What was the first chambering you reloaded?

started helping my Dad load 222, 223, 25-06, 7mm Rem mag, 300 Wby, 22-250, and many more when I was 5 or 6 years old. The first ones I started loading for myself was 270 Win with 130gr Partitions. Killed my very first buck with my own handloads when I was 12 years old. I still load 270 Win. and have since added 7mm-300 Wby, 25 Gibbs, 270 Gibbs, and 300WSM. Ive got the stuff to start working up a load for my 243 this summer and I also need to pick up the components to work up a load for my new 7mm-08.
 
My first relaoding experience was a 30-06 shooting Hornady 130 gr spirepoints and most likely IMR 4350. Still have some of the original box of bullets, brings back good memories.
 
31 years ago I started hand loading with a Lee hammer job in 30-06, then shortly I got one for 38/357 mag. Soon after I used a friends RCBS press and outfit and added the 45 ACP to the mix. I killed a bunch of deer with that old 1911AI and my hand loads of 7 grs Unique and a cast from wheel weights 200 gr SWC to feed the family. Times were tough and money was short. :mrgreen: When job and money got better about a year latter I bought a Lee turret press and RCBS 505 scale and the madness started in earnest.
 
That is easy! I had spent hours helping my dad load shells for both of our Remington model 722's chambered in .244 Remington. It was the hottest thing going when I was 12 years old.

My dad finally turned me loose to load my own since we were shooting 48 grains of H 4831 behind an 85 grain Sierra spitzer. You simply could not get enough powder in the case to cause a problem. (We used drive down to Sierra and buy bullets by the pound-seconds)

We killed literally thousands of ground squirrels, jack rabbits, coyotes, and quite a few deer with that load.

Interestingly enough, now at 62 years of age I own more rifles than makes good sense, but I still have not killed a mule deer any larger than the one I shot with that rifle using a 90 grain Speer back in 1977. Great memories!
 
Way back when.
My dad and his friend and mentor got the urge to start playing with guns. We had a 8mm GEW 98K Mauser with a de-milled stock and a 7.7 Japanese Arisaka with the crysanthemum milled off and the stock de-milled.
So 8mm mauser was my first reloading experiment out of the Speer reloading manual Vol.1 I still have the manual and some of the loads. I think the 325WSM and 8MM Rem mag. would have felt threatened. :shock: Thank God they made those Mausers "REAL" strong. It's been killing deer ever since(with much milder loads). Case trimming was also one of those "fancy terms" I never quite understood at the time. Like "maximum pressure". That was about 1962 :grin:
 
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