Getting into reloading. After reading "the ABC's of reloading" by Phillip Massaro, I feel like I have a general grasp on the basics. What I'm looking for is the general "don't do this" safety measures that'll make sure I don't learn something the hard way. So far, it looks pretty simple. Anything I should add to the list below?
Note: I only plan to reload rifle ammo.
- don't mix up pistol and rifle powder (moot, as I won't be loading pistol)
- take measures to avoid spilling your primers all over the place. Keep them somewhere different from your powder.
- inspect your brass
-have a system for making sure you don't "double-load" (although it seems like if you double-loaded a rifle cartridge it would overfill and spill all over the place)
- don't smash your hand in the press
- don't light your can of powder on fire (ok, that one is a little too obvious)
Anything to add? Seems like a relatively safe endeavor if you don't do obviously dumb things. There's an endless amount of stuff to squeeze accuracy out of a round, but the basic safety measures seem pretty simple.
I have a few pieces of advice.
1. Invest in a bullet puller. No matter your level of experience, there is always potential to want to pull some bullets and check something. Before I had one? My only consistent way of emptying cases or to check something that I did was tomfire the load. That is expensive, unproductive and sometimes dangerous.
2. I used to only reload when I had time to finish the process from A to Z. That can often take up more time than I had, when paying close attention to what I was doing. A few years ago, I cut a few cardboard strips and wrote on them the different statuses that I may be at and always had ziplock bags handy. If I ran out of time, or needed to stop what I was doing for some reason, I would bag up the brass and drop.the label in the bag. Here are some examples of what my labels looked like:
* Range pick-up brass (assume nothing)
* Deprimed and cleaned only.
* Cleaned, annealed, body sized.
* full length sized, ready to prime.
* Annealed, sized, trimmed.
* Primed and ready to load.
* Load these cases with 'XX' grains of 'Hxxxx' powder and seat 'x' bullet to 'x' length base to ogive.
3. When I am charging cases and seating bullets, I never charge more than 5 cases before I seat the bullets in those cases. For one reason, if you do have to step away, you are never more than about 2 min from completing that process ans being able to walk away without concern for where you were or leaving powder exposed to elements. Also, it will definately happen where you will bump something when transferring powder from dispenser to the case and somewhere between a few kernels and a whole bunch of powder can get into your already charged cases. This can be everything from a nuisance to a huge waste of time to very dangerous, depending on how you deal with it.
4. When you are doing load development, wrote your charge weight right on the brass case woth a sharpie. You can use this to stay safe and organized at the range. It also helps you analyze the cases for signs of pressure when you get home.
Reloading is nothing to be afraid of, if you respect it and follow some very simple guidelines. It sounds to me like your 'safety first approach' and doing a little reading ahead of starting will set you on a good path. Good luck.
