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A gunblogger commented that he'd like to start reloading except the lack of room in his cramped apartment prevents him from doing that – and I fully sympathize. I have only a small corner of a bedroom/office that contains a maple (looking), 34"-by-17" kitchen cart-thing from Target. I realized the top didn’t need to be very deep but it did need storage capacity. I have a tight budget so everything also had to be inexpensive, but one of the essential things that I wanted was that it be made of wood solids – even if some kind of jungle-wood – not particleboard or plywood, it’s just a thing I have about wood finishes and splinters. Dad was a woodshop teacher.
At Home Depot I found a maple bathroom vanity cabinet that I mounted above the bench with enough clearance for the powder-measure. I attached some halogen puck-lights to the underside that nicely illuminates the bench-top. The vanity holds measuring tools, fluids, brushes, tumbling media, the |
hand-priming tool, and other tools for the RCBS Trim Mate case-prep center. The lower, open shelf of the vanity holds a Wilson trimmer that I screw down directly onto the surface of the bench when trimming, and use a cordless drill to complete that task.
On the top-right of the bench I mounted an RS3 press that I got for $40 from a friend’s brother. To the left are a digital powder measure and scale, and the RCBS case-prep center that does the legwork on cartridges. On the far left side I hung an old clamp-on vise that I had lying around, for gun-smithing and cleaning chores. It can be easily rotated into position to hold the stock or barrel while cleaning. Since the loaded bench becomes pretty heavy and covers a wall-outlet, off the side of the bench I mounted a power-strip for easy supply/access to all the electrical devices.
The wide top-drawer holds dies, primers, tools for adjusting the press, cartridge trays, and AR tools like hammers and punches – there’s room for a lot of stuff if you maintain some shopping discipline. The lower double-doors hide tumbled brass, powders, various caliber bullets, and boxes and boxes of prepped cartridges.
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Other reloading junk supplies, like zip-loc bags of dirty brass are stored in a 2-drawer file cabinet in the clothes-closet, along with a brass-tumbler - a sifter that sits on top of the file cabinet, and when the closet door is shut its sound-signature is well muted. My loading data and manuals are in an office bookcase.
Fear not, those of you with space constraints! |