Thread: What are YOUR aims with reloading?

When I started in my engineering course one thing was drilled into us. To define our desired outcomes and and what point we should abandon a project. At the time there were a large number of government projects sucking huge amounts of money out of the economy, and as they came up with problem after problem they just sucked in more money to overcome them. Typically they came in at 4-10 times their initial budget.

So on that note when you took on reloading why did you do it and what it your aim to say a load development project is complete. Conversely, at what point do you pull the pin and say it is a failure and look to a new project? What do you want to achieve?


I went into reloading with what I saw as a realistic view of what I wanted to achieve from a reasonable weight and inexpensive hunting rifle. Not knowing my capabilities, being new to shooting, I figured 25mm at 100m was all I was after with half the size of the heart lung zone on a deer and the energy/distance table of the cartridge I was using (400m). Figuring half the zone would give me a latitude for greater error for shooting in the field.

The main things I was after was reasonably low cost per round and initial set up. So I bought a second hand kit and just added a few extras to match what I was shooting and to speed up a couple of bottlenecks I identified (de-priming die, untrasonic cleaner and off press priming). Yes, I'm a proud tight arse. And yes, the other reason is that the process fascinated me and it was an itch I had to scratch.

So what are your thought?