One of the most intriguing aspects of reloading your own ammunition are the many options available, options that allow the reloader to address a wide number of possibilities.

If you own a vintage rifle firing ammunition not found easily on store shelves, handloading’s the perfect solution. Perhaps your rifle has a long or short barrel and requires a faster or slower burning powder for maximum velocity. Again, handloading allows one to match your firearm with the perfect powder. If recoil is an issue, again, dropping bullet weights or using lighter charges can address the situation as required.

Following are some scenarios I’ve come up against and how handloading allowed me to solve the puzzle.

My very first rifle was a modern, barreled action 7×57 Mauser. I then purchased a beautiful Fajen French walnut stock which my good friend, Dan Kessler, bedded for me, floating the barrel. Since the action was modern and much stronger than the original 1895 Mauser actions, its ammunition could be loaded to higher pressures and greater velocities. But the only ammunition you could purchase off the shelf was, for safety’s sake, loaded to the older action’s lower pressures and almost without exception a 175-grain bullet.

However, the Hornady reloading manual data was developed for modern steel actions and I quickly worked up several loads using Hornady 139-grain spire points and various IMR powders.

Groups averaged 1.5 inches with all powders except IMR 4350, which my rifle loved. After a little experimentation with 4350, I discovered a maximum load of 48 grains shot half-inch groups if I was doing my part.

My new custom rifle not only was beautiful it was very accurate as well. Sitting at the loading bench examining my groups and making notes I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and happiness. No one else in the world had a rifle exactly like mine and few shot better. Deer season was four months away, which gave me plenty of time to hunt woodchucks. Zeroing the 7×57 at 1.5 inches high at 100 put me on at 200 yards and 9 inches low at 300.

When deer season rolled around there was little doubt any deer out to 300 yards was in serious trouble.

On my rifle’s first hunt I was still hunting and, coming around a point, I saw deer above me. The last one was a buck. The deer dropped down over a rise and being young and in great shape, I sprinted to the rise and immediately sat down. Visibility was over 200 yards in front of me but the deer had vanished. They’d been trotting but couldn’t have moved out of sight already, could they?

Puzzled, I remained sitting while catching my breath. After several minutes the deer reappeared from a shallow ravine some 150 yards away. The buck stopped and I fired; he dropped after a few steps. That beautiful 6-point was the first of my rifle’s many deer. The 139-grain bullet had hit a rib and struck the heart, but failed to exit. Back to the reloading bench. Switching to Nosler 140 partition bullets solved that problem.

Handloading allowed me to find the perfect load and bullet for my wonderful new rifle.

When my daughter Julie turned 12, I purchased a Remington Model 7 in .243. Another opportunity to study the manual, talk to friends and discover with the perfect load. This turned out to be easily accomplished.

Three of my friends gave me the identical answer: Use a 100-grain Nosler partition bullet with 41 grains of IMR 4350 powder. I did and the load shot an inch or better. The short-barreled rifle was easy to handle with little recoil and the Nosler performed perfectly. Both my daughters and two other young hunters shot their first deer with that rifle; I shot a couple myself.

When I purchased a Weatherby Mark V .30-06, weighing under 7 pounds, it was time to study the reloading manual once again. The 06 has a wide range of bullets, 100-grain all the way up to 220s. However, heavy recoil was becoming more and more distasteful to me. My rifle was light and handy, a pleasure to carry, but lightweight also meant additional recoil.

But technology was advancing. Barnes had developed a 130-grain, all copper bullet that penetrated as well or better than a 150-grain lead core. Perfect. My first test load was 63.5 grains of Winchester 760 paired with the Barnes 130-grain TTSX bullet. The handload sho a tight, half-inch group with the chronograph revealing a blistering 3,150 fps, faster than the .270 with a 130-grain bullet. That lighter-recoiling load turned out to be very flat shooting and devastating on deer.

My good friend, Jim Acker, had a .30-06 that was very temperamental with factory ammunition. He also had a drawer full of unboxed, mixed .30-06 ammo, not a good situation. For easy identification I worked up a load using Nosler ballistic tip bullets with their distinctive green point. A little experimentation showed the rifle loved 51 grains of IMR 4064. Jim’s never had a deer run over 40 yards with that load.

So there you have it. If your firearm or a friend has an issue, it’s more than likely handloading can solve it and that can be very satisfying indeed.