It took a long time for me to convince my parents I
could be trusted to own a .22 rifle. In fact, I was 16 years old by the time I
did. And looking back, that was probably about the right age. Less than a year
later, I acquired my first centerfire rifle, a Parker-Hale 1200 in 7mm Remington
Mag. The day I bought it is still one of the best days of my life. My brother
and our duck hunting buddy accompanied my father to Minneapolis - my father went
to work, while we goofed off in the city. After meeting my father for lunch, we
went to the movie “Midway.” The excitement built to a crescendo as the day wore
on. Finally, my father’s workday was over and we drove to the gunshop to pick
up the rifle and some ammo.
The first few boxes through the gleaming Weatherby
look-alike cost me $10 apiece...a lot of money 25 years ago. Since my brother
and I were already using a Lee Load All to load shotgun shells for our duck
hunts behind the house, it was only natural that I jumped head-first into rifle
handloading. I carefully saved the proletariat wages I earned as a dishwasher
and before long I was the proud owner of a Pacific C press and the accessories
required to handload.
There is not
much I have left from my high school days...the long hair came off the first day
at college, the metallic blue ’69 Camaro was sold shortly afterward, and the
Parker-Hale was sold to get some scratch to buy a different rifle during my Army
stint in Alaska. However, I still have that old Pacific Press, although I have
had to weld the ram handle twice due to metal fatigue. But these days I shoot
in both Arizona and Minnesota, so I needed to procure a complete setup to reload
in Arizona. The equipment I chose, the subject of this story, are based on both
my experience and desire to try new things.
Hornady now
owns Pacific, but I decided to go with an RCBS press, primarily because they
sell complete reloading packages and I wanted to try something different. I was
also very interested in the automatic powder measuring/scaling system sold by
RCBS. I currently load my .223 and .308 with ball powder using a Redding BR-30
measure, which is almost always left ready to throw .223 charges, since I shoot
that cartridge more than any other. I use a standard RCBS measure to throw
extruded powders that are then brought to an exact weight by trickling into the
pan of an RCBS 304 scale. Needless to say, this takes a lot of time and is
quite tedious.
