Provided by V.H.A. Staff - Tips | Tips and Tricks from VHA Staff

Cleanliness Is Next To Accuracy

It's important to keep your reloading area clean and well organized. This is an area where the handloader manufactures high explosive devices. Practically everything handled at the bench is explosive, flammable, caustic or worse. The following are some tips to help you keep your reloading area better organized and safer.

Do not allow smoking near the bench.
If you are using a candle to "black" a case for inspection or seating, do so at least fifteen feet from the bench.
Keep powders separated from primers by at least a couple of feet.
Keep solvents away from powders and primers.
Wipe your bench down with a slightly dampened paper towel. Throw the towel into a safe disposal area. When it dries, any gun powder will once again become volatile.
Label powder cans with the date they were opened and the cartridge they were used to charge.
Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water prior to handling primers.
Evacuate all the air you can from any opened powder container and then seal it tightly. If you question the integrity of the seal, use some cellophane tape to complete the job.
Do NOT use a vacuum to get spilled powder off the floor of the area. This can turn mom's vacuum cleaner into a bomb.
Have only the components for the load currently being made atop the bench. Be sure to keep primers and powders well separated during this operation.
Clean your dies with a mild barrel solvent after each use (or every 500 rounds) and then very lightly spray them with silicone to prevent rusting.
Keep a small fire extinguisher close at hand.
Never mix or "marry" powders in the same container.
Cheap stainless steel cookie sheets (the kind with a lip all the way around) make excellent places to keep brass while taking it through the various reloading steps.
Last, but perhaps most overlooked, is to clean your press regularly. The debris that falls out during the de-priming and resizing steps is quite hard on moving parts. Failure to properly maintain your press will eventually (sometimes quickly) cause play in places you don't want it. A toothbrush, solvent and a light oil are perfect for this. If you can use compressed air, that simplifies the process even more. Be particularly concerned with hinged and threaded areas.

A clean, tidy, well organized reloading area means clean, tidy, well organized handloads, and that translates into accuracy and safety.

Too Often Overlooked ...

The detail that is perhaps more often overlooked than any other at the reloading bench is cleaning the dies. This is true of all the dies, the full length sizer, bullet seater and neck-only sizer.

Cleaning your dies is important, whether they are steel or carbide. And not just the full length sizer, but the seater and neck sizer also. There are many reasons for this, but the most common problem caused by dirty dies is dented cases. The lubricant builds or solidifies in the die and then the pressures generated during sizing cause denting. Another problem, which not only hurts appearance, but costs money as well, is when a tiny particle of brass sticks in the die and scratches each of the cases as it is resized. This scratched area is, in essence, thinner than the rest of the case and as such, weaker. Hence, pressures created during firing tend to fracture the case at the scratched point. This is particularly common in necks. Brass is by far the most expensive element of the cartridge, so losing cases to mistakes should be avoided whenever possible.

Bullet seating dies are the most neglected of the dies. While it's true that they have the least chance to collect dirt -- as their use is confined to more or less clean elements -- they can still become quite dirty. One problem that sometimes occurs is when a very small piece of a bullet tip, or some tiny fragment of a bullet, sticks to the inside face of the seater. This changes bullet seating depth, albeit by a very small amount. Bullet seating is measured in thousandths of an inch, and any variation is detrimental to downrange accuracy.

To quickly and properly clean your dies use a spray barrel or action degreaser, some rags and some cotton swabs. Vary large swabs can be purchased from many shooting supply stores -- these are perfect for this job. Disassemble the dies, spray them generously with solvent and then wipe down and swab out. Be sure that the small hole that allows air to escape from the die is clean, if it's not, use a toothpick, pin, compressed air or an ice pick to clean it out. Let them dry and then lightly coat them with a rust preventing spray, being very cautious not to allow too much to get inside of the dies. Let them drip-dry, then wipe them off and out once more. Reassemble them and put them back in their storage box.

Clean dies will probably not shrink your groups, but they will save you time, brass and headaches. Accuracy is not the result of one action, it's the result of combining many.