Metallic

With everyone stuck at home, and the supply channels short of ammunition, a lot of folks are turning to reloading.

With great ammo, you can turn a $400 handgun into one that shoots as well as a gun that costs many thousands. The opposite is true as well. Sometimes cheap ammo can turn a handgun that cost many thousands of dollars into one that shoots about as well as a cheap one.

When it comes to ammunition, there are a huge number of companies in the mix. With that, the quality varies a lot from manufacturer to manufacturer. I decided to head up to Northern New Hampshire and visit David Stark, the owner of Discreet Ballistics.

The very last step in the reloading process is inspection and packaging. After all is done, I like to combine the inspection and packaging steps. As I put each completed cartridge into a box, I look it over to make sure everything is in order.

Crimping gets a bad rap. Just as we sometimes tend to fix construction mistakes with a hammer rather than taking the time to properly fit parts, we tend to view crimping as a way to “fix” a less than perfect bullet seating. The problem with crimping is that it sounds so logical. The word “crimping” kind of implies the process of locking a bullet in place. But, there is more to it than just that.

So, let’s discuss the topic of seating and crimping in the reloading process. Stated simply, the seating step simply means jamming a new bullet into a cleaned, resized, primed, and powder-charged cartridge case. Crimping “generally” refers to the act of bringing the neck of the cartridge case back to proper dimension after that bullet is stuffed in. There’s a lot more to both actions, especially if you want to be safe, so let’s take a closer look at both steps.

When it comes to reloading, the powder is the biggest variable. Not only do you need to worry about the exact amount of powder in a charge, you also need to consider the type of powder. By my rough count, and this is not at all official, there are somewhere around 150 types of powder on the market.

SERIES Part 1: Want to Reload Your Own Ammo? Basic Questions to Consider Part 2: The Reloading Process Part 3: The Gear You’ll Need and What It’ll Cost You Part 4: Brass Cleaning and Preparation to Load Part 5: Brass Resizing Part 6: Trimming Cartridge Cases Part 7: Repriming the Cartridge Case Part 8: Powder, Propellants, and Pressure Part 9: All About Primers Part [...]

If you plan to reload, you will have to get very familiar with your brass. Here we talk about how to resize cases, and what to watch out for. There are a lot of variations from the various manufacturers, and several things you must watch for.