The reloading revolution: 50 years of handloading

Guns Magazine, April, 2005 by Charles E. Petty

Progressive Loading

The other thing that shaped history was the arrival of a progressive loading tool anyone could afford. Credit Mike Dillon for that one. He didn't set out to build an empire: all he wanted was to be able to feed a Thompson SMG he inherited. That's what started it. Actually there had been several progressive loading tools dating all the way back to WWII, but they were expensive and not always easy to operate. Dillon first modified a Star loader--it became the Super Star--but pretty soon he came up with his own design and found a ready market. Today he has progressive loaders that will meet the needs of any shooter.

Feeding The Beast

His timing couldn't have been better either for it was the dawning of the age of IPSC. Shooters in this new game consumed ammo in thousand-round quantities. I know I did and my Dillon 550B would probably fall apart if I cut a notch in it for every 1,000 primers I used in the .38 Super and .45 ACP.

It is said that we are living in the information age. It is surely true that we have more ways to get informed than ever before due to the overnight ubiquity of the Internet. Even before that though all the major suppliers published books or pamphlets to provide loading data for their products.

The development of reliable and accurate pressure testing methods in the industry has really changed the way we reload. A long time ago handloading was a much more adventurous hobby and loads were often developed by the, "go up until the primers start to fall out and then reduce by half a grain" principle. Of course now we know that those loads were far above anything remotely considered safe today. But when you read old articles or books you will see loads that are considerably above anything printed today. Some reloaders still believe we publish these wimpy loads in an active conspiracy to deny them access to real maximum loads. It is hard to convince those guys we're doing them a favor. I get especially ticked at people who want to engage in "bullet racing" who don't even own a chronograph.

Fairly late in our 50-year cycle, electronics entered our world in the form of relatively inexpensive chronographs and digital powder scales. When I was a youngster, l read about velocity measurements using a ballistic pendulum or, later, a counter chronograph where, through a series of decade resistors you could determine the time it took for the bullet to cut two wires 10' apart. Then a chart was used to translate that into velocity. Those early units were huge and used car batteries for power. Electronics improved to give direct velocity readings but you still had to use a wire or printed circuit strip to start and stop things.

Affordable Chronographs

The development of a reliable method for detecting bullet passage using photo diodes brought us the Oehler Skyscreen and really made chronographs practical. As is the course with everything, electronic prices trend downward as component parts become less expensive. Today there is no reason why any moderately serious handloader can't have a chronograph. Then along came electronic scales. These were made possible by advances in load-cell technology inspired by laboratory instruments. Actually our unit of measure--the grain--is pretty small and it wasn't always easy to get the degree of precision needed. The easy way to think of it is to use the good old fashioned pound, because we can all relate to a pound of hamburger or somesuch. In the metric system, there are 454 grams to a pound but there are 7,000 grains. A gram is 15 times heavier.