Affordable Tips To Improve Hunting Handloading

With recent times plaguing the factory ammunition supply and a surge in new gun owners, many have turned to handloading to fill their ammunition needs. While some may feel that as long as the round goes off without the gun blowing up, it’s a successful handload, the majority want to produce the highest quality handloads they are capable of.

Many factors go into a quality handload, and minor tweaks here and there can make all the difference down range. Specifically, rifles can benefit the most from a handload optimized to that rifle. Not that handguns don’t see a benefit from quality ammunition, but oftentimes the engagement distances are so short that one can’t quantify the effect on paper.

With all that said, you can find yourself down a deep financial rabbit hole pursuing the absolute best handloads one can make. Trust me, I’m there. Many don’t have the disposable income to be spending thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest loading equipment, and sometimes those purchases might not give as monumental a gain as one might hope. As with most things, you can’t buy skill. In order to shoot quarter-minute groups, you also need the skill and a rifle capable of shooting quarter-minute groups.

If you are reading this, I assume you already have the basics of handloading down and are looking for ways to improve your ammunition without spending a small fortune. My ultimate goal while at the reloading bench is to produce the most consistent and precise ammunition I can possibly afford to make. This is often much slower than other people’s methods and might be too obsessive for some, but when shooting, I try to have the only variable in my shooting system be myself, the shooter. While nothing will improve your shooting quite like practice time at the range, these tips will help improve your handloads and are all able to be accomplished with tools you already likely own.

Sort Your Projectiles

Even the most premium bullet manufacturers have a tolerance that each projectile produced will fall into. This is a range, and some brands are more consistent than others. One common method for sorting is using your bullet comparator tool with your calipers. While these tools are commonly used to measure the length from the case base to the ogive of a loaded round, using them to measure the projectile from the base to the ogive before seated into the case is a good way to find more consistency in seating depths.

Another way that produces arguably better results is to measure the overall length of the projectile from base to tip. Manufacturing tolerances have gotten so tight over the years that the variance in base to ogive measurements of premium brands varies so little that when sorting a box of 500, you only end up with a 0.003-inch to 0.005-inch variance. Handloaders have found that the larger variance lies in the overall length of the projectile and that point of impact shifts tighten up when projectiles of the same length are shot consecutively.

Once measured, sort your projectiles into groups of similar lengths. While there are differing opinions on how large the range in measurement these groups can encompass, I sort into 0.001-inch increments. At the same time, you get to inspect all of the bullets for any jacket deformation and to see if all of the bullets in the box are, in fact, the same calibre and type. The odd time you might find a bullet in the box that measures drastically different than the others. Put this one to the side as a barrel fouling or practice round, as you don’t want to be shooting it with the rest of your hunting ammunition because it could result in an unexpected point of impact shift. To some, this may seem like splitting hairs, but when taking shots at longer distances on game, I believe we owe it to the animal to be as precise and proficient as we possibly can.

Full-Length Size Your Cases

While neck sizing was cool in the ‘80s, it has repeatedly been proven to not be as beneficial as once thought. Those who do neck size argue that it is more consistent, but the fact that you need to full-length size every three to four firings when normally only neck sizing proves that the case grows every time you fire it. This alone shows this is not a consistent method, and consistency is the name of the game. Do yourself a favour, full-length size your cases with a small, controlled shoulder bump after each firing. This is the best way to control case consistency and prevent undue wear and tear on your rifle’s action.

Full-length sizing also contributes to the reliability of your rifle system, as the relationship between your rifle and ammunition is more consistent. You will never have to combat the strenuous feeding of a round into the chamber when seconds can matter in the backcountry.

 

Brush Case Necks

Brushing the inside of your case necks before you seat bullets is another great way to find consistency in places often overlooked. Dedicating one cleaning brush to this operation of each calibre you handload is a common practice in the reloading rooms of F-class and benchrest shooters. This helps the handloader in more ways than one. First, it ensures no large deposits of carbon or leftover cleaning product residue are left behind after the cleaning process and stuck on the inside walls of the case neck. At the same time, it helps get consistent friction inside the case neck, ultimately providing more consistent seating of projectiles. My favourite method is to chuck the brush into a drill and make three or so passes with the drill at high speed.

Weigh Powder As Consistently As Possible

This is an area that can get away from you in a hurry. There are so many ways to measure your powder that it is often overwhelming. The two major categories that powder measuring tools fall into are measuring by weight or displacement. Displacement is great if you are trying to load as many rounds as you can in as short amount of time as possible, but your consistency will suffer. Even those who use high-end powder measures will confirm and adjust the charge dropped with a scale. Weight is the best way to measure powder consistently, and people spend good money trying to speed up this method. While very tempting, there are better routes to go than cheap digital scales. Beam scales, while slower, are an inexpensive way to measure your powder consistently and accurately and can often have resolution sensitive enough to show single kernel changes in weight.

If you currently use a budget-friendly digital scale, one way to make it more consistent is to intentionally throw the powder charge short of the desired final weight and then, while still being weighed on the scale, trickle up to the desired weight with a powder tricker. This will allow your charges to be more consistent as all of the charges will be at the lower end of the scale’s resolution window in which the scale will read the desired weight.

 

Powder Selection

One of the most crucial parts of handloading is selecting the right powder. Every case and projectile combination can have a different powder that is ideal, but ultimately you are looking for a powder with a bulk density that will give you a case fill percentage of 90 to 100 per cent, that burns completely and provides a velocity suitable to your needs. Remember to be realistic with your velocity expectations and know that many factors affect the final speed. Above all else, be safe and know the limitations of the cartridge you are working with.

Seating Depth

This may seem obvious to some, but I have run into many shooters who think whatever their reloading manual states the max case overall length is, is where they seat their projectile and hope it shoots well. While reloading manuals are great guides, they are just that: a guide. Measuring your rifle’s chamber can allow the potential to find performance gains and optimizations that would ultimately be missed if following the reloading guide blindly. More importantly, seating depth directly affects case capacity, case fill percentages and pressure. Learning to utilize these three cartridge properties will benefit you greatly.

Conclusion

Good handloads are a complex sum of many steps. This is not an exhaustive list, but these tips will undoubtedly help those who try them. Handloading for precision can sometimes be overwhelming and frustrating, but break it down into methodical steps and remember, all great handloaders started somewhere. No one started a pro, but fortunately, many pros are more than willing to help out new handloaders. Finding yourself a knowledgeable mentor might be the best tip yet.