What are your reloading quirks.

[Dimner]

So I notice sometimes that I make the same errors over an over again in the reloading room. Well, not really errors, but quirks that make me roll my eyes.

What are some of your oddball quirks? I'll go first.

• I have been known to anneal brass even though I'm 90% sure it has already been annealed. I keep pretty good notes on my reloads. But I'm not good at note taking during the process of making loads. So I will often prep brass and then life stuff happens. I'll come back 15-30 days later and forget if I had annealed. Then that little seed of doubt will plant in my brain, and I'll second guess results.

Or another one:

• At the end of seating the bullets of a given batch of loads. I intentionally mess up my die settings so I wont forget to purposefully set the seating length. Too many times before I have thought my die was set correctly only to forget I last seated a completely different bullet and seating length.

So what are some of your quirks in the reloading room, cleaning the bore, at the range or in the shop?

 

[DaveTooley]

Here goes.

I never clean primer pockets.
I never clean the inside of case necks.
I never anneal.

 

[Downhill]

First thing-get a dip of snuff and sit on my stool.
Second - Begin to over analyze every aspect of a process I have done for 30 years.
Occasionally- Refer to the search function on Accurate Shooter.com

 

[Larryh128]

If it's shot it gets annealed.

 

[Straightshooter1]

I'm very OCD when it come to my brass prep. . . and I don't shoot competitively. Every case has to be as uniform (perfect) as I can make it.

Once in a great while I'll have to leave my reloading table due to some interruption and when at the shooting range I find I missed putting powder in a case. I blame it on my advanced age. But, when that happens, I do find out if how well I'm pulling the trigger or not.

 

[bozo699]

First thing-get a dip of snuff and sit on my stool.
Second - Begin to over analyze every aspect of a process I have done for 30 years.
Occasionally- Refer to the search function on Accurate Shooter.com

^^^^^^^This,….. well the snuff part and over analyzing!…..
Wayne

 

[jds holler]

I have learned the hard way -- over and again -- to keep notes with the brass of EVERY STINKING LITTLE THING INCLUDING THE DATE that I have done in the way of prep. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING!!! jd

 

[M-61]

Here goes.

I never clean primer pockets.
I never clean the inside of case necks.
I never anneal.

I clean the primer pockets, never removing any brass.
Otherwise same as you and I’ll add I NEVER drill a flash hole

 

[jxb]

I have learned the hard way -- over and again -- to keep notes with the brass of EVERY STINKING LITTLE THING INCLUDING THE DATE that I have done in the way of prep. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING!!! jd

Oh man, why did you say that? Now I have to go look and see if I need to add DATE to my notes.

 

[hogpatrol]

Don't reload unless '60s on XM is on.

 

[TTE]

Quite interested in reloading when I learned from a friend.

Read a few reloading manuals. One thing stuck in my head .... oil/lube causes primer failure.

I have never touched a primer in the 45+ years I have been reloading. I have 3 pairs of tweezers on my loading bench that I use to handle primers and they get cleaned often ( even if I don't use them).

If a primer needs to get put here or there it gets tweezer'd

 

[cmcq]

Quite interested in reloading when I learned from a friend.

Read a few reloading manuals. One thing stuck in my head .... oil/lube causes primer failure.

I have never touched a primer in the 45+ years I have been reloading. I have 3 pairs of tweezers on my loading bench that I use to handle primers and they get cleaned often ( even if I don't use them).

If a primer needs to get put here or there it gets tweezer'd

Hopefully this was meant for gun oil/case lube.

 

[DonkeyHote]

Anneal every time
Lube the necks every time
mandrel size neck just before loading

 

[Link]

Here goes.

I never clean primer pockets.
I never clean the inside of case necks.
I never anneal.

Yup I just give my pockets a quick lick, I was starting to get proud primers. Not now.

 

[rjtfroggy]

Here goes.

I never clean primer pockets.
I never clean the inside of case necks.
I never anneal.

Bingo

 

[jxb]

Ok here goes... I wander into the reloading room with thoughts of doing something, look around, read some notes, lose interest and walk out. Depending on the time of year, phase of the moon, or whatever and over some number of days I might do this 0-6 times before actually reloading something. Pretty sure that should qualify as a quirk.

Buying stuff to only use once/twice, find something I like better for the task and keep meaning to pedal the unused tools but never seem to. I'm bad at this with reloading and shooting equipment, I'm terrible at it with photography stuff.

I'm over 60 now, not that I didn't need to do this since maybe 40 but I've found reminders are so nice, especially paper ones when it comes to stuff like reloading. Avery print on the fly labels for used brass and range excel sheets for ladder testing.

Everything needs to be in it's proper place, although most of the time I can't remember where exactly that is.

 

[Bill Norris]

Keeping notes is # 1. Without them I would never be able to keep up with anything.

 

[Charliemac]

Boots Obermeyer used to have section on his company’s website that had notes about various things related to barrels and such. One thing that I do after the final tumbling (walnut shell blasting media) is to use compressed air and blow out the dust still in the brass case. He said that the dust residue caused excessive wear on the barrel. And recommend blowing out the brass. It’s not really a pain to do, it goes quite quickly. That’s my quirk and sticking with it for the last 25 years.

 

[Todd Earhart]

Boots Obermeyer used to have section on his company’s website that had notes about various things related to barrels and such. One thing that I do after the final tumbling (walnut shell blasting media) is to use compressed air and blow out the dust still in the brass case. He said that the dust residue caused excessive wear on the barrel. And recommend blowing out the brass. It’s not really a pain to do, it goes quite quickly. That’s my quirk and sticking with it for the last 25 years.

I do this with the addition of sprayed with brake cleaner and blew dry with compressed air.
Todd

 

[jds holler]

Dang, I'm glad I'm not as sick and OCD as someaya'll. jd