charge weight of powder and a certain length for loads by plugging in actual data from shooting previously, and it's been very consistent so far. Using a drop tube last night, I easily fit a great deal of RL-17 under a 123 grain AMAX with just a pop or two of crunched powder, and the bullet seated to magazine length. Good to go. Now I just need to try it out.

Reloaders are so creative

Check out the video on hydro-forming cases at 6.5 Grendel Forums. Traditionally, handloaders will fire form the cases in their gun, but hydro-forming is a lot quieter and doesn't cost you primers, powder, or Cream of Wheat.

The fact that you can take 7.62x39mm Russian cases and turn them into 6.5 Grendel/.264 LBC-AR was a driving reason I went with the cartridge. If the supply of Grendel cases dried up tomorrow, there would still be usable brass for me for decades.

What cartridge?

If you're looking for a rifle for something in particular, one of the age-old problems is choosing a cartridge that will perform for your intended purpose. We live in a shooter's heyday right now in that the selection of bullets and rifles is getting close to the peak of what man can possibly do, so there is literally a cartridge and rifle platform that will fit perfectly for what you want to do.

If you want to know the particulars of specific cartridges, this thread on the topic at Sniper's Hide is the place to start. I also highly suggest using JBM Ballistics as a means of calculating the range and power of different cartridges that you may be interested in.

In my youth, the unchallenged answer to getting more range for hunting was to go bigger bigger bigger bigger with a side of as-fast-as-possible. In those days, hunters didn't use rifle scopes with turrets or rangefinding reticles to compensate for distance; duplex reticles were the most popular by far, so in order to get a gain in Point Blank Range, you had to have lots and lots of velocity. This is why there are cartridges like the .220 Swift and .300 Weatherby Magnum. What cracks me up is that even today I know plenty of people who still subscribe to this mindset, and have seriously overbored cartridges for shooting little Virginia deer at ranges that seldom go beyond 80 yards.

To each their own, I guess.

If you're not into being way overgunned, than a little bit of research combined with JBM Ballistics will lead you to the proper hunting/target/tactical cartridge that won't break your shoulder or your wallet. Why feed a barrel burning .338 Thorhammerlighningdragonslayer when you could accomplish the same job with a .270 Winchester?

Found it!

The search for a long range load for the Mod 0 is complete.

I was able to slip away and test out the last bit of load development yesterday, gusty winds be damned, and I walked away impressed. I was shooting 5 round groups of the 123 grain Lapua Scenar loads using three different primers: CCI BR4, CCI 450, and Federal Match; all of them went in well under an inch, with the first three shots of the BR4s going into one teeny bughole. The fourth shot was pulled out by a big ass gust of wind -- a remnant of Irene -- and the last round was a flyer. See bottom left group (the 450 and Federal Match primer groups are not pictured):



The top three groups were an OCW type test with 123 grain A-MAX and IMR 8208 XBR powder. The tightest group in the middle is the recommended load for the 6.5 Grendel by pretty much everybody, and I suspect that it's at the far end of the accuracy node. I like it because it's got a little more speed than the 123 grain Scenar load - 2,495 fps on average over the Scenar's 2,476 fps. At less than half the price of the Scenars, I'm staking my claim in the A-MAX.

A pro tip for reloaders: virgin brass will never be as consistent as brass that has been fired in your chamber. This has always been my experience with every gun I've ever owned. I don't consider brass to be "mature" and give the best results and tightest groups until it's been fired two to three times. The Alexander Arms brass that I'm using is made by Lapua, and is the most consistent brass I've ever bought. With that said, it's still slightly undersized so that it can load into any chamber, and that means that there will be flyers here and there in your groups. So far I've used new pieces of brass in every load I've tested, and I'm pretty excited to see how much better this gun is going to shoot with resized brass, as in the past there is a marked difference.

I still want to play around with 107 grain Sierra Match Kings and 130 grain Swift Sciroccos, but not for a little while. First thing is to get this rifle locked in with the A-MAX loads on both the scope and irons.

Also of note, I dragged out the SKS to find out what the zero is for it at 100 yards, and I was rewarded with a 6" five shot group, four of the shots going into about 3". Not bad. My brother's girlfriend was holding fantastic groups with it off-hand at 15 yards, and was a real world indicator why rifles are the ticket for getting hits.

The Postman cometh

I've been on a steady spending spree here recently at both Brownell's and MidwayUSA. I tend to hit up Brownell's on strictly gun related parts, and MidwayUSA when I have a variety of random needs.

Yesterday evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a 22"x 15" x 10" cardboard box softly hitting my porch, and when I opened it I saw the beauty of the MidwayUSA Competition Range Bag. Holy boni fide bargains, batman!! That's $40 very well spent.



There's the bag itself, which has a ton of room and a bunch of pockets, and then theres a smaller tote for your ammo, two zippered and lined pistol carriers, and a little bag for brass. The whole thing is foam lined, which makes the bag stand up all on its own. I love it. I've been rough on range bags, and haven't had one last but for a year at a time; if this one is anything like the MidwayUSA Drag Bag that's pictured in the top, than I know I'll be happy. The drag bag gets high praise from me as well, and it's stood up to two years of decent abuse.

Also included in that order were 100 Hornady A-Max bullets in the 123 grain flavor. I usually don't get carried away when ordering bullets, as I like to shoot a box before I commit to buying them in bulk. They're shorter than the 123 grain Scenars, and I've loaded some of them for testing (hopefully today).



I have the Scenar load just about wrapped up, and am now testing different batches of primers. From what I've read, the CCI BR4 primers are not as hot as other brands of primers, and going to a magnum primer will probably give me more velocity. Time will tell, and I'll have a shiny new range report to follow very soon. I mark all my handloads in various ways with a Sharpie; the F is for Federal Match primers, and you can take a guess at what 28.7 means. Once I settle on a particular load, I color code the bullet and case to tell me what bullet weight, and how many times the case has been loaded. While the finished rounds are sitting in the loading tray like little ICBMs, I'll run the Sharpie along the bullets and then the case walls. It only takes a few seconds and will make sure that when you find your kid sitting in the floor in a pile of cartridges, you will know what they are.

Livin' in a Reloadah's Paradise

I learned to reload when I was about ten years old. Granted, I mostly pulled the press handle and watched my father reload, but it didn't take me long to make my own rounds. I've had a hiatus here and there, but I've been reloading with seriousness for close to a decade after my last one. In that time period I have made lots of mistakes and learned a ton. As a matter of fact, it surprises me how much I am still learning every time I pull the press handle. It's a constant learning curve.

When I decided to get back into reloading I was fresh off active duty in the Marine Corps. I bought the Lee Anniversary kit - probably the wisest purchase to start cranking out rounds. It contains a great deal of the equipment needed to make ammunition, and I still use basically all of that equipment today. Some of the more pricey kits from RCBS or Hornady are good to go as well, but the Anniversary kit comes in right at $100.

If you are thinking about how to get into reloading, I'll give you a place to start. If you pick up a reloading kit like the one I bought from Lee, not counting ammunition components like powder, primers, brass and bullets, you will need to order dies for the caliber(s) you intend to load for, some shell holders if they do not come with the dies, and with that you can start making ammo. There are other items that are very important to have though, with the first one that comes to mind being a good set of calipers. For making the most accurate ammo, I use a comparator guage set with the calipers in order to measure seating depth more accurately, but they are not needed to start out. You will find that you can pick special items up here and there as you buy bullets and stuff.

For the most part, any of the kits that you buy will come with a reloading manual, which are indispensible for making safe ammo. If you have about $150 lying around, the best single tool that I have ever bought for reloading is Quickload. If you don't want to buy it, you can still make ammunition that is as accurate, but it will most likely take you more time. Be advised that Quickload is responsible for most of the divorce rate amongst handloaders, as husbands have been known to sit on their ass for countless hours gaming different load recipes on the computer until the wee hours of the night.

It can be overwhelming to find a place to start, so my advice is to start with the bullet for the particular cartridge you want to load for. I'll give the .308 Winchester as an example. Say you want a bullet for target shooting out to 600 yards or so, as that is the maximum distance you ever plan to shoot, but you also want to be able to shoot Bambi's baby brother if the oportunity arises. Most hunting bullets these days are not far from match grade, so pick one that will work for deer sized game -- I recommend the 165 grain Sierra Game King.

Next you need to pick your case. Usually this is limited to what you find on the shelves, but for the .308 Winchester specifically I recommend Winchester cases. As a general rule, and one I note for safety, once you develop a load for a particular cartridge, stick with the exact components and don't deviate from them; this is especially true for the case. All cases are not equal, and the capacity varies greatly by brand. If you develop a handload that is close to maximum pressure, and you switch say from a Winchester case to some Lake City cases that your bestest buddy gave you, the loads you make can damage or destroy your gun and injure you. Buy a notebook (I use the green monster books like the Marines use) and log the components of your chosen round in there with the date, seating depth, and how many you made. This will save your ass in the future. I promise that.

Now you have a bullet and case. Next you need to pick your powder. Look in your handloading manual(s) (it's best to have more than one) for the powder that gives you the velocity that you want for your chosen weight of bullet. Handloaders are living in the Promised Land of reloading nowadays; there are so many powders and components to chose from that it will blow your mind. For this post's theoretical round, I am going to recommend Hodgdon's Benchmark, as it will give you consistent velocities across the different temperatures that you will encounter in the deer stand and on the rifle range, and is known for extreme accuracy. The manual will tell you what the recommended maximum load is; start out about 10% less than the maximum charge, or whatever the manual recommends.

I find that reloading manuals from bullet manufacturers will give you the best place to start for their particular brand of bullet, and the reloading manuals from powder manufacturers to give you the best place to start for a given bullet weight. It's good to have both. You can also find reloading data online, and even order free loading manuals, like from Alliant Powder, which I highly recommend. My go-to manual is Lyman; they publish good loads that aren't too conservative and are sane.

For primers, you really can't go wrong with any of the brands out there, but I shoot CCI mostly. Magnum primers are best for magnum cartridges, but they are also useful for ball type powders and for loads that will be fired in the cold. Magnum primers often increase pressure, so know that before you start loading and work your powder charges up from there.

Here's some pro tips about buying powder and primers: ordering either one online will incur a $25 hazmat fee on top of the shipping charge. That pretty much spoils buying one pound of powder or a case of 1k primers. If you have to order, by a bunch of both to make up for the extra cost. Consolidate your order with other shooters for even more savings; online gun forums like Sniper's Hide, AR15.com, and Virginia Gun Forum have even been known to do mass buys at times, which can net even more savings from such a large order. What works for me though is to get in good with a reloading merchant who has a table at the local gunshow, and give them a call in advance with the powder you want so that they can order and bring it for you.

Yes, I have a powder dealer.

Once you find the powder that works best for your gun, buy a keg or two of it so that you have a stash that's from the same lot. You have no idea what kind of bender Ol' Valtteri Hämäläinen had last night before starting his shift at VihtaVuori plant, or how bad his multiple sclerosis has effected how much diphenylamine he can pour, so powder can change significantly from lot to lot. I had a hell of a time with Varget for awhile, and I wasn't alone.

Now that you've picked your components, head back to the manual and find out what your starting load should be. How to go about testing the right charge and seating depth for your gun is an article for another day, and is best explained by others. From my experience, it's best to find a powder/load recipe that works across the environment where you will be shooting, and the Optimal Charge Weight method has been successful for me multiple times. For those who use Quickload, take a look at the Optimal Barrel Time theory -- I've taken this information and used it to predict a handload before I even started to assemble the cartridge. It works, and will save you a bunch of time and components.

Benchmark powder is one of Hodgdon's Extreme line of powders, so it will work well throughout a broad temperature range. As you shoot loads with more and more charge, pay close attention to pressure signs (read your reloading manual for details), and your gun will tell you what it likes.

There is an abundance of reasons why you should start reloading: accuracy, economy, zombies, hoarding, for fun; these are only a handful of examples. Last weekend I seated my first batch of 9mm handloads for the purpose of hot-rodding 147 grain bullets in my Glock 17. It's hard to load economically for the 9mm, but turning it into a .357 magnum light should be fun. My kids now fight over who gets to pull the press handle, so I'm breeding a new generation of handloaders that will hopefully advance the art further than I can.

New powder from Alliant for AR type rifles

I can't find it on Alliant's website yet, but you can read about it here at AccurateShooter.com

It's a re-formulation of Reloder-15 that has been tested extensively to make it less affected by temperature, which sounds good to me. RL15 is one of my favorite powders for .308 Winchester, but I've always been put off by its habit of giving me different velocities in different temperatures, especially in AR type rifles where you can click off a dozen rounds or more very quickly which makes the chamber very hot. I believe this has given me inconsistency in the past, and it's nice to see powder companies like Hodgdon and Alliant addressing this.

Handy reloading tip

I have found that saving various empty boxes makes for utility later on down the road. The best ones in my opinion are plastic bullet boxes, as I have found use for them for holding small reloading parts like comparators or gauges:



One for my bullet puller inserts; another for bump gauges that are used to set up dies; one for the FAT Wrench attachments, and one for my comparator inserts for measuring bullet seating depth. The green boxes used to hold .224 caliber Sierra Match King bullets, and the red cardboard box is from Hornady. As you gain further addiction to reloading, you will acquire all sorts of tools and measuring devices that need an orderly place to stay. These boxes fit the bill perfectly, cost nothing, and will last a lifetime.

I also recommend saving cartridge boxes. Sometimes I will load up some obscure loading and don't have any MTM plastic boxes lying around, so I'll stick them in a Remington Core-Lokt box and place a mailing label over the ends and remark them with a Sharpie. Also, the used cardboard boxes are easier to carry in the field and don't make noise like the hard plastic boxes. There has never been a time when I've complained about having too many, and all of the 308 boxes in this picture have been recently re-filled and then emptied on the range:



All of the .45 ACP and .380 boxes are filled, and there aren't many 9mm boxes left in there. I really do use them all the time, and keep every factory ammo box that I empty.