Pistol Reloading

Pistol Reloading

Every few years I get a call from a friend that has inherited some reloading equipment or supplies and does not know what to do with it. I usually offer to help them learn how to load their own ammunition but in most cases they just want me to take it away so they don’t have to dispose of it. 

Most of the time there are a few cans of old powder that I end up having to burn, and some miscellaneous bullets and brass. But sometimes I end up with something really useful. Well this week it was the latter. 

This week I got a call from a friend that had a bunch of pistol components. There was a lot of 38 Special Brass, Bullets and Powder. Given that my Wife has recently shown an interest in Pistol Shooting this could not come at a better time. 

I am a little anal with my reloading. I like to sort my brass by manufacture, clean and organize all of my components. In among all the components were around 100 primed cases of mixed manufacture. Having that disorder just would not sit with me so I decided that I should load them and shoot them. 

First order of business was to select a load, so off to my library of reloading manuals to select a load. 

 There were several old canisters of Unique powder. Although they were both old they both smelled good so I decided that I would use them to build my first load. 

There was also several thousand cast wad cutter bullets. First I measured them to confirm that they are .38 caliber and they were. 

 Then I weighed the bullets to confirm that they were what I thought the were, 148 Grain. 

 After that I set my powder measure to the appropriate charge weight, confirmed that it was set correctly with my scale. 

 Given that the brass was already primed, I set off loading the powder charges with my powder measure. 

 After loading the powder charges I visually checked each one to make sure that they all had one charge of powder. This is why it is very important to have good lighting at your reloading bench. A double charge or a missed charge can rake havoc on a gun! 

 Here is the primed, charged case ready to seat the wad cutter bullet.

 And after seating, and crimping.

 Here is my first batch. I wanted to go shoot these before I loaded more. So down to the range I went. 

I am not a very good pistol shot. But for my first group I am happy with this. I will load up some more and spend a little more time at the range!