Reloading

My usual quota is 300 rounds in an evening, but starting about 2:00PM today and with two television breaks and another for dinner, I finished 1,000 rounds about 7:00PM. That includes:

If you reload 45 ACP for automatics (but not necessarily for revolvers), you need one of Bruce Martindale’s gauges.

Primers and powder need to be stored in their original containers, but locked well away from grasping and naive hands. If you have the space and a place to get them from, many reloaders use lockers harvested from a local school. These are about a foot wide and five feet tall, and can be had as singles, pairs and so forth up to just about any width you might want. Each “locker” can be padlocked – and MasterLocks, probably among others, sells them in pairs set to a common key. (Try WalMart, for example.)

Shiney brass makes for more Xs.

It works like this. A shiney piece of brass will press a smoother surface onto the sides of the bullet. When such a bullet is then fired, it becomes subject to external forces and one of those is the impact of photons being reflected from the target face.

The Problem

After loading several hundred rounds of ammunition not too long ago, I then discovered that two primers had been seated sideways and one upside down. I removed the bullets and recovered the powder but decided to discard the shells with their damaged primers. But since the primers were still live, I wondered what should I do to deactivate them?

When we do anything dangerous such as shooting guns, reloading ammunition or jumping out of airplanes, it is very helpful to have *several* overlapping things that, any one of which, will prevent or catch an otherwise fatal mistake. For example, the NRA has three safety rules for shooting, each one of which will keep you from shooting yourself or anyone around you. Indeed, to hurt someone, you have to fail at all three rules simultaneously.

Heretofore, I’ve picked up 45 ACP empties at the indoor range I use in Scottsdale AZ. The ROs have even been so kind to sweep empties from others in my direction (after the other shooters have left) because they had observed me doing so. Over many weeks and months, then, I’ve accumulated quite a collection.

I sent 1,000 empty pieces of 45 ACP brass to Neil at NSK Sales along with a check for $155.35 to reload them as “wad” (Bullseye) ammunition. My total cost per round will be at $0.16 per round after adding in the postage for the empty brass. (The check consisted of $121.25 for the reloads and $34.10 for the return shipping.) The cheapest ammunition I had been able to find is the 100 round white box of Remington from Walmart and, at $19.95 (plus tax), that ammunition works out to be $0.22 per round. Neil’s reloads are seven cents a round cheaper.