John’s Bench
his corner of the garage, he is fastidious about the organization of it and how much room it’s allowed to have. Not so with Steve and Ron. Steve
John at his press. Behind him, on the white table, are two of his three- ring binders. Both have handloads; a third 3-inch binder he keeps on the couch, lists the animals he’s taken, with what load, and to what effect. Since he was 12.
is a transplanted Kentuckian, who now raises organic sheep and cattle in Mon- tana. He not only remembers when and where but who – the uncle who started him handloading 50+ years ago – and while I was standing in his barn/reload- ing room (with a bullet-trap in the far corner so he can shoot inside) he pulled out the Colt New Service 38 Special his uncle had given him all those years ago to provide him something to handload for. Steve said he quickly discovered he could “... shoot things with a quality gun – like squirrels in the head at 100 yards.” That first year, in fact, he sold 35 ’coon hides for $80 using that Colt and his handloads. He also had a pretty cogent piece of advice: “When it counts, I cycle every shell in the action before calling it good. Paper, I couldn’t care.” He also says he always shoots “... groups of three. With groups of five you likely will have a flier.” Ron was the only one who
blanched at the thought of photograph- ing his bench. He’s a black powder cartridge competition shooter whose day job is casting bullets and selling components on the gun show circuit in Montana. He took one look at my photo of Jay’s bench and howled. “You can come and talk, but no photos. I’m so far beyond that mess ….” Ron’s bench is inside his house,
John loses camera rechargers, books, even checkbooks, but his loading bench is a model of Martha Stewart organization. Here, the dies for calibers he currently owns, or as John calls it, “The Active File.”
Page 46 Winter 2012
the house he lived in as a kid – his loading room used to be his bedroom. He bought it back a few years ago. Un- like Steve, he didn’t have a mentor (his dad was in Korea, in the service) but he remembered very specific details about the first gun he handloaded for: “My first centerfires were a Winchester ’92 originally in 32-20 – $40.00 at the Powder Horn, in Bozeman, Montana – that I promptly converted to 357 in my reloading room. But then it was still my bedroom. The gunsmith at the Beaver Pond bored and rerifled the barrel for me. I did the rest. And a Ruger 357 Blackhawk, new in the box for $87.50. That was in ’58.” Ron also had a pretty useful bit of
advice on how to get started safely. “I read books. Lots of books.” My husband, John, nodded in agreement, but added, “The books
aren’t as good now. The first reloading manual I bought didn’t have all the de- tails, so I bought the Lyman reloading manual, too.” “Yeah, I had that one, too,” Ron
said. What about finding a hands-on
mentor? Ron grinned. “If you ask 12 people the same question, you’ll get 11 to 13 different answers. You gotta be bright enough to find someone who’s not going to blow you up. So look for someone with no eye patches. Or black specks embedded in his hands. Oh. And someone who has all 10 fingers.” Ron’s first book? He can’t remember the title but says, “It’s probably still on my shelf.” I think I’m beginning to under-
stand the mess. Reloaders never get rid of anything, including the first tool they ever bought – often a Lee Loader. But just as often something else. Ron says he never used a Lee Loader. “My first press was a Pacific bench press “C” type. I currently have nine presses: from a Lee Hand Press to a couple of progressives, Corbin Swaging, turret, two Ponsness- Warrens and an AmmoMaster, for 50 BMG or my 40-90 Matney Straight.” Will started with a Lyman nut cracker. I asked him if he still had it. “Oh, heck, yeah,” he said. The Lee Loader was a mixed
blessing, it seemed. (And Ron owns one too, now, but says he picked it up in a trade years after he’d started handloading.) Everyone smiled when they talked about it; everyone looked 20 years younger remembering. And Will pointed out that you could use one of these hand gadgets in your dorm room. It was highly illegal, but then so was the rifle and handgun they snuck into the dorm, too. It was cheap, and it worked, and if you were furtive enough no one knew what you were doing. John used to take his out to the range when testing loads. If he didn’t have what he wanted from the big bench, he’d start tweaking the load with the Lee right there. Pointing to the sky, Will added,
“Oh, but you had to use a hammer to seat the primers. And a primer goes off – into the ceiling – and stays forever.” John’s first press was from Hert-
er’s. He was 20 and had bought himself a 243. And if he’d been rich, he would have owned one of everything in the Herter’s catalog. Ron used a different
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212