Handloading - The Wandering Narrative Part I

A dark tunnel runs east and west. There is a small brass lantern here...
By Joe D'Alessandro

Firearm enthusiasts are a hands-on bunch; always expanding areas of interest and always in search of   firearms knowledge. Shooting and firearms are more  fun when it's possible to modify and tailor the function of a firearm to suit personal preferences. Handloading offers more of the same, which is probably why so many people who work on their own firearms also handload their own ammunition.

Handloading can yield improvements in accuracy that rival the results of firearm blueprinting. Handloading can be a money saver and, for those with a commercial inclination, handloading can be a money maker. Handloads can also be assemble into a unique combination of components not available from any other source.

While detailed information will follow in subsequent installments, Part I does not contain step by step handloading instructions or a definitive list of the best handloading equipment. It contains general information...a perspective on handloading gleaned from years of mistakes, missteps and minor victories on the way to assembling safe and sometimes useful ammunition.

Before machines were designing machines, thought ruled the day...
My early professional career placed me in a technical manufacturing environment. Subordinate within a group of optical, mechanical and electrical engineers, I was not permitted to ask probative questions about reported design problems without first demonstrating substantial understanding of the concepts and details of the design in question. That foundation knowledge came from researching objective spec documentation, sifting through  engineering change order files and reading production problem and quality control reports. Right, about as exciting as boiling rocks.

I may have resented the situation early on, but it wasn't as though the collection of loupe sporting, slide rule calculating and computer-less prototypical geeks were torturing me for the purpose of feeding their own egos. Nope, they were just a bunch of very busy guys, assigned to critical projects, without months to spend educating the new guy. As I spent time investigating reported problems, I came to realize pilot error, not a failed design, was almost always at the core of a problem; a substitute assembler who put the wrong things on top of other things, a machine out of adjustment that produced interesting interpretations of assemblies, substandard material that made its way into inventory, perhaps an unauthorized rework that countered design intention. The nature of my job changed from finding fault, to finding cause and work became interesting and challenging. Handloading isn't all that different.

I think the most expedient way to learn handloading is to become a student of the process and to avoid: preconceived notions, anonymous and uninformed group consensus, rumors, and innuendo...and I don't mean the singing group that was popular in the 80's. Digest as much theory of operation, objective data and technical documentation as you can before venturing out. This could help to avoid the purchase of useless expensive equipment, or fractured favorite firearms and/or the consumption of large quantities of components in a way not generally intended. Not that any of these things are particularly wrong, it's just that they are more fun when these outcomes are intentional. Finally, when equipment that has been around for the past fifty years in its basic form is showing significant and frequent "design problems", grab the best tool you can find to locate the source of the problem, a mirror...then grab the instructions that were supplied with the equipment and, this time, read them. Philosophies and perspectives aside, what about this handloading?

What is handloading...reloading...loading ammunition?

When a cartridge is discharged in the chamber of a firearm, its primer is consumed in the process of igniting the powder charge, the powder is consumed while providing the energy needed to propel the bullet down the gun's barrel and the bullet is pretty much consumed when it leaves the barrel. The brass casing survives, however, it changes dimensionally as it expands to conform with the gun's chamber walls.

Handloading, in this case reloading, recovers the brass casing, reforms it close to original dimension, inserts a new primer, adds a powder charge and bullet and concludes with a finished cartridge. In basic form, the work requires only inexpensive equipment and a modest level of skill.

The primary tools for handloading are the reloading press, the bright red thing in this instance, and a set of dies, the silver components with all the threads, that are used to accomplish the steps noted in summary form above. The press is generic to the process, the dies configure the press for a specific task and generally specific cartridge. Throw in a few accessories like clean and lube equipment, a powder scale, case trimmer and a Lazy Boy with a cup holder and you've pretty much have a reloading area.

What complicates the handloading process, and drives the cost, is the myriad of handloading objectives that determine the details of the handloading... experience and the types of equipment and components required to accomplish the associated tasks. Still, no matter how fancy the circumstances or how noble the goals, handloading is basically assembling four components in one universal arrangement.

Why handload? Always an icebreaker...
This will probably come as a surprise, but handloading ammunition will probably not alter the course of your life and, best I can tell, it won't attract women in large numbers...although it is rumored that there are Dillon groupies. So, why try? If the desire is to achieve fame and to receive public adoration, why not just take up the accordion and be done with it? Well, people handload to save money, some folks handload to further commercial aspirations, some improve the accuracy and ballistic performance of their firearms, and some produce a volume supply of ammunition to feed competitive shooting interests.

Save money - Savings derived from handloading are usually interpreted as the cost difference between assembling components into finished ammunition and purchasing comparable factory assembled ammunition. Cost factors relating to consumable supplies, labor and overhead and capitalized equipment expenditures, etc., etc., are rarely brought into the equation. This occurs for several reasons. Almost universally, people find that financial realities often make it difficult to arrive at a desired conclusion. Sort of like trying to justify buying a screaming red $40,000 Ducati based upon the argument that doing so would leave more room in the garage for the family's carpooling van.

Labor is not the same as energy expenditures for good and enjoyable reasons. Labor is a weekend of installing space saving shelving in family home closets, while shoe horning a big block Chevy into the family's lawn tractor is not. Labor has a cost component only when it involves something we would not do without compensation. Consumable supplies are not counted when the costs are so small they require the use of more than three decimal places and we can't do the math in our collective heads. On the issue of capital equipment, I think it is safe to say if it is bright and shiny, preferably cast iron and heavy, it falls under the classifications of machinery...gadgets...Ok, toys for the workshop where, of course, we persist in saying that money isn't everything. So our handloading cost analysis calculations generally look something like this -

 

No inference is drawn as to whether or not the data suggests a worthwhile opportunity exists. To some folks, the $103 savings on Weatherby ammo may equate to the value of Wildebeest dung while on an upscale African Safari. To others, the $10 might mean the difference between a week of shooting, or putting gas in the car.

Improved performance; some possibilities to consider - Mainstream ammunition makers and a good number of specialty suppliers, are providing truly amazing product in terms of safety, accuracy and consistent shot to shot performance. No punch line to follow. In the course of reviewing firearms, I've found getting near MOA performance these days is commonplace, the velocity spread within a dozen rounds might run 25 fps and ammo is available with a broad selection of specialized bullet types. Still, there are many opportunities for the handloader to leave his mark on firearm performance without the use of a ball-peen hammer, sandpaper or eating at Taco Bell before a shooting session.

Oldies but Goodies - The most obvious opportunity to enhance cartridge performance is in handloading cartridges with origins dating back to the late 1800's to early 1900's. Some began life as low pressure black powder cartridges, others as low pressure smokeless cartridges, almost all were produced when firearm and cartridge case designs were less robust and material strength was inferior to the materials of today. Two of the most well known cartridges that fall into this category are the .45-70 Government and the .45 Colt.

In conjunction with specific strong firearms, and supported with detailed guidance from mainstream handloading manuals, these cartridges can perform impressively. A .45-70 Gov't 350 grain round, safely loaded for an original Trapdoor Springfield, tops out at approximately 1,700 fps. Loaded for use in rifles such as the Ruger No.1, the same bullet can be pushed to 2,100+ fps. The .45 Colt, loaded for the Colt Single Action Army design is limited to approximately 875 fps with a 250 grain jacketed bullet. The same bullet, loaded for the Ruger Blackhawk and similar can safely attain 1,200+ fps of muzzle velocity. While I do maintain my own handload data, mostly a crumpled up piece of paper tucked away in back pocket, these performance references were taken from the Speer #14 handloading manual. Very similar data can be found in manuals from Sierra, Hornady, Nosler, etc.

 

New Kids on the Block - Newer cartridges present a different challenge as it is tough to meet, much less improve upon, the standard muzzle velocity of more recently introduced cartridges. They are loaded to high peak pressure and often with proprietary powder types. (L-R 375 Ruger, 338 RCM and 270 WSM). Significant improvements are still to be had, they just come in forms other than shoveling in more powder. The table below illustrates the effects of using bullets of different ballistic coefficient ratings.
 

Sierra .308 180 Grain SPT 3000 fps. BC 0.407
Range - yds.	0	100	200	300
Velocity - ft./sec.	3000	2768	2546	2336
Energy - ft.-lbs.	3597	3061	2591	2180
Path - in.	-1.5	1.5	0.0	-6.9
Sierra .308 180 Grain Match King 3000 fps. BC 0.475
Range - yds.	0	100	200	300
Velocity - ft./sec.	3000	2800	2608	2425
Energy - ft.-lbs.	3597	3133	2719	2350
Path - in.	-1.5	1.5	-0.0	-6.6

 

Special Effects - Personally, I like to select bullets that will say something about ME, which is why I place such a heavy emphasis on bullet aesthetics. If you insist on being all...ballistic about the issue, there are bullets that are made to go fast, which means reduced time in flight, which means flatter trajectory, which means higher terminal kinetic energy. The same bullets will even safely give a muzzle velocity boost to our friends, the modern high intensity cartridge.

On the left, a GS Custom bullet above a more traditional shank Speer product. The GS shank is approximately bore or land diameter while the narrow driving bands are approximately groove diameter. The driving bands offer so little resistance to being formed by rifling, and there is so much less bore friction, start pressure is dramatically reduced and less pressure is required to keep the bullet traveling down the length of a barrel. Loaded to potential, the initial pressure spike is much lower, while the average pressure to follow is higher and more persistent then would be expected with a more traditional bullet design. While not the answer for all applications, GS Custom bullets are usually good for an extra 75 - 100 fps in muzzle velocity over conventional bullets. This is not to disparage Speer's or any other company's designs. Bullet selection is very application specific and there are lots of applications and lots of types of bullets.

The Devil is in the Details...or Georgia - Precise assembly and brass casing to chamber matching are two more areas of improvement open to the handloader. My personal 7mm-08 Remington M700 shoots roughly 1½" three shot groups with good factory ammunition and as tight as ½" - ¾" with carefully assembled handloads. Based on these differences, it seemed only reasonable to dissect some factory ammunition and see how precisely or imprecisely they were assembled. They looked a lot like this -

Difference alone does not define the magnitude of a problem or the benefits of a solution, so I took the measured variations, individually then in aggregate, for each cartridge and ran them through some mainstream predictive software. Each component has a direct influence on cartridge performance and each became a part of a tolerance stack up where there was some offsetting effect. Ultimately, the results looked like this -

The numbers may not be exact however, based on empirical data collection and observation, the numbers are in the correct proportion and very close in degree. Chronograph readings from live fire of ammunition from the same lot showed a muzzle velocity spread of 36 fps. Until I can figure out how to open a box of ammo and toss out the highest and lowest velocity cartridge before I go hunting, I tend to leave them in my stat calculations as well. The point is that performance lost to mechanical variations is mostly recoverable through handloading and this is not a difficult task.

Inflation can be a good thing - As a recreational handloader, clearly there is nothing special about my handloads, but I get pretty good results anyway. In fact, I let my firearms do much of the work for me.  Pictured right are two 7mm-08 Remington cases. The near case has been once fired and, if you look closely, you'll see the shoulders are a little more sharply defined than the case at the far right. The shoulder on the fired case is actually 0.004" larger in diameter, the result of chamber pressure blowing out the brass to meet the rifle's chamber walls. In the process, the case capacity has been increased from 53.7 grains to 56.1 grains.

When the case is reloaded it will be neck sized only, retaining virtually all of that capacity, and it will be within 0.3 grain of the other fired cases from the same original box of factory ammo. The cartridge would fit the chamber it was formed in, but might not cycle cleaning in another gun chambered for the same cartridge as there are chamber dimension variations from one gun to another. The idea is that uniform cases, mean uniform capacity which should result in very even shot to shot velocity and accuracy. If I had full length sized the case, it would have been restored to near cartridge minimum dimension specifications in preparation for the finished cartridge to work in basically any rifle chambered for the round. It would no longer be a close fit for the gun it was initially fired in.

Case forming by first firing and neck sizing rather than full length case sizing, plus using the slowest possible powder eliminates a good deal of the shot to shot velocity variations common to factory ammo. Carefully scale metering power charges, rather than using a powder measure, can keep powder charge variation in the 0.1-0.2 grains range.  Finally, trimming each case to a common length, measuring assembled cartridge overall length with the use of a comparator, rather than case head to bullet tip, will all pull together to result in handloads that can shoot sub-MOA all day long. A worthwhile improvement over factory ammunition.

Coming Next - Part II
The first piece of equipment to purchase...

A component or equipment manufacturer's reloading manual carries enough general and detailed handloading process information to make them useful regardless the brand of equipment to be utilized. There are approximately seven  publishers of such information:

Barnes Bullets
Hornady
Lee Precision
Nosler
Sierra
Speer
Swift

Do I have a personal favorite? Yes. The good one. There are numerous other sources of handload data and more specialized equipment and cartridge coverage, however, the manuals listed above address, with explanation and in easy to understand terms, the subject of internal and external ballistics. They also provide: guidance in the selection of various types of equipment, step by step guide to ammunition assembly and equipment operating instructions, troubleshooting guides, reference tables, and more advanced information for experienced handloaders.

This is probably a good place to take a break...so I will. The topic of handloading hardware systems is on deck next.