Did Everyone Quit Reloading?

[RBHarter]

Someplace here is a whatcha do today thread it may have gone dormant..... Anyway that sort of thread gives you a thing to post to keep things active even if it's just "my wife backed into my truck and ran over the cat with her Smart car . The cats fine but the cars totaled ." deal.

[Fresch]

Just moved and live in n.y.. Still trying to figure out if I can cc my pistols on my property as new "laws" were passed.

[mikld]

Weather and health issues have kept me from the range (like many 76 year olds). Not afraid to get wet, but my shootin' spot is 3 miles off paved road via logging road and the ground gets too slippery fort my 2 wheel drive pickup and there are some 1/2 mile drops off the mountain. I do continue to reload some now and then and have stared on a new cartridge; 32 H&R Magnum. A big part of my reloading is researching load data and components and getting all the stuff together, but I have waaaay more handloads waiting than I have time to shoot...

[Royce]

I go to an indoor range and all my handloading is for pistols and revolvers. I've recently added two more calibers. As a retired guy I have lots of free time and it's a lot of fun. So no, I haven't quit, I have accelerated and expanded my reloading.

[mmb617]

I didn't quit reloading but I did slow down a lot. I only started reloading 3 years ago and at the time components were available and cheap, and I was all gung-ho about my new hobby so I loaded up a couple thousand rounds of each caliber I shoot, 9mm, .45 ACP and .223. Actually that's an understatement as I look through my records, I loaded almost 20k rounds between those three calibers.

I normally get to the range at least once a week but I still have a good supply of those rounds so I haven't loaded any more of them in quite some time. Fortunately I still have a good stock of components for when I need to start loading them again.

The only reloading I have been doing lately is for .308 as I recently bought a rifle in that caliber. Since I had never needed large rifle primers before I didn't have any of those on hand and they are probably the scarcest of the scarce right now. I did suck it up and buy a brick at a ridiculous price so now I keep 100 rounds at the ready and load more as I use those up.

[9x80Drilling]

After struggling with abysmal accuracy with Unique and black powder loads under 255 gr. SWCs in my Rossi .45 Colt for several years, I'd about given up on them.
As I've had abundant time lately, I looked through my powder stash for alternatives to moderate .45 loads. Having assembled some mid-range trial cartridges with 4756, Universal, and Blue Dot, I drove up into the National Forest to a safe shooting spot and tried them out.
First I fired plenty of the old Unique ammo as a control. Then the 4756 load. Both of these patterned rather than grouped.
I reluctantly loaded up the levergun with Universal loads, and, voila! acceptable grouping! And the
BD loads did even better. The target was only 47 yards away, but we like to shoot close first, don't we?
Hopefully, I'm on to something. The 9 shot BD group was about the size of only the palm of my hand; the Universal load printed about 1" larger. Now I feel like I can start to refine these two.
Yay! I have hundreds of these cast bullets and may now have an interesting way to use them.

[Macd]

Have you tried Trail Boss? I have used it in a 7.5 inch barrel revolver in 45 Colt and found it very consistent at about 750 fps. This is with a 230 grain LRN at 1.600 OAL and CCI large pistol primers. I used 6.0 grains of TB but max is 6.5 so room to add velocity if wanted.

[Lar5]

I have always used unique for reduced levergun loads, 3030, 35, 44mag, 45 lc, 444 and 4570. Just couldn't find it anymore. I got 8 pounds of 20/28 and found it to be cleaner and more accurate than unique. Load wise, for me, it's almost the same. I just reduce half a grain and work from there. Of course there is no rifle data for it so may not be the same in your rifles

[GasGuzzler]

I don't like Unique much because it does everything okay and nothing well. I hate TrailBoss. It does nothing I want in a powder and it's 1.4 times the cost before the price changes due to shortages. Unique has not been hard to find in my world but I have a couple pounds and that's more than I will ever need. The only reason I have some is because it does everything okay.

[RBHarter]

I just dumped the last bench can fill of Dad's 1968 12# keg of Unique. I'll have to start shooting the 8# I bought in the 90s now but maybe after I empty about 5000 rounds of that Red Dot from 69' ...

The Rossi M92's in Colts have a 1-30ish twist which is great for 165 gr collar buttons inside 100 feet . Not so much for the guy that wants to off a coyote across the field . I have an awesome hog load with a big fat meplat on a 260 SWC doing about 1275 fps MV. It scattered shots all over at 40 yd when I got to Tx so I regressed to some plinking loads I had taken to a gathering that gave me just over 1000 fps with 265 gr RNFP . Little groups and dead hogs with half inch plus exits . I went home back at 4000 feet and nothing everything shot just like before . I went to another shoot and the thing happened again but at about 70 yd . I changed SWC from the 452-255 to the 454424 Lyman. 75 yd I was scaring golf balls pretty bad and softballs were getting hurt pretty regular.......at 100 yd I couldn't hit a 1/4 scale buffalo steel because the bullet was hitting the berm 8 feet high and 10+ feet left . Apparently at 78-82 yd the bullet upsets and tumbles when it drops down through transonic from super to sub . The loads that were only 1000-1050 fps MV didn't do that because they never went super sonic and the 10 yd difference in the 2 SWC was the difference in shape .
I wanted to get the Rossi rebarreled but the cost at nearly 3x the rifle to get a 1-16 20" barrel stopped that so now I'm working in heavies starting sub sonic to get a useful 100 yd group . Just in case .....