Handloader August-September 2023

Recently, I managed to occupy a back room in the house that was being used mostly for storage and as an office space. After seizing control, I promptly began assimilating the room, filling it with a wide array of gun cases, hunting gear and leather working tools for making holsters and other items. Usually, the roles in this process are reversed but fortune had certainly smiled on me. Most of these things had previously been stored in the garage and the room seemed to have more to its purpose than storing vacuums and wrapping paper. Much to my wife’s chagrin, the final process of assimilating the room was to add a reloading bench. ...Read More >

The first shot from my Kimber 1911 bucked harder than I expected. It only took a moment for the chronograph to show why. I had just sent a Speer Gold Dot 230-grain bullet out at 1,124 feet per second (fps). I finished the three-shot string out of curiosity, ending up with an average muzzle energy in excess of 600 foot-pounds. I’d committed a fundamental sin on several different levels and was now paying the price in bad data from an overpressure load. ...Read More >

Q: I appreciate the information and knowledge that you and the Handloader staff provide. I always look forward to each issue and usually read it from cover to cover. I had a very odd thing happen; about 20 years ago, I purchased 1,000 rounds of USA-manufactured 223 Remington ammunition. The load contained a 50-grain Hornady V-MAX bullet that shot extremely well in my Cooper Arms Model 21 rifle. I fired around 500 rounds on a varmint shoot, which worked perfectly. I set the other 500 rounds aside for later use. I used the 500 empty cases to develop handloads that performed more or less the same as the factory load using the 50-grain V-MAX bullet. ...Read More >

In 1857, when the drawn copper-cased 22 rimfire and small Smith & Wesson revolvers to fire it appeared, the percussion era days were numbered. At this time, long-range (1,000 to 1,200 yard) target shooting was becoming popular in Great Britain. Rifles were long-barreled, carefully-bored percussion guns firing heavy bullets covered by a paper patch. With all the leading riflemakers using their own rifling forms to get the best accuracy. ...Read More >

After considerable research and development, in December 1954, Smith & Wesson began shipping a totally new autoloading pistol chambered in 9mm Luger that was given the model number 39 in 1957. The gun was truly innovative and was the first U.S.-manufactured 9mm double-action/single-action pistol. It proved accurate, reliable and was highly successful in spite of the 9mm cartridge not being widely popular with American handgunners – at least during that era when there were only full metal jacket (FMJ) roundnose-style loads and literally no ammunition that was suitable for self-defense or police use, but I digress. ...Read More >

There’s a saying that goes, “When life gives you lemons, use them to make lemonade.” Well, that’s the way I describe one of my handgun purchases. Here’s how it played out. ...Read More >

I first became aware of the 257 Kimber cartridge during a telephone conversation with Greg Warne in early 1985. Greg and his father, Jack, had founded Kimber of Oregon about six years earlier and their first rifle was the beautiful little Model 82, first in 22 Long Rifle and later, also in 22 WMR and 22 Hornet. In 1984, the Model 82 was joined by the Model 84 in 223 Remington. As mentioned in my column in Handloader No. 340 (October-November 2022), Greg Warne immediately began to shop for a close- to medium-range deer cartridge small enough to squeeze into the magazine of the Model 84, and soon after I recommended the 6x45mm, it became a standard-production chambering at Kimber. That cartridge is easily formed by necking up the 223 Remington case with no other change. ...Read More >

There are so many good bullets on the market today that “terminal performance” – an issue that dominated our minds in the 1990s – has all but ceased to exist. It’s now taken for granted that anything except the cheapest of the cheap will be a “premium” bullet. ...Read More >

Justin Stout, operations manager for Rocky Mountain Reloading in Lewiston, Idaho, first made me aware of the 224 Grendel. I’d stopped by to pick up some of the company’s new 3 Gun Hunter (3GH) 75-grain bullets (included in this test). Justin is a hard-core, long-range shooter, with hardly a summer weekend passes that he does not compete in an organized competition. He is also an avid varmint shooter, so our talk naturally turned to the agonizing wait for spring and the upcoming varmint-shooting season. On that subject, the 22 Creedmoor entered the conversation, a cartridge I consider the ultimate long-range rockchuck and coyote medicine. ...Read More >

For handloading, the full-length resizing die is a vital, yet often overlooked tool. The job of the resizing die is to “squeeze” the fired brass down to a smaller dimension. This resizing is critical for neck tension, ease of chambering, extraction after firing, life expectancy of the brass and safety.  ...Read More >

In 1983, I was contacted by a mostly unknown sixgun smith named John Linebaugh who lived about 40 miles north of Cody, Wyoming. At the time, he was pouring cement to support his wife and two young boys, but on the side, he was building experimental and custom sixguns and trying to break into the gun business on a full-time basis. He sent me an early example of his work that was built on a Seville frame, fitted with an oversized six-shot cylinder that was chambered in 45 Colt with properly-cut chambers and a match-grade barrel. He forwarded load data that was impressive and easily outperformed the 44 Magnum. His sixgun proved very well made, offered solid cylinder lockup and was especially accurate. ...Read More >

Several years ago, I was hired by the defense team of a man accused of homicide. The victim had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. The bullet had entered the victim’s eye near the tear duct, traveled through the brain and struck the occipital bone hard enough to cause a fracture but not exit the cranium. X-rays clearly showed the outline of a nearly pristine .357-caliber bullet resting between the occipital lobe and the cerebellum. Based on powder tattooing, a telltale sign of a close-range shot, the crime lab had placed the range at approximately 18 inches. ...Read More >

There were two milestones in the career of the 300 Holland & Holland in the United States: The first came in 1935 when Ben Comfort won the 1,000-yard Wimbledon match shooting a rebarreled Enfield P-17. The second came a year later, when Winchester included the chambering in its new Model 70 bolt-action rifle. ...Read More >