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Originally Posted by NoneSD
For accuracy? Hobby? To better understand the ballistics? Or for financial aspects? I'm in a buying phase of my elementry period of loading. I decided to try loading in the hopes of better understand the trade of shooting and its ballistics. Lets see where this goes.
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Depends on when you started loading more than why.
I have been handloading for 27 years now. It was primarily due to costs. When I started handloading in 1980, you could handload better ammo than factory loads for less than half the cost. If you shot pistol with cast bullets, you handloaded as there were no outfits selling loaded ammo with cast bullets. Handloaded .45 ACP with cast bullets was about 1/3 the cost of a factory loaded jacketed bullet. Today there are hundreds of outfits making very good quality reloaded pistol ammo using hard cast bullets that are better than anything made thirty years ago. And for very cheap prices. In fact, I have found reloaded pistol ammo using jacketed or copper washed bullets for about one cent more than anything I can make and I buy in bulk to save money. It almost isn't worth handloading if you want to buy bulk loaded jacketed pistol bullets. I still handload pistol stuff but only because I have a whole bunch of components.
Up until about twenty years ago, almost any handload would outshoot all but the match quality factory loads. When guys were blasting with the M-14, the only quality match grade factory loads were Winchester and Federal Match. Black Hills hadn't hit the radar screen. If you wanted to be competitive in any shooting discipline, you either handloaded or hired someone to handload for you -- or bought what match grade ammo was being produced.
Things have changed to an extent. Handloading will still give you quality ammo but in some cases, the difference in cost isn't too great. There is nothing secret about why Black Hills makes such good ammo. They are more anal about quality control and that is the only reason. You pay for it too. Well, Wolf ammo started out as ammo no one would put through their rifle out of fear. Now Wolf has some psuedo "match grade" ammo that is pretty damn good and for a relatively cheap price. You no longer save half when handloading.
Also, the quality of firearms and barrels has improved so monumentally over the last twenty five years that the firearm itself is making a huge difference in accuracy. Firearms companies are no longer scared to actually produce something that is different and or works. Look at Savage these days compared to 25 years ago. Computer and laser controlled machine tools combined with better steels are making better firearms. Barrels in particular are far superior than even ten years ago. The barrel makes a huge difference in accuracy. You really must have a poor design of a bullet for it to perform poorly from a barrel made by one of the better barrel companies these days.
As for learning about ballistics. I figure handloading will motivate you to learn about ballistics but of it's own you won't learn much unless you start doing terminal effects testing. You will probably learn that Ballistic Coefficients don't necessarily equate to accuracy; that Sectional Density doesn't necessarily equate to good terminal ballistics effects; and that it is almost impossible to judge terminal effects without extremely expensive gear and hundreds if not thousands of rounds in testing.
I find handloading boring and tedious. If I could program a machine and press a button, I would do so in a second.
Gene