How do you load? As needed or stock pile?

[AS350Driver]

Couple of interesting comments in the thread so far.

For one, I load and check each and every round of ammo I make as if I were shooting the nationals with it the next day. I don't see the logic of making "practice" ammo and then buckling down and making "match ammo" or "major" ammo.

I check every round also. If for some reason a round doesn't end up sitting nicely in the chamber checker, it goes in a separate box marked practice only.

I generally reload on weekends when i'm on call for work, usually do a few hundred at a time.

[RangerTrace]

I have the components to stock pile for a few months, but I tend to keep it a bit closer than that. If you have the stuff and feel like it.....do it

[Flatland Shooter]

For those who stockpile, presumably, you've worked up a load that make power factor first before you actual start stockpiling. Once you've worked up a load and created a stockpile, do you do random samples to run over the chrono for quality control? Or do you just leave it alone irregardless of a major match that is coming up?

I've used the same load for several years. Quality control is the same for match loads and practice loads. They are all stored in the same bucket.

I like to pull random rounds out of my cache and run them over the chrono under different weather conditions. In the past I've shot matches in freezing cold and blistering heat. The only time I came close to shooting minor was a 165.0 at Area 4. Don't know why that day my loads wanted to play it close. They usually chrono around 170.5 (+/- 0.65) PF.

Bill

[orangeman711]

I load often enough to keep at least 2K rds. on hand for each division I shoot. For my 3-Gun rifle I process brass all winter and reload in the spring and fall. Here again I try to have at least 2K rds.of close target ammo at all times and the same in long range loads.

[kevin c]

I've done both.

Being short on time nowadays, I tend to load enough for 3 or 4 months, but try not to let my stock get down to less than a month's worth.

I load major match ammo (same lot powder/primer/bullets, same headstamp once fired brass) well in advance, to avoid the last minute press breakdown blues.

[JimmyZip]

I buy enough bullets to do a batch. I usually buy 2500 at a time or so and do that much as soon as I get the machine pumping out proper rounds. Usually I set it for a night I can just sit and crank away. I will usually do .40 one night, and 9mm the next. Then I have enough to shoot for at least 1/3 of the season.

[flack jacket]

As needed. Usually night before I load 200 rnds for the match. Sometimes, the morning of..

[shooterready]

The plan was to load all winter and to shoot the rest of the year. That didn't go as planned so I am loading as

I go right now.

Haha, I've had this same plan every year. Doesn't ever seem to work out. Mostly load as I go, but it's great when I can get a couple thousand in reserves.

[lugnut]

Same here. I always want to build up the stock in the winter but my garage is unheated and during the winter my ambition to reload seems to dwindle. That being said I like to have a thousand of my loads at any given time. While I want many thousands of my primary gun loads (currently 9mm). Now I'll try to load 200-300 a few nights/week to get my levels to where they need to be. I never want to be low on ammo and I never know what might come up.... hell if I get a few good nights of weather in the spring I could do 3 practices/week!

[motosapiens]

I do both. Unlike most of y'all, I'm still loading on a single-stage, so no way am i going to do 1000 at a stretch. I leave everything set up and I typically load 50 or 100 at a time, just for an excuse to hang out in the reloading/gun room. Takes about 12-24 minute, and helps me unwind before bed, or kill time waiting for mrs sapiens to get dressed for dinner, or whatever. I go a couple weeks without doing much loading, then I'll do it 30-60 mins a day for several days in a row and presto, there's 1000 rounds.

I have a stockpile of a couple thousand minor rounds for practice and local idpa matches, but only a few hundred major rounds for local uspsa matches. Fer sher, before any major matches, I will be double-checking the chrono of that batch beforehand.

I don't know how that process will change when i upgrade my reloading system. I was planning to spring for a 550 next month (just got a new reloading table and shelves to organize the area), but my brother-in-law fell on hard times, so as a favor to him, I took $600 worth of guns I don't need off his hands. That will delay my 550 purchase unless I can resell everything quickly.

[Linear Thinker]

As I shoot USPSA, IDPA and CAS, and load for friends - I reload in large batches. I get nervous when the supply for any caliber gets below ~2 year expected demand.

March is the 38 Super month, I will have 20K completed before the Vernal Equinox.

[59Bassman]

I tend to hold a few hundred round buffer of whatever I'm shooting most, and on-demand load in above that buffer. I did stockpile a couple thousand .45ACP rounds over the Christmas holiday last year, as I'm not shooting much .45 and wanted to keep my primer feed conversions down.

Also, the only time I really stockpiled was while loading shotguns, and it bit me hard. My MEC 9000G had been trouble-free for a decade, other than the primer feed. I'd weighed charges for years with no deviation from where I'd set it, so I had stopped weighing charges other than when I switched powder bottles. So I loaded up a massive amount of 7 1/2's in my normal clays load. Then I started having issues with the ammo. While troubleshooting, I found my press had come out of adjustment, and was dropping inconsistently low powder drops.

Although there's no power factor in shotgunning, these loads were not able to cycle my semiauto. So I ended up sitting every evening for a few weeks pulling shotgun shells apart with a dental pick and a pair of pliers to salvage the hull, shot, powder, and primers. If you're going to load in large batches, CHECK EVERYTHING as you go.

[Ten-X]

I load in an unheated uncooled garage in Georgia , so I try to load enough in the mild temps of spring to shoot all summer, and load enough in the mild temps of fall to shoot all winter.

I hear that. Exchange GA for NC and I do the same. It's loading time right now as a matter of fact.

[leewhiskey]

The plan was to load all winter and to shoot the rest of the year. That didn't go as planned so I am loading as

I go right now.

Haha, I've had this same plan every year. Doesn't ever seem to work out. Mostly load as I go, but it's great when I can get a couple thousand in reserves.

One more here with that plan. Didn't work for me either. Since I shoot a lot of both 40 and 9, I load as much of one when I can till I run out of the other and need it. Lately I've been doing 200 rounds every night though, I don't get bored that way, and stock grows quickly.