Sharing the Wealth

[COSteve]

A neighbor who got a Rossi .357mag rifle after trying mine in 2009 came by with all the components to load up 1,000 rds of 158 grn ammo for his rifle. He plinks with his Rossi and mostly goes with me out to my range so he's using Berry's plated bullets and he has been using Unique powder but he wanted to try a bit hotter load to reach out better at 200 and 300 yds. He'd tried my Lil'gun loads and he was sold.

Anyway, he found 3 pounds of Lil'Gun which at 18.0 grns max charge is enough powder to load his 1K rounds of once fired Win brass with powder to spare. He'd come by a couple of weeks ago and asked to tumble his brass so he was all ready to load them up. I helped him load his powder, bullets and the Win SR primers in my 750 so he was ready to start cranking. He'd loaded the ammo before on my 650 so he was familiar with the steps and after I checked him out for proper powder and bullet seating adjustments, he got to cranking.

It's easy to run at 400 - 450 rds of pistol calibers an hour, especially when I was helping keep the powder measure and primer system full so things went very smoothly and quickly. In less than 3 hrs he was done and my handloading area was cleaned, all tools put away and ready for my wife's approval. I was surprised at how much he remembered of the process as it's been a few years since he used my press but after a couple dozen rds, he was cranking really smoothly.

I'm surprised at how relaxing it was just assisting him in the process. Almost like me doing the loading myself but I even had some time to come upstairs and see what was going on in some of my forums. All in all, with some nice tunes on low in the background, it was an enjoyable morning. Best of all, at the end, he dumped the remaining Lil'Gun powder back in a can (enough to do over 160 rds) and gave it to me for letting him use my equipment so I've got more powder to load more myself. I told him it wasn't necessary and to keep his powder but he insisted.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Good on you. I think we need to look for opportunities to share like this.