Some of the warmest memories of my childhood are reloading ammo with my dad.
Harlock told me that this statement was one of the most redneck things he's ever heard.
I reacted less with annoyance and more with the desire to explain.
I realize that, for some folks, my trying to explain my fondness for reloading is like a Canadian sealer rhapsodizing about clubbing baby seals. After all, I'm talking about involving a child in an enterprise that is like crafting fat, lead spermatozoa for the cold-steel phallic extensions that are guns, right?
So I don't intend to evangelize. I don't have the energy or inclination to start up any conversation. I have no ulterior motive. Those with common feelings and philosophies will hopefully identify. Those who don't can just gawk and shake their heads at the freak show.
I can't remember exactly when I started reloading with my dad. I think I remember when he installed the bench against the wall in our garage, the tall bookshelf, and the metal cabinet that held all the precision tools. I'm pretty sure I remember when he got the surplus butcher-block bench top from his work and the built rock-solid legs for it to stand on. These could all be pseudo-memories from long association and increasing distance in time. It's frustrating how time clouds some memories and polishes others.
Most all of the tools we used my dad had owned for years. Some tools he'd kept since his own childhood.
One time a greasy, mousey toad behind the counter of a gun shop boasted to us that he'd been reloading for nine years. My dad just shook his head. I could read my dad's mind: "Hell, my teenaged son here has been reloading longer than that."
For us, reloading wasn't a manly, boast-worthy enterprise. Reloading ammunition was like a meditation.
The process holds so many steps to be performed with a quiet concentration. For all the mess my dad left piled at the side of his bed (magazines, books, socks, loose change, etc.), the reloading bench always stood clear of clutter and distraction. After all, you're building little bundles of explosive that, under normal circumstance, develop tens of thousands of pounds per square inch of pressure. You want to banish from your workspace and from your brain all elements that might cause a mistake.
We'd bring home bags of spent brass from the range. If we'd been shooting revolvers, our collection of hollowly ringing casings would be complete. If we'd been shooting semi-automatics, no matter how consistent the gun and the loads, you'd always lose a few under a bench or from being stepped on. Center-fire rifle at the range we frequented most was a load-one-shoot-one affair, no matter how many cartridges you thought you could stuff into the magazine of your black and ugly rifle. That suited me fine. I could ring the 100-yard gong all day off-hand with my WWI-era Swedish Mauser and be perfectly happy. Also, messing around on the firing line got you some spectacularly negative attention from the rangemaster who was often ex-military, often ex-Marine, and who was well practiced at the art of tearing you a new asshole. At best, it was made clear to you and everyone on the range that you were a complete numbnuts. At worst, you packed up your gear and practiced your dangerous stupidity elsewhere.
Back at our garage, we'd first decap the brass, punching the spent primers from their pocket in the case heads.
Then the dirty brass went into a tumbler drum filled with walnut shells. After tumbling through the night, the brass would emerge gleaming.
The polishing also made it easier to spot defects in the brass. We'd check each and every case for a spit neck or wall. Into the trash the damaged cases would go, their sparkling potential unfulfilled.
With a special blade, we'd scrape any remaining scale from the empty primer pockets.
Next came resizing. Metal-cased ammunition is a tiny bit smaller than the chamber of the gun. This tolerance makes the cartridge easy to insert. The intense pressure of firing expands the case against the chamber. Without the tolerance created by resizing, inserting a reloaded cartridge would be difficult if not impossible.
Resizing involves ramming the brass into a die that squeeze the case down. When we were reloading typical pistol calibers, the die was made of polished carbide to prevent stretching, scratching, or otherwise deforming the brass in unintended ways. Carbide dies for straight-walled pistol cases are cost effective to make. Carbide dies for necked rifle cases are prohibitively expensive. So resizing many rifle calibers meant spraying the cases with nasty, tacky case lube. This was the only unpleasant part of the process for me.
After resizing, we might ream the case rim slightly to remove any burs and ease insertion of the bullet.
Now came the first part of actually rebuilding the cartridge. Everything that preceded this was only necessary drudgery.
I'd pick out a tiny, jewel-like primer from its tray and, with a hand-held tool, I'd press it into the case. It didn't take very long to develop a feel for when you'd seated a primer completely.
While I was seating primers, my dad filled the plastic hopper of the powder measure or "thrower" and, turning the vernier knob, measured out the precise weight of the powder charge on our powder scale.
With a twist of the powder measure handle, careful to repeat the action exactly and to not let the level of the power in the hopper sink too low, we'd drop into each case its own little, identical charge of graphite-covered grains.
Finally, we'd place crazy heavy boxes of bullets on the bench and pluck bullets out to insert into the cases, using the same reloading press as when resizing but with different dies. Sometimes we'd have boxes of cast lead bullets smelling sweetly of the beeswax used for lubrication. Sometimes the box would team with brilliant copper cabochons.
We'd slide the freshly loaded cartridges into fastidiously labeled boxes (".357, 110 gr. Sierra JHC Blitz, 8.9 gr Bullseye") where they'd wait for our next outing to the range.
Magic would happen when we'd open the boxes at the range. You'd slide each shiny cartridge into place, take careful aim, control your breathing, maintain your sight picture, increase pressure on the trigger, and with a boom-flash, the inert ingredients you'd mixed in the garage translated into a hole on paper. Sometimes the load, the gun, and you couldn't miss. Tiny little cloverleafs would blossom on your target at 50, 100, and 200 yards. Other times, you couldn't hit a damned thing. Either way, you'd make note it and gather your brass for the next time.
Pakeha