End the War on Freedom

I've been thinking of loading my own .30/06 cartridges for quite a while. My primary motivation is cost. A box of 20 of the cheapest cartridges costs about $12 at Wal-Mart. Sometimes they're on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods for $10, but not often. This amounts to 50¢ to 60¢ apiece. One pull of the trigger, bang, 2 quarters up in smoke.

I finally bought a loading jig a little while back. I ordered via the internet the Lee Anniversary Kit plus a 30/06 Springfield Collet die set, factory crimp die, and case length gage and shellholder. I got the Collet die set on the advice of someone I talked to on the phone at Lee. He said that if you're loading for just your gun, the Collet die loads the most accurate ammo. You can only use it on ammo that has been shot in your gun, since it only sizes the case's neck. This means you can use it for factory loads that you've shot once, but not for once-shot cases that you buy or get from your friends.

I'll digress for a minute to explain some details of reloading for those who are as clueless as I was a couple of months ago.

A rifle cartridge consists of four components, the case, the primer, the powder, and the bullet. The case is usually made out of brass. The primer is pressed into a pocket on the back end of the case. It is separated from the powder inside the case by the fire hole. The bullet is pressed into the front end of the case, where it is held by the case neck. Modern rifle bullets are usually made of lead with a copper jacket, though some people cast their own lead-only bullets. When you pull the trigger of a loaded rifle, the firing pin strikes the primer, which causes it to explode through the fire hole. This lights the powder. The burning of the powder creates gas pressure inside the case. Since all of the case but the bullet is enclosed in the chamber of the rifle, the only way for the pressure to escape short of blowing the rifle apart, is to push the bullet forward through the barrel.

Reloading a fired cartridge is a fairly simple process:

1. Use the collet die to push out the old primer and resize the case neck. The collet die has a pin in the center that pushes the primer out from the inside. The neck expands when the cartridge is fired, so it needs to be squeezed smaller so that it will hold a new bullet. It's a good idea to clean out the primer pocket after removing the old primer. The Anniversary kit provides a tool for this.
2. Trim the case's length, and chamfer the edges. This doesn't need to be done every time, but with repeated firings, a case elongates, so it needs to be occasionally trimmed back to its proper length. The Anniversary kit comes with a tool for this. You need to complete that tool with a case length gage and shellholder for the caliber you're loading.
3. Insert a new primer. I used the Lee Auto-Prime for this; part of the Anniversary kit. It made it easy to prime 20 cartridges in a couple of minutes.
4. Charge the case with powder. You need to carefully measure the powder to get the proper amount for the weight of the bullet you're loading. There are many books containing this "loading data" If you get too much (or, strangely, too little) powder, you can create high pressures which may damage or destroy your gun and may injure anyone who is nearby at the time. I used the Lee Safety Scale to determine the volume of powder to dispense from my Perfect Powder Measure. The Perfect Powder Measure dispenses by volume, but most of the loading data contains weights, so I adjusted the volume until the charge was the proper weight. This was the most tedious part of my reloading.
5. Use the bullet seating die to seat the bullet. The loading data contains a minimum overall length (OAL) for the finished cartridge. I bought a dial caliper so that I could measure the finished cartridge, and seated a bullet in an unprimed empty case to adjust the seating die to the proper length. It would probably have helped to have a bullet puller for this. I just held onto the case with my fingers and pulled out the bullet with a pair of pliers, when I needed to try again after seating the bullet too low.
6. Use the factory crimp die to firmly hold the bullet in place. This step is optional. If you're just taking your cartridges to the range for target shooting, you don't need to do this. If you take them hunting, or expect that they'll get some rough handling, then you should crimp them. I crimped my first load just to practice using the crimp die.

For each of my first 20 hand-loaded cartridges, I used a factory-loaded Federal case that I had fired from my rifle, a Winchester large rifle primer (regular, NOT magnum), 45 grains of IMR 4064 powder, and a Nosler 168 grain HPBT (Hollow Point Boat Tail) bullet, seated to a 1.30" overall length. The powder and the primers were recommended by the guy at the gun store where I bought the components. He also recommended 168 grain bullets, and the Noslers were the largest box he had (250). He also had a book that told me to use 45-50 grains of powder and maintain a 1.30 inch minimum OAL.

I found a couple of places on the internet that recommend using IMR 4064 in a .30/06 for only 150 grain or lighter bullets. My guess is that this is because the 1.30" length is almost as long as you dare make a cartridge. You'd rather use a little less of a faster burning powder for heavier bullets, and seat the bullet a little deeper. This load worked for me, however.

I talked to my Dad on the phone the day before he died (two weeks ago). At one point the conversation turned to handloading, something he did a lot of. He recommended a method to test fire a new load. I later read about this method in my Lee handloading book (which I bought packaged with the Anniversary Kit). Everyone I talked to said I shouldn't worry about my first load since I used the minimum powder charge, but given the circumstances of my learning about it, and also to honor my Dad's memory, I used his method to test the first cartridge.

The rifle range at the club I use has a couple of little plywood houses. Each has a stool, a bench surface in front and on one side, and a roof. It's open in back, closed in front of your feet, and closed on both sides. It's on a ridge about 3 feet above the level of the range itself, which slopes up and has a steep hill shortly behind the 100 yard targets.

I took an old tire to the range. I drive a Honda Civic, so the tire was fairly small. I think that most any normal car or truck tire would work. I put the tire on the field below the little houses right in front of their left edge. I wedged the butt of my rifle between the tire rims, so that it was pointing down range. It was a tight fit. To do it, I had to turn the gun on its side, put the butt between the rims, and twist it into place. I tied a lanyard (slip knot), with a piece of twine, around the trigger and the back of the trigger guard and unwound the other end of the twine so that I could pull it from behind the left edge of the houses. I cocked the bolt with no cartridge in the chamber, and tried pulling the trigger with the string to ensure that the rifle would continue to point downrange through the entire process. It did. My Savage 111 has a pretty heavy trigger, so this will likely work with just about any rifle. Still, if you try this, do it unloaded first just to make sure. Finally, I loaded a round of my new handload, ducked down behind the little house with only my left hand holding the string visible to the rifle, and pulled. Bang! The rifle was still pointing down range. It appeared undamaged. I had no difficulty removing the case from the chamber, and there was nothing funny looking about the fired primer or case. Yay! My first hand-load worked.

I proceeded to fire 9 more rounds, 5 at 25 yards to re-zero my scope, and 4 at 100 yards. It initially shot about 2 inches low at 25 yards. This is a light load, but I was surprised that it was so much different. Maybe it was because the air was much colder than the last time I fired the rifle. I didn't take along a factory load for comparison, since I knew I didn't have much time today.

I was firing from a sitting position with my elbows resting on the bench. Still, my first two shots from 25 yards went through the same hole, and the third shot was less than an inch higher. That's about as steady as I can hold. I'll try a bench rest soon, and compare with some factory ammo, but my initial impression is that I'm gonna get great accuracy.

And boy did it feel good to fire cartridges that I assembled with my own hands!