doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Reloading truths learned the hard way.

A good friend, when I told him I was going to start loading shot shells, told me to take a pound of powder and a pound of shot and pour them on the floor. He said they'd end up there anyway and that way I'd have got by that phase of the process and could move on to some kind of success.

I've found that using a strip of 1.5" wide masking tape makes for a very quick and easily replaced label for both powder & shot sizes on the bottles as well as a note on the weight of powder being thrown & bushing installed in the charge bar.

A piece of the same tape across the box top will give you an instant label for the hull, powder & weight, shot size & type, primer & wad. Just run a strip across and trim w/a razor blade or box cutter for clean edges. Its fast & inexpensive & it helps to prevent errors. I go through periodic loading binges, boxing hulls so labeled and placing them in flats that are also marked on the end facing outward when stacked. Makes life easier for me doing it that way.

I've also found that it is expedient to replace MEC bottles when they become clouded by graphite or start to show any sign of yellowing. The plastic degrades over time and becomes brittle. No fun if one finally cracks w/shot or powder in it. MEC service has always been top notch in my experience. New bottles are inexpensive in the greater scheme of things.

Many years ago we were having our basement carpet cleaned and my gun/reloading was in the basement. The carpet cleaner came upstairs and showed me a handful of #9 shot that he had pulled from our carpet while vacuuming.

Lots of good ideas and advice here! I especially like Jolly Bills idea of mounting the press in a shallow box in order to catch most powder and shot spills. I load in my basement in a room with a smooth concrete floor, but getting all of the shot, powder, or spent primers that spills is still a PITA. I also like Stan's idea of mounting his presses in a woodworkers vise. I made a tapered dovetail mount along with matching tapered dovetail bases to install on the base of each of my presses. It only takes seconds to switch to a different press. But Stan's idea leaves him with a clean bench top if he removes his press.

I partially disagree with no.20 in KY Jon's list concerning stocking up on supplies. I used to stock up on everything when I could buy components cheap, and still do with one exception. I have learned that it is not a good idea to buy more plastic wads than you can use in a couple years because the plastic becomes brittle with time and this can change pressures and performance. But then again, the same aging would also occur in loaded ammunition that is kept for years, so how big of a problem is this? I'm still slowly shooting up a bunch of ammo I bought during a going out of business sale at a local gunshop years ago because it is too hot for my old vintage doubles.

Load more, shoot more, save more.

Shoot enough and you'll save enough to be able to afford that new gun.

Chuck;
You'd make a good add writer. Sounds like all those ads "The More You Buy the More You Save". Funny but it always seemed to me the more I bought the more I spent.

I have one Mec loader, 600 Jr, that's pretty old. (The final crimp station is metal.) A few weeks ago, I tipped it up to start reloading . . . shot spilling out. I thought it was the bottle that broke. Nope. It was the grommet that holds the bottle. The grommets holding the bottles on the older reloaders look like Mec used screw on metal bottle caps--definitely on the flimsy side. The grommets on the new ones are a significant improvement.

Agree that Mec customer service is great. They get you to someone who both speaks English and also speaks reloading. And they get you parts pretty quickly.

That's a nice list and covers the major points.

It took me decades to learn that with regard to reloading 20 ga. Winchester hulls, you will get the nicest results using Winchester powder and a Winchester(like) wad.