reloading........again

Vegeta

Right I want to reload

Firstly how do I obtain legal permission to do so?

Secondly if I do have permission can I drive to NI or England and bring back powder and primers?

.243

you'll have to apply to your local superintendent for the licence(not sure if there is a fee involved yet)plus you wont need to go to the north as when it comes in any firearms dealer(with the recommended critera for the storage for such)will have it,the firearms dealers will also have to apply to their local station for a permit of supply and storage.

Vegeta

Is it an actual license or is it just written permission?

bullets

Wondering if its safe enough to start doing by learning from
books and DVD's or would you actually need an experianced
person to give you a run through before you do it.
Also wondering once you have the actual gear and permission
how much are you actually saving on reloading

ie would it be 50% less expensive to reload 20 rounds rather than
buy 20 new ones. What would be the % savings
(once you have your equipment)

Brings other questions to mind also like If you got yourself a centre fire
rilfle and your buddy down the road reloaded what would be the story
with getting him to reload a load of rounds for you? he proabably would not be allowed to sell ammo legally, would as a reloaded have to keep books records
and stuff so the law can make sure your not just flogging cheap rounds
to all your buddies.

~B

Traumadoc

I watched a video which was all I needed.
Cost wise: my costs were based on my Australian experience reloading .270 win. they roughly equate to euro prices

powder 20 cent
primer 2 cent
projectile 25- 50 cent depending on quality
Brass- 7 cent based on reusing the brass 7 times

there was pretty good ammo available for about the same price 87 cent $17.50 for 20 ( Highland AX - yugoslavian) remington core lock was about $27 for 20

Financially it did not seem make much sense but it is very enjoyable to do.

Vegeta

well in England you can get 100 lapua cases for about £35 and 100 bullet heads for £15. Primers are about 2p sterling and then there's the powder

So its not 50% savings but I'd say maybe 10-20% for something like .223 or .308 as the factory stuff is on the cheaper side. For anything expensive like the .270 where you are paying 2 euro a round for the higher end stuff then there are very respectable savings to be made.

Am I have no clue about the reloading for friends as I don't know does the supergive permission to reload a specific caliber or just reload in general

Clare gunner

If you can follow detailed instructions and arent a total klutz who doesn t take shortcuts and are clean around your workspace,no problem.

Do you save??Asked my cousin this;he said not really after buying all the kit[RCBS],you would want to be doing somthing like alot of practical pistol or high burn ammo rate for it to be worthwhile.It is only here with our ridicilous high ammo price,that it might be worthwhile,anywhere else you can buy pallet loads of Russian commerically loaded ammo[Wolf] or milsurp ammo for half nothing,that doesnt justify going to set up a reloading bench.
He uses it for developing better hunting rounds,or for reloading our more obscure hunting calibres.
For him it would be pointless to reload shotgun ammo,when he can buy some stuff at 2 cents a shell.For a Irish claybuster it proably would make sense.
But then you are looking at a pretty advanced semi motorised setup,if you dont want to go gaga loading one shell at a time.
Another ting most reloaders will say it is better to buy a factory load than a reload.There is the matter of quality control there.

Your 2nd point.If there is no money involved he isnt selling you any ammo .Just recycling your old stuff. You walk in with 100 empties you walk out with 100 full ones.Trouble is what happens if one of the rounds are too hot and blow up in your gun??Your lawyer for your next of kin will be having a field with your ex buddy.:eek: This is one of the big worries in the US,where you can buy ammo boxes full of reloads for cents on the dollar.Most people who do reload can flog this ammo at gun shows,but proably now they get the customer to sign a disclaimer of indeminity contract before sale.

Here because of our liscensing system,it isnt going to be commerically viable to do that or worth the hassle.

But I would still do it for the crack!

Umiq88

You may only be saving 10 20% but then the other side is your groups will be getting smaller as well.

Reloading is something that takes alot of time and experimenting doing it for your own rifle/rifles takes up enough time and thinking about than doing it for someone else before you start worrying about it blowing up on them.

jaycee

Accuracy, cost, and availability.!

I work to eliminate as many variables as possible from my shooting .
The barrel is cleaned after every practice session , back to bare metal (About 90 patches and 1.5 hours of elbow grease). I always inspect the scope mounts to ensure that there is no chance of movement in the scope. I practice to try to achieve the same sight picture, same hold. same breathing and the same trigger control for each shot.
My objective is to put those little holes as close to one another as possible ..or hopefully in the one hole.

My .223 has a 1 in 8 twist and of factory ammo it prefers 75gr Hornady match , anything else will give me a bigger group. This is expensive factory ammo that can cost up to €30 a box , I usually use two boxes a week = €60.
Fine ..you might think .. Just spend the money and shoot.. Eh.?
Not so I'm afraid.

Factory ammo is built to "SAMMI" specs.. ( The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute ) That means that it has to be built to chamber and fire in any firearm ever chambered for that calibre. The chambers in all firearms vary slightly , the distance from the face of the bolt to the start of the grooves and lands varies from rifle to rifle too.. Naturally a "One size fit's all" ammunition will be a compromise , a little tight in some , a bit sloppy in others.
Ammunition that is a precise tailored fit for a particular gun gives it a huge potential accuracy advantage and shot to shot consistency.

The equipment to achieve this tailored fit , measured in thousands of an inch ,will cost as low as €200. Paradoxically , ammunition manufactured to this high standard would cost me about €10 per box once I have the brass ,even that is significant because any round fired in my chamber expands or is "Fire-formed " to be an exact fit to my rifles chamber. Yes , you read it correctly ..about two thirds less than what I pay for sloppy fit , off the shelf ammo.

To recover my initial layout would take me about five or six weeks, but that's not even the whole story....

Speaking of "Off the shelf" ammo , I haven't been able to obtain the factory ammo my rifle prefers for over 3 weeks now and counting. Thats totally disruptive to my shooting practice. If I was building my own, that wouldn't be a problem. To those who may not understand , I have my scope zeroed for that ammo, I took pains to note it's trajectory characteristics from my rifle at different ranges , I noted it's performance in different wind conditions .....
It took months ... It's all wasted effort now because each new batch of factory ammo is slightly different.

I'm not interested in cheap ammo that may or may not group into 1.5 or 2 inches at a 100 meters , I'm not even especially excited by ammo that USUALLY groups around an inch .. I'm into consistency and incremental improvements that I can control that will lead me ever closer to that one hole group.

It's not about the economics of ammunition for me and others like me..it's about accuracy. The economic advantages and assurance of availability are the bonus features.

Kramer

The Hornady BTHP Match (75gn) are also, by far & away, the most acurate round I've used in my Tactical.

Like jaycee, I've found them impossible to source locally &, in one place I did find them, they were €30 a box :eek: .

I reckon 90%+ of .223 ammo available is in/around 55gn. Plenty of Tikkas being sold with 1:8" twist but no suitable (i.e. heavy) ammo available.

Reason enough for reloading IMO & as said, cost savings are the icing on the cake.

Vegeta

So again does anyone have permission from the super, how did you get it.

Where did you buy your powder?

It seems everyone wants to reload but doesn't know how to get into it. Its very frustrating!