Reloading your own Ammo
An overview with pictures by a new reloader

There are plenty of sources for reloading out there, so this will just be our version. As new reloader there is a lot to learn, and we'll attempt to relate our experiences with equipment and technique in both words and pictures.

Collection of reloading supplies

This article is in no way a substitute for reading your reloading manual and is not to be used as your only guide. Consider this article as it's meant to be a simple walk through to get you familiar with the steps and equipment needed to start out reloading your own ammo.

You’ll save some money (eventually) and have all the of fun assembling your own ammunition to your own specifications.

The amount of material out there is about overwhelming, but very easy to get your hands on. In Tucson, AZ we have a few shops that sell reloading supplies. None of them have it all, but a few shops have enough to get you started. Another good source of reloading equipment is gun shows and private sales. Someone who no longer reloads, or bought new equipment is a great source for used equipment.

Reloading manuals

Start with a few FREE manuals these are available all over the place, gun shops, gun shows, internet, etc Most reloading equipment manufacturers offer catalogs of their items, bullet and powder manufacturers offer manuals that chart what amount of powder to use with which bullets. These are a wealth of information; many suggest safety tips and procedures along with the raw data and charts.

Some internet sites like this one and chat rooms can be a wealth of information as well. Remember to be safe and think about what you are doing or you can do some real damage or hurt someone, so verify any information you get from less reputable sources (like this site, again we don’t claim to be reloading experts, we are no substitute for a manual)

After you read a manual, and looked through our introduction to reloading, start to ask questions from the guy you bought the reloading stuff from, a gun shop that sells reloading equipment or at gun shows. You can learn a lot from a gun show.

Now you have an idea of what the process is, and are still interested in reloading, now is the real hard part, buying the equipment. It’s not going to be cheap, unless you find a real bargain somewhere. Figure $50 - $100 per item, you can find plenty of sources, as you can tell our websites aren’t built to sell you stuff.

A Good starter set of reloading equipment - Click to enlarge

Here’s the stuff you’ll want to start with;

Here’s some other stuff you’ll need to buy more often;

Ok there’s a pretty good list. And you can see I am able to deal with it all on a few small yet sturdy tables.

Press bolted to table

Get your press bolted down solidly to the table you are going to use. I chose a table about the height where I can work comfortably in a chair. I have arms like a gorilla and muscles that can lift cars, so I don’t need any leverage, but I hear some people like to stand while they reload so they can use the extra height and their body weight for leverage when using the press. Thing is, you only need to use force when resizing the cases; the other processes are quite effortless really.

First step in the reloading is to inspect, resize and remove the primers from the old brass. This is all done at the same time, put the first stage from your die kit into the press and set it’s height. You do that by pulling the lever all the way down on the press with no brass in place. Now screw the case sizer down to where it just touches the raised case holder on your press. That way when you push the brass up, it will be resized all the way to the bottom. Then drop the press and screw in the primer removal post to where it’s lower than the base of the shell. Now add a piece of brass and push it up with the press, it’s sides will cram into the die and be forced back into shape, and the center post will push down the primer hole and pop out that old primer. BE careful you don’t smash out a new primer or it will prob go off in your press, that’s not so good

Press in the top (up) position

Now drop the press and you have a piece of brass all sized back to factory specs, and the primer is out. Then throw the brass into my tumbler and grab the next one, repeat a few hundred times then when all your brass is in the tumbler / vibrator, turn it on and go rest your arm, that was the roughest part of the job.

The brass will need to tumble in corn cob flakes or walnut pieces until it’s shiny and the primer pockets are cleaned out a bit.

Then use some kind of strainer, things made for a cooking Wok work well for me as a strainer. I have a case prep center which is a bunch of stuff spinning around like brushes and cutters. I use it at this point to clean the primer cup with a small moving brush. If any corn or walnut stays in the primer hole, use a dental pick, screw or some such thing to remove it.

Vibration Shell Cleaner

Brass trimmer

If the case is too long use your case trimmer to trim off however much is needed, take a bit off, check it take more off if needed, go slow when trimming, no need to shorten a shell for no reason. When you need to trim, and you have a case prep center, you can run the shell through the inside and outside bur removers to take off any sharp edges, again go slow.

Next I add the primers; your choice is to use the press or a hand primer tool. I like the hand tool, it seems like less effort and is more precise. Dump your primers of the correct type into the tray and shake it to get them all face down. There are large & small, for both pistols and rifles. Next insert a shell and squeeze the primer into place, repeat a few hundred times and your on to the next step

Hand Primer Tool

Safety note; Be sire to remove all buildup and corn/walnut from the primer hole, if you miss one it could ignite the primer when it’s pressed in.

Bullets with too much mouth pressed into them

Next step on a handgun (rifles don’t need this step) is to create a mouth on the shell so the bullet can fit in easily. This is done with the 2nd die in your kit. Set your press all the way up with an empty brass in place, screw in the die, then slowly screw it down until it hits the shell.

Once you’re there screw it just a heir or two more, then press the shell, bring it out and you should see a slight ’funnel’ shape at the mouth. Test the size with a bullet, it should stay right on top the shell without any help, but not have anything extra pushing out the edges of the bullet.

Now you’re all ready to add powder. Measure your powder into the scale tray, then weigh it, adjust the Powder Measure and verify again on the scale, continue these two steps until you are right on the mark for the amount of powder you chose to use. An assortment of gunpowder, new & old

Powder Measure

Then using the funnel or the tip of the measure (whichever you are more comfortable with) add powder to each shell in the tray. Every 10 shells or so, check your measured weight again to be sure the amount isn’t rising or declining. Obviously be careful with the trays at this point, as it’s basically 50 tiny cups of gun powder waiting to spill.

Safety note; If you do spill some powder, it’s better to empty all the rounds on the tray and start over. You don’t want too much powder or too little powder in any one case or it could be quite dangerous.

OK so Now were ready to seat the bullet. Get the third die (Second for rifles) and bring the press up to the top with a test brass in place (No bullet yet). Screw the die into place slowly and now decide if you want to ‘crimp’ the brass into the bullet.

Many types and brands of bullets

Crimping is ‘pinching’ the brass into the bullet to help secure the bullets in place for high power loads. When in a revolver or magazine the rounds waiting to be shot will be jarred by the recoil of prior shots, with no crimp on ‘hot’ loads. With no crimp the bullet could drift out of place, with potentially dangerous results.

3 rounds one is crimped, can you tell which?

So if you do plan to crimp, screw the die down to where it touches the top of the test brass at the top position of the press then drop the press and tighten the brass just a bit more so that the next time the press pushes the bras up, it will hit the die and be pushed ‘crimped’ into the bullet.

Next crimp or not, you’ll need to set the bullet depth. Reference your manual for the correct size of the overall round and get a test bullet & brass ready. Set the bullet in the brass and bring the press up. Don’t go all the way so the brass is crimped (if you are choosing to crimp) then screw in the center post that will push the bullet into place. Tighten the post until it just touches the bullet, then a bit more, push the press up all the way and back down, then measure your bullet. It should be much longer than the actual length you are looking for, so get an idea of how far you need to continue to push the bullet into the brass, then screw the center post in a bit more. Run that same test round up in the press and back out, then measure again, continue this until the bullet is set to the correct height. Then set the screws on your dies so it does’t move from where you set it.

Start setting in the bullets, I check every few rounds to be sure the overall length remains good.

Improved accuracy is one major reason to reload

Soon you’ll have hundreds of new rounds at about 10 times the price you would have paid for factory loads. But trust me if you keep shooting and reusing that brass, you’ll soon get the cost of your equipment back, and with a few sets of dies you’ll be saving money even sooner.

Hope this overview helps get the basics of reloading pistol and rifle rounds out there in a easy to understand way. Let us know what you think of our efforts. Have fun and be safe.