Memories from days of 0ld.

[Lee Whitsel]

Started reloading in 71 under oversight of an older man who took me under his wing. I don't remember what year it happened but when I got 5 shoots into an 1" group for the first time with a 6mm Rem. in a 788 i thought i had the hottest gun out there as a young guy. What was your thoughts of long ago?

 

[jelenko]

My first gun [a Sako varmint in 308] was in 1992 [at 49 years of age]. Shot a bit over 1000 rounds off a bench - all the groups were 1 1/4" +/-.
Heard about bedding a rifle. Had it done. The first 5 shot group at 100 yards was completely covered by a quarter. I was so stoked!

That was also the last shot I took with the rifle.

Went on to 'cross the course'. Started with a M1A and transitioned to a 223 spacegun at Perry in the summer of '92. Won a bunch of medals in the sharpshooter class.

Then came a buzz about 6mm bullets and their BC's. Had two M1A's built with match stocks [3 way adjustable buttstock, thumb wheel cheekpiece]. Shot them for a couple years, then went back to the spacegun.

 

[Bugs]

When I was about 15 or so, I got a hold of some surplus .308 machine gun brass that had gotten so hot that it was dead soft. I had to use a rubber hammer to get the bolt open on Dad's old Sako and then discovered the extractor had somehow disappeared. I was about the same size as Pop but I sure thought I was gonna get an ass whuppin'

 

[Lee Whitsel]

My first gun [a Sako varmint in 308] was in 1992 [at 49 years of age]. Shot a bit over 1000 rounds off a bench - all the groups were 1 1/4" +/-.
Heard about bedding a rifle. Had it done. The first 5 shot group at 100 yards was completely covered by a quarter. I was so stoked!

That was also the last shot I took with the rifle.

Went on to 'cross the course'. Started with a M1A and transitioned to a 223 spacegun at Perry in the summer of '92. Won a bunch of medals in the sharpshooter class.

Then came a buzz about 6mm bullets and their BC's. Had two M1A's built with match stocks [3 way adjustable buttstock, thumb wheel cheekpiece]. Shot them for a couple years, then went back to the spacegun.

me to i epoxy the actions for the first time and it sh0t better

 

[Lee Whitsel]

me to i epoxy the actions for the first time and it sh0t better

I still have my first reloading press a 3 stage Bair Reloading h type press. Bught it in 71 and it had dust all over it in the sporting goods store so I guess it was maybe a 60's model. But it worked fine.

 

[hpshooter]

First centerfire rifle was a .310 Martini Cadet I bought for $9.95 in the mid 50's . Dad and I steamed a few dents out of the stock and refinished it with Linspeed. Still have it and shoot it occasionally and it still puts a smile on my face like it did when I was 9 years old.

 

[Lee Whitsel]

First centerfire rifle was a .310 Martini Cadet I bought for $9.95 in the mid 50's . Dad and I steamed a few dents out of the stock and refinished it with Linspeed. Still have it and shoot it occasionally and it still puts a smile on my face like it did when I was 9 years old.

I still have my first rifle a 99 Savage Delux model in the new hot number 308 and I've taken a lot of deer with it. I had to cut a lot 0f grass and shovel a lot of snow for rich folks to come up with enough money to buy that gun. When you work hard and have for a long time to get something like that it means so much more to a person.

 

[Lee Whitsel]

First centerfire rifle was a .310 Martini Cadet I bought for $9.95 in the mid 50's . Dad and I steamed a few dents out of the stock and refinished it with Linspeed. Still have it and shoot it occasionally and it still puts a smile on my face like it did when I was 9 years old.

For $7 I got a Eastern Arms 16 gauge single barrel shot gun. My first scatter bore. Wish I still had it. In 62 that $7 was hard for me to come by mowing lawns and shovel snow again to buy it. I can remember wanting it to snow so I could make some money in those days.

 

[ogre1911]

My first shooting memory was around 1970.

My older brother and I would stick the old "light on ANYTHING" wooden matches in holes he had drilled in an old worn hitching rail we had.

The idea was we'd use old Remington .22 short gallery guns my dad got from his Uncle Ralph in Palo Pinto Cty Texas and shoot to light the matches without breaking them at 10 yards.

Now and agin we'd touch one off.

55 yrs later I'm still trying to light matches without breaking the stick.

 

[Rat44]

Got a good deal on a TC Contender with the ventilated rib and screw in choke in 44 Mag in 1979 .
Being a GI with 3 kids I soon found out I couldn't afford factory ammo.
Bought one of those Lee Loader kits and found that I did not enjoy hammering those cases in and out of the dies.
Way more work than I wanted to do and pretty noisy too.
IMSA was getting very popular and all my friends were doing it.
That Lee took way to long to do a 100 cases.
Saved and bought a Rock Chucker and never looked back.

 

[marchx]

I learned reloading from youtube. Didn’t have a mentor. Some people from this forum helped me out offline with some conundrums. Best memory I have from early days of reloading was the first BR match I managed to win with my ammo.

 

[SEM]

Started reloading in 77 lee loader 30-06 borrowed a scale from the neighbor who showed me how to reload, wow how simple time was then.

 

[ISS]

Spring of 1964. I am a skinny 15 year old kid, riding a tractor on a farm about 5 miles from our place. Nearly 5000 acres in Milo. The fields were overrun with Groundhogs and Crows. The old man who owned the place offered to sell me a Krag that had been rebarreled to 25 Krag FL. If memory serves me correctly; I got fifty-cents per Groundhog, and a quarter per crow. A hundred bucks for the rifle, with 8X Fecker scope, a Lyman tong tool, and a lead pot and bullet mould. About a weeks wages at a dollar an hour.
After two weeks of hauling me there and back home, my Mother informed my Fatherthat it was his turn to haul me around. A week of that, and he told me it was time to get my permit and buy a car.
For the princely sum of $300 I got a loan from my folks and paid about forty a week until it was MINE!

By time school started that fall I had saved about $500, and worked weekends. As a sophmore in HS I found out that HS girls really thought highly of a guy with a car and cash money for the dating business. I expect that is true, even these days.

Rich

 

[6.5 forever]

My dad taught me to reload before I was old enough to drive. I remember buying H4831 (surplus) that was packaged in brown paper lunch sacks from Kents in Ogden, Utah. I remember it was 77 cents a pound.

 

[wboggs]

Started reloading in 71 under oversight of an older man who took me under his wing. I don't remember what year it happened but when I got 5 shoots into an 1" group for the first time with a 6mm Rem. in a 788 i thought i had the hottest gun out there as a young guy. What was your thoughts of long ago?

I had a 300 wby in the 60s. Obtained some Norma 205 and loaded 180 gr Hornadys to just under 3300fps. Group was a three shot 7/8" at 200. I thought I was in heaven and was hooked on reloading..

 

[marchx]

By time school started that fall I had saved about $500, and worked weekends. As a sophmore in HS I found out that HS girls really thought highly of a guy with a car and cash money for the dating business. I expect that is true, even these days.

Rich

Yes, it is.

 

[AP2020]

Started reloading in 71 under oversight of an older man who took me under his wing. I don't remember what year it happened but when I got 5 shoots into an 1" group for the first time with a 6mm Rem. in a 788 i thought i had the hottest gun out there as a young guy. What was your thoughts of long ago?

My recollections:

1. I started in 1988.
2. Everything was essentially $10 - $12; 1 lb. of powder, 100 bullets, 1,000 primers, 100 pieces of brass.
3. No one really knew anything about case capacity explicitly. Implicitly, a big reason you always started 5% below published data.
4. Neck sizing was an accepted practice.
5. The only accurate chronograph was the Oehler 35.

 

[butchlambert]

My first was a H&R Leatherneck in 22RF. I don't know where Dad got it as he was not a gun person. My buddies and I hunted jack rabbits off the end of the runway at Sheppard Airforce Base in the late 50s. I don't think that you could do it today.

 

[JFrank]

About 2016 I took my grandson whom was around 14 to a local 600 yard match, he had zero experience but on a old wooden bench shooting a Tikka T-3 308 he put ten shots on paper measuring 5.5 ish using factory ammo and won the sporting class.

Go figure.

 

[scasa]

I've always been fascinated with guns from age 7 when I shot my dads .22 pistol. I had a lot of mis conceptions along the way about accuracy but sometime in the 80's I met a guy that had a shop across the street from where I worked. That was Firearms development corp. and later American arms and ordnance. The owner Charlie Poff built rifles from scratch. Mostly .50 cal sniper rifles. Carved actions out of bar stock ,cast stocks from aluminum. he pretty much made everything but barrels and triggers. The best part was he let me hang around and learn. I tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could. When he retired he made me a .308 barreled action on one of his actions and gave me a laminated blank to make a stock. I had to learn to reload to enjoy the full effects of that rifle and after I shot a 1 hole group at 100yds I was hooked and I haven't been right since. Charlie taught me a lot about guns, reloading, machine work and accuracy. Today I make my own actions and am on the never ending search for .22 accuracy.