Benfits of Cartridge Reloading and UsesReloading center fire cartridges has been a past time of mine for many years as a hobby as well a necessity. If you want to use your firearms for defense, hunting or shooting sports it just makes sense either wanting to create a more accurate, flatter shooting or economical load. Usually you can cut shooting costs in half if you have good used brass and even more if you decide to get into casting your own bullets from scrap tire wheel weights from garages or salvage lead from junk yards. I have shot thousands of handgun rounds made from wheel weights and cast with the Lee Six Cavity bullet molds. The real benefit comes from the ability to shoot as much as is needed to stay proficient with whatever type firearm for hunting, sport shooting or personal defense. Another nice option for low power loads in both rifles and handguns is there use for small game and varmint hunting.I usually load rifle plinker loads to about 1200 fps. and handgun loads to about 850 fps. This seems about right for lower noise levels and minimal game damage. Most all small game I hunt is taken with a 22 handgun or center fire plinker loads which include grouse, rabbits, turkeys, squirrels, and varmints. Cartridge performance can be improved upon either in accuracy or power levels by switching components and loading to a particular firearms likes or dislikes. Because of manufacturing variables chamber and bore dimensions, barrel lengths, etc., ammo makers try to compromise on load development and provide good generic loads that will work in a great number of firearms. A person with reloading skills does not have to settle for mediocre performance and can fine tune any firearm for long range shooting of varmints or big game to close range plinking and hunting to target shooting sports. Many cartridges started life as experiments by hobby handloaders, who being the perfectionist types that we are, just wanted something different or wanted more performance not available to them commercially. Cartridges like the military 308 and the 30.06 have many offspring like the 243, 7mm08, 270, 280, 25.06,etc., all to improve on some feature the parent cartridge was thought to be missing. Lots of old black powder and obsolete firearms are still able to be used because of the many reloading tools and products still available to handloaders. Always consult powder or bullet manufacturers reloading manuals or online references for different load data and watch for sticky extraction and abnormally flattened primers or worse, punctured primers. Always start low and work up slowly, never exceed maximum powder levels recommended by the bullet or powder manufacturers. Cartridge Reloading Basics
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This is really important with handguns because of the longer learning curve to get to a decent level of confidence,it is good to have lots of cheap, reduced power loads for practice. By handloading you can reduce power levels for less recoil and muzzle blast which can cause poor shooting habits latter.
