Rifle Ammunition – A Brief How to Guide to Reloading Rifle Ammunition
First and foremost, what do you need? An updated reloading book to reference proper powder charge, bullet weight, and bullet seating depth, a press, reloading dies, and a scale. Concentration and attention to detail is another important must have while reloading and is just 45 long colt ammo critical as your reloading book.
The 30.06 rifle caliber is one of the most common and versatile hunting round to reload.
Re-using once fired brass is a cost cutting measure that most reloaders will often do. I recommend cleaning your brass with treated crushed walnut shells to get a nice shine. Damaged or questionable cases should should NOT be used and recycling them is a good way of recouping a small amount of money.
It should be noted that there are two kinds of primer pockets for rifle brass. Berdan primed brass have two small flash holes at the bottom of the case, whereas Boxer primed brass only has one. To verify whether or not you have Berdan or Boxer, shine a light inside the case and check if there are two flash holes.
Insert the proper shell holder and sizing die. Roll the casings lightly across a lube pad or spray case lube on the cases that your are going to be working on. With the sizing die in the press, run the press one full cycle to size and deprime. Measure the over all length of the casing with a caliper and trim the cases to the proper length if needed.
Since we are loading for a 30.06, you will need to use Large Rifle Primers (LRP). Using a priming tool, insert your brass into the shell holder, press firmly to seat the primer in the pocket. Run your finger across the bottom of the casing and check if you properly seated primer the primer. Do not force the primer into the pocket because you can accidentally set off the primer and cause injury. The primer should be flush to the case.