Reloading: Anywhere, Any Time

You may be surprised to learn that making ammo in the field is a diverse and important subject, especially for those who have the need to do it! This topic spans the extremes of shooting endeavour, from absolute precision to simply making ammo that will help provide the next meal. Bench resters do it, hunters do it and mad experimentalists like me do it!

Land Rover Loading Bench

At the top of the food chain are the dedicated bench rest marksmen. Shooting a course of fire based around a single cartridge case demands the presence of a re-manufacturing process close to the firing point. I knew of one fanatic who had a Land Rover Discovery ‘van’ fully fitted as a reloading workshop that contained more kit than some gun shops!

Here the focus is on making the most consistent round possible, the only limit on kit being set by the size of the shooters vehicle and the workspace on the range. The convention is to use the best competition dies and tools available and simply adapt them to optimise portability. So saying, the objective is to do as little work to the brass as possible – limited neck sizing generally being the extent of the remedial works. One of the biggest challenges is the accurate ‘field’ weighing of powder charges. Some elect to pre-weigh the required number and store them in vials. The rubber stoppered glass ones from Henry Krank, whilst fragile and designed for black powder will do the job. However, this potentially removes the flexibility of loading to suit the prevailing range conditions such as changes in temperature and humidity. Pre-weighing and batching bullets also saves the traumas of a traditionally wet and windy range or wobbly vehicle.

Travelling Light

A few cartridges in one pocket and a rifle over the shoulder. In the rucksack a simple hand-operated loading tool/press, pack of primers, box of bullets, small tub of powder and a piece of cardboard and you’re good to go field hunting. Kit like this is also buried in grey plastic pipe all over America, put there, and often forgotten by the 70’s Cold War Armageddon survivalists. Except that these inadvertent time capsules often hold bulk canisters of powder and thousands of bullets and primers. Favoured tools include the sadly discontinued baby Lyman Accupress as well as the Lee Hand press, or for the real minimalist, either the single calibre Lee Classic Loader or the Meacham Rifle Anywhere Press.

For the ultra serious minimalist there are methods of re-creating functional ammo without the use of dies, fresh primers, powder or bullets. Really. I was sceptical too, until I watched a 9mm field loading demo by a former member of the Special Boat Squadron. It did require the presence of the pistol, but that was real fieldcraft! Oh yes, the cardboard sheet? Roll it into a tapered tube, secure with chewing gum and you’ve got a funnel!

Playing On The Range

If you’re developing a load then it’s easier and cheaper to lug some kit and a chrono to the range than to make many batches of ammo that may not make the grade and have to be pulled or just blown away to salvage the brass. Always do the math in the loading room, define your objectives and build a start batch and a ‘next’ charge batch to give some comparative data. If the objective is one hole, multi-shot accuracy then consider the effects of recoil when designing the cartridge and build batches of 10 rounds. If single shot knock down energy is the requirement then recoil may be less of an issue and 5 shot batches may well be sufficient. Fire a couple of fouling rounds before each batch test and always clean the rifle after the string is fired. My test firing is mostly off a rest and sand bags but promising loads are usually tested under ‘working’ conditions as well.

I always prep and prime a large batch of single head stamp cases for trials on the range as my demands are not as critical as those of the bench rest lads. At home I’ll make starting load cartridges and next charge batches with my chosen powders or bullets. As a general rule I develop a load with one chosen bullet and a range of powders. Working with a perm of both bullets and powders produces too much data for a simpleton like me to deal with.

My Obsolete Porta Presses

In addition to my Lee Hand Press and Lyman Accupress I’ve got an obsolete big grunt Wamadet which also uses standard 7/8” x 14 tpi dies but because it’s built on its own plank, does not need to be bolted to anything. It was bought to use with bullet swaging dies, a job it also manages pretty well. Unconventionally, the shell holder post is fixed and the press top handle moves the die up and down – a design that offers high power but a limited range of movement. They still surface on E-Bay and I reckon there are still a number of gun shops with one gathering dust in their storeroom!

For my on-range loading I take an electronic scale, calculator, the pan from a beam scale, a manual trickler, a funnel and a near size (under weight) Lee dipper. To avoid the grief of spilling a whole tub of powder, or degrading it in a hot car, I decant powders into labelled black 35mm film canisters and bin anything left after the test. As for primers, I’ve a preference for Federal so my development often starts with them.

Never rely on your memory. Record all the data as it is produced. I still use a notebook and then transfer the important stuff to a computer database. However, I’m sure someone must be working on an I-Phone or Android App for load data. Watch this space.