By John Kleespies One of the most commonly used tools in a hand loader’s arsenal is a measuring caliper. However, that caliper cannot be trusted to be accurate: it must be known to be accurate. When building high-pressure ammunition, a caliper that provides incorrect measurements is worse than worthless – it is dangerous. For about $40, rectangular…

When it comes to choosing bullets and powder for hand loading ammunition, there tends to be two schools of thought: slow and heavy versus fast and light. While this concept applies to any sort of loading situation – whether it be rifle or pistol – I'll use a United States Practical Shooting Association competition round as a simple example. A…

I try to employ some simple safety rules when hand loading to keep the “uh-oh” factor off my reloading bench as much as possible. One of the simplest and most effective is my self-imposed rule to try to use a powder that loads 50%+ of the case volume prior to seating the bullet. Why? 1. I always visually check each case to make…

In his book Understanding Firearm Ballistics, Robert Rinker reported that Frankford Arsenal once conducted tests of military M1 ball ammunition by tilting the cartridges upwards (settling the powder to the base) and firing them, then shaking them level (settling the powder to an even distribution) and firing them, and then tilting them forwards (settling the powder towardsthe bullet) and firing them, measuring velocity with each firing. They reported that the highest average velocity occurred with the…

I’m sometimes encountered with a conversation that goes like this: The other guy: “I want to learn how to load my own ammunition, but I don’t know where to begin. Help me!” Me: “What kind of a gun do you own?” The other guy: “I don’t know! Just tell me what to buy!” I might suggest to…

Not all primers are created equal, especially when it comes to pistols. Here are a few things to note amongst the major primer brands, at least in my experience. Amongst the competition shooting set, Federal primers are the most prized because they are the softest. This means that they are the most likely to go bang, regardless of the strength of the…

If other progressive hand loaders are like me, they prefer to adjust their Dillon to a particular load and then leave it alone. In my case, after I set my Dillon Auto Powder Measure, I cover the adjustment nut with painter’s tape and write the powder name and grains on it. This way, the adjustment…

Over the past few years, the Pistol Caliber Carbine (PCC) has gained popularity in competitive shooting, which has spilled over to home defense where PCCs maintain the controllability of a long gun without the overpenetration of a rifle. For the long-gun shooter, a point of attraction towards PCCs is that – relative to bottlenecked rifle…