Handloading once fired brass is a common hobby for shooters. They pick it up for a lot of different reasons, ranging from simple economics to environmentalism or even as a way to support their community. Once fired brass offers a lot of benefits to shooters regardless of their personal motivations for using it, and it is important that every shooter understand those benefits so they can decide if they want to use the brass for their own ammo or not.
Saving Money
Even the cost of cheap ammo can add up over time, and the prices only go up for larger calibers or for unusual loads. That can easily turn shooting into an expensive hobby. Once fired brass offers a way to cut down on the costs. It tends to be cheaper than new brass while offering the same level of performance. It can also be reused several more times without any problems, which makes it easy to save even more money by reloading it more than once. The other reloading materials tend to be cheap, so many shooters stretch their budgets by reusing brass.
Supporting Law Enforcement
Once fired brass is an important resource for many small law enforcement agencies. Police officers need to practice their shooting skills regularly, which produces a lot of brass. They can then sell that brass to vendors in order to get back some of the cost of the ammo. Some merchants even swap it for fresh ammo as a way to support the agency. Purchasing this brass helps to fund those programs, which goes on to help make sure that the officers have all of the resources that they need to sharpen their skills and got their jobs done.
Resource Conservation
Most shooters understand the importance of protecting the environment for future generations and are willing to take steps to preserve the natural world. Conserving metal is one of the best ways to do that because mining has a major impact on the environment. Anything that reduces the demand for new metal reduces the need to expand mines, which prevents damage to the natural world.
Reusing once fired brass can help. Every time that you reload a cartridge instead of throwing it away, you reduce the demand for brass. A single piece of ammo won’t make a huge difference, but it adds up quickly, especially for people who shoot frequently. Making a difference often comes down to doing a bunch of little things that add up to a big difference, so reloading enthusiasts can be confident that they are helping to protect our natural resources.
Hobby Time
Most people who start reloading once fired brass do it for practical reasons, but they discover that it can be a lot of fun. The enjoyment that comes with making something with your hands can be a big benefit to reloading the brass. It also gives you something to do with your shooting hobby when the weather is bad or you can’t get to the range, which can provide a silver lining to the times when you simply cannot go shooting. Reloading can even be a hobby in its own right for people who do not shoot their ammo, so anyone who thinks they might like putting things together or experimenting with load should consider giving it a try.
Custom Ammo
Most shooting stores will only carry a relatively small selection of ammo for each caliber, usually the most popular brands and loads. Simple economics force most of them to avoid carrying any of the rare or unusual options, because they can rarely sell enough of those to justify investing the money and shelf space into keeping them in stock.
Reloading once fired brass gives you the chance to construct the loads that you cannot find in stores. You can take advantage of that possibility to tweak the performance of your guns to make sure that you are shooting at the highest possible level. Tweaking your gun’s performance can be a lot of fun, and most people do find that their shooting improves when they find the right formula for their ammo. It takes some experimentation, but it is worth the effort for people who want to excel.
