Roughly one year ago, the background check process for purchasing ammunition was announced and put into effect. With some early attempts at buying ammo, there were reports of people being put on hold after having a federal check ran to buy a firearm go right through.

For the most part, I had enough ammunition not to have to worry about buying anything right away. However, someday my time would come where I needed to buy some. With my name being fairly common, my federal checks for firearms can take some time so I was nervous how a check for ammunition might go.

So as I began to have these thoughts, I got my check for the articles I wrote in the Outdoor Recreation Guide (which this year’s edition is coming soon by the way) and started to research getting into reloading ammunition.

Reloading was one of the niche activities I had willfully ignored during my time in sporting goods retail. Almost all the ammunition I ever needed for hunting was always well stocked and reasonably priced so reloading seemed like a bigger hassle than anything. However, things had changed. The pandemic put some ammunition on the hard-to-find list and the what was available jumped in price significantly. It took me almost two years to get my hands on “cheap” rounds for a .308 rifle I had won at an NWTF banquet. The same ammo was under $25 a box pre-pandemic and I paid almost $35.

After some research and talking to friends that I knew reloaded, I decided that I wanted to start reloading my ammunition. So I hit Facebook Marketplace and found someone selling their entire reloading setup. The timing worked out as I had family starting to look for Christmas gift ideas.

So after assessing what items I had, what I lacked, and what I would like to upgrade, I gave out wish lists. I got the newest Hornady Reloading Manual since I knew I wanted to use their bullets for at least three of the four rifle calibers I own. I decided that .308 and .30-30 were the two calibers I wanted to start with since I had the least amount of factory ammunition for these two rifle.

So I started looking at the recommended powders for the bullets I wanted to use. Conveniently, a lot of the powder choices were the same for both calibers. I found a website with a free hazardous material shipping promotion on powder so I ordered powder to try loading them with. Soon after, I ordered bullets for each round. The missing piece of the puzzle was primers. Both rounds use large rifle primers and standard primers were not easy to find. Since I had some factory rounds for my other rifles, I wasn’t in a rush to buy everything right away so I just waited. When I saw some in stock locally on a Facebook post, I ran there after work and bought a case of 1,000 primers. I ended up splitting the case with my hunting mentor and then splitting another case with a coworker a few days later so I ended up with a full case.

My plan when I bought everything was to wait until after New Year to get everything set up in my basement once all of hunting season had ended. However, that did not happen. Fast forward to last weekend. I had a handmade table in my basement that I finally got cleared off, filled cracks in the top with wood filler, sanded it smooth, and put two coats of clear coat on for a smooth finish.

I mounted a RCBS accessory plate to the table so that I can change out the tool on the bench (press, case trimmer, powder measure) without having to drill a ton of holes in the table. Sunday evening, I broke out the .30-30 resizing die, case lube, and a box of 17 spent cartridges. I proceeded to resize the brass in just a few minutes, faster and easier than I anticipated honestly. So now I need to clean out the primer pocket, put primers in them, measure and pour powder in each case, and then press the bullet into the top of the brass to have ready to shoot ammunition.

Then I can go to the range and test out different powders and powder charges. Once that’s done, I’ll switch to .308 and do the process all over. The notion of taking the time to go through and find the most accurate round for my rifle and then hopefully using them to harvest an animal has me pretty excited for gun season again.