Reloading Hates

Amps 13

Amps 13

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Which is your least favorite caliber to load? Other things that make you think you should sell everything and quit doing it?

I just did some 25acp and what a pain. Hate working with such small amounts of everything. Seem to make more of a mess than really get anywhere.
Hate working with primers In anything other then my large AP press. They seem to always end up on the ground somehow.

Dies- How in the hell do dies always magically change the second you take them off the press? Absolutely am convinced my wife is screwing with me and changing them at night.
 
As petty as it sounds, I hate the process of converting calibers. With the press parts, the case feeder parts and the bullet feeder parts it’s just irritating. Have considered a 550 for calibers where I rarely load more than 100 at a time, 45/75, 44mag, 41mag, etc.
 
Toprudder said:
Prepping bottleneck rifle brass is my least favorite. Straight wall pistol brass is easy.
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Just started to do this. 7.7 jap is a different animal than 9mm and then throw on top trying to convert some 30/06 into 7.7..... youtube has been helpful so far but I still ain’t gonna say I know what I’m doing
 
Amps 13 said:
Just started to do this. 7.7 jap is a different animal than 9mm and then throw on top trying to convert some 30/06 into 7.7..... youtube has been helpful so far but I still ain’t gonna say I know what I’m doing
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Converting brass does not bother me too much, I see it as a challenge and that makes it somewhat satisfying.

When I said I don’t like prepping rifle brass, that is especially true with 223 since I may be doing 500 to 1000 at a time. Something like 30-06 that I may only do 50 to 100 at a time doesn’t bother me so much.
 
Case prep and priming is a bit tedious, but I can do it while I’m sitting there and watching TV. After I resize/deprime and trim cases, I can sit there and clean primer pockets, debur and hand prime.

Sorta like sitting there and snapping green beans when I was a kid.

Far as dislike for any specific cartridges, can’t say I have any. All I have ever loaded for was 9mm, 45 ACP, .38 Spl, .357 Mag, .45 LC, .44 Mag, .223/5.56, 22-250, 30-30, .308 Win, .300 Win Mag and .416 Rem. Mag.
 
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JimB said:
As petty as it sounds, I hate the process of converting calibers. With the press parts, the case feeder parts and the bullet feeder parts it’s just irritating. Have considered a 550 for calibers where I rarely load more than 100 at a time, 45/75, 44mag, 41mag, etc.
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You're ignoring the obvious solution, the Norm Abrams philosophy, a press for each caliber.
 
Toprudder said:
Prepping bottleneck rifle brass is my least favorite. Straight wall pistol brass is easy.
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THIS!!! Damn does it suck doing everything with a bottleneck case to the point the brass is ready to load. Ok so you clean it the same as your pistol brass, but then you resize it with lube, clean off the lube, then trim the neck. Then, you meter out every load vs just dropping it on a pistol cartridge. I'd say it takes me 4x longer to load 223/308 than it does 9mm. Of course I also load with a single stage and have long lived the motto of, "Quality over quantity".
 
.223 casting sucks. 338 Lapua you can see the powder level drop like sand in an hourglass. Ready to use turret press and dies are all setup for single stages… and vice versa.
 
JimB said:
As petty as it sounds, I hate the process of converting calibers. With the press parts, the case feeder parts and the bullet feeder parts it’s just irritating. Have considered a 550 for calibers where I rarely load more than 100 at a time, 45/75, 44mag, 41mag, etc.
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Call me wasteful, but I ended up buying a second press to specifically avoid this. Right now I have one 650XL set up for 9 and the other set up for 10. Takes me 15 seconds to swap them and they serve as backups for each other. Money well spent, IMO.
 
georgel said:
You're ignoring the obvious solution, the Norm Abrams philosophy, a press for each caliber.
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Gaston said:
Call me wasteful, but I ended up buying a second press to specifically avoid this. Right now I have one 650XL set up for 9 and the other set up for 10. Takes me 15 seconds to swap them and they serve as backups for each other. Money well spent, IMO.
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I’ve done that for 45acp, 9mm, and 223, but I don’t have room for a 4th 650. Was loading 41mag on the single stage, and that’s great for working up a load, but soon I’m gonna have to change over a machine. Most of it isn’t hard or time consuming, the bullet feeder takes tweaking so maybe I just don’t use it. Like I said, it’s a petty gripe.
 
Yeah, I'd have to agree that processing rifle brass is my nemesis. So much so that I outsourced it for the last go-around when I had a 5gal bucket full.

Now I'm out of match ammo and I have 3k pieces of .223 brass just sitting there, waiting on me. Sigh...
 
The secret is to process as you use it. I have a few 223 and 9s loaded. When I go shooting, I will reload what I shoot. That being said, it is usually never more than 50-100 rounds per caliber. And using the same 223 brass, I do not have to worry about the primer case being crimped. All on a single stage press.
 
I have a love/hate relationship with 38 special.

1. I love it because its an easy one to load.
2. I hate it because it has to be run through two different dies before I can load it. Also, it takes the same amount of effort to load 44 mag and 44 mag is bigger, so the ammo can fills up faster.

Its a silly reason to hate loading 38 special, but that's how I feel.
 
bulk 5.56. So much effort into handloading a centerfire cartridge that I fire as quickly as I do 22lr. It'll get better once I have a proper shop and invest in tools that make the task quicker and easier, but right now I'm doing it all on single-stage equipment, and while I have gotten some electrically-driven tools since I started, it's still agonizingly slow.
 
Every so often the plastic tip of the primer feed tube will break. When it does sometimes all primers in the tube escape and have to be rounded back up again. Have to pay more attention and heed the warning signs. Otherwise I enjoy reloading on my Dillon SDB.
Rifle is done on a single stage press. I don't let the brass pile too high and will usually process a few hundred at a time. Retirement gives me the time to reload at my leisure.
 
I think I might enjoy it more if I loaded for precision rifle rounds. That sounds more fun/technical.

All I do is pump out the exact same load by the tens of thousands. 150gn blue bullet over 3.4 grains of titegroup. Just pullin GB a handle like a robot. Only not as cool or smart as a robot.
 
NKD said:
I think I might enjoy it more if I loaded for precision rifle rounds. That sounds more fun/technical.

All I do is pump out the exact same load by the tens of thousands. 150gn blue bullet over 3.4 grains of titegroup. Just pullin GB a handle like a robot. Only not as cool or smart as a robot.
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I load 300-500 rds per week on average. Usually 50-100 are precision rifle the rest are various pistol food. All on single stage presses. Only “auto” press I have is a Dillion set up for .223 that sees about 2000 rds a year (usually one Saturday morning).
 
biganimal said:
I load 300-500 rds per week on average. Usually 50-100 are precision rifle the rest are various pistol food. All on single stage presses. Only “auto” press I have is a Dillion set up for .223 that sees about 2000 rds a year (usually one Saturday morning).
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You sound like a patient man.

Glad you enjoy it!
 
For whatever reason, 458 Socom is giving me trouble. I have made probably 20 rounds and I will say 75% of them have failed the plunk test. Started with Hornady dies, switched over to Redding dies, same issue. I stopped trying for a while, and will start from scratch some point this spring.
 
Dale Gribble said:
.416 Rem. Mag.
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I had someone give me dies, bullets and brass for this to load them some practice ammo for their big African safari. Wanted some lighter stuff so he could practice more without damaging his shoulder. Made him 20 rounds to start and that was enough for him. If you ever find yourself needing a small supply of brass, bullets and some nearly new Hornady 416 dies, hit me up. Stuff has been sitting for 15+ years, just can't bring myself to toss it.
 
Jayne said:
I had someone give me dies, bullets and brass for this to load them some practice ammo for their big African safari. Wanted some lighter stuff so he could practice more without damaging his shoulder. Made him 20 rounds to start and that was enough for him. If you ever find yourself needing a small supply of brass, bullets and some nearly new Hornady 416 dies, hit me up. Stuff has been sitting for 15+ years, just can't bring myself to toss it.
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Thanks for the offer, man…that was mighty nice, but I’m outta the .416 game. I moved it around 10 years ago.

You don’t happen to have any dummy cartridges loaded up for it, do you? All the times I loaded for it and I did not keep even one round for my cartridge board.

Shane
 
Dale Gribble said:
You don’t happen to have any dummy cartridges loaded up for it, do you? All the times I loaded for it and I did not keep even one round for my cartridge board.
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no, but that would be trivial to do. I checked the dies and I stole the lock rings long ago but I can stick some on and stuff a projectile into a case. Just don't be picky about crimp or OAL. :)
 
I reload for all my calibers. I cast for the 45/70 and the .357 and .44 mag.
I have yet to find anything I dislike. It truly is therapy.

…. trying to not crack the shot cups when loading .357 rat shot can be interesting at times.
 
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