Teaching my 12 year old to reload

[DallanC]

My 12 year old just bought his first big game rifle, a 7mm-08. With the astronomical prices on ammo, and all the components I had laying around, we decided to reload ammo. I bought some dies and we found some brass on ksl. I taught him how to decap and resize the cases which he did. We then tossed it all in the tumbler to get it all nice and shiny. The next evening he hand primed all the cases with the RCBS handprimer (I LOVE those things) so atm, we just need to charge the cases and seat the bullets. I've got a couple cans of varget and a couple boxes of 120grn Ballistic Tips (hunting version with the thicker jackets).

This coming weekend I'll show him how to work the scale and charge the cases, and get ready for bullet seating. I've shown him how to do each operation then he's done the rest by himself. I think it will mean alot more for him to actually create his own ammo for his very own gun. We'll start off with light min loads then over the summer once the gun is broken in we'll work up the final hunting loads. Good fun time to spend with a kid for sure.


-DallanC

[DallanC]

My boy, doing it old school. I set him up on the kitchen table with my balance beam scale, a cup of powder, funnel and his block of primed cases. I made him weigh each charge by hand using a small spoon. I did let him use my power trickler for the final grains, I'm not completely mean hehe.

I showed him how to zero the scale and how to weigh a couple charges and dump them in the case. After showing him how to charge a couple cases, he did all the rest all by himself. He was really proud at being treated as an adult and getting to reload his own bullets for his own rifle.

I want him to know the basics, and when he has them down pat he can start using my charge thrower and other "items of convienence" when doing larger lots.

reloading.jpg (84.55 KiB) Viewed 3268 times

It was a pleasant fun sunday afternoon. After that we took the cases down stairs to my reloading room and stuff'd them with 120 Ballistic Tips, .050" off the lands. Cant wait to get his gun out and get it sighted in.



-DallanC