how do we........

(Continued)

My son, in his 40s watches with interest. But with a young family, a busy corporate life and a working wife, not to mention a heavy mortgage, he simply does not have time to shoot enough rounds to warrant reloading let alone casting. Like the guy re the overtime, the justification to take either up is not a monetary one, irrespective of the price of ammo. He can afford to buy what he needs, if its available.

There are only a couple of reasons to reload and cast that I see as relevant.

For reloading Pistol you have to be shooting high volumes to get a financial return. Otherwise you will reload because you love doing it or because its the only way you can get the ammo you need. Perhaps one other reason. In our country over the counter ammo purchases are recorded. Nuff said.

For rifle, few people who don't compete put enough lead downrange to warrant reloading - no matter the cost of a box of ammo. If you don’t get thru 20 rds a year why would you? In that respect there is another discussion to be had as to how effective a shooter/hunter you can be with that amount of time on the trigger but another day for that. And for those who do compete, even with the high current prices of ammo, if you are in well paid employment, its just a cost of your sport. Golfers don't make their own golf balls.

So the real driver for reloading comes from the perceived benefits. Cost if you shoot high volume, or, if you are cash poor but time rich. Availability if you can't buy off the shelf or if you are chasing decimal points in MOA. After that the only thing left is fascination. I reload and I will cast mostly because it fascinates me.

Historically, the broad interest and engagement in reloading, and casting was driven by something I grew up with as a Baby Boomer and which changed dramatically for us along the way. That is the balance between having cash and having time. My adult life has mostly been cash rich and time poor compared to my parents and grandparents and the prior generations. Those are the generations that were the heyday of doing it yourself. Nothing was made in China and Made in Japan was synonymous with cheap and nasty. I grew up with the term "Jap Crap" How the world has changed. Back then, if you didn't or couldn't make it you often didn't have it. Lee Loaders, the Lyman 310 Tong Tool, etc are examples of products that allowed cash poor, time rich folk to make the means to put meat on the table. Literally many thousands of them. And for many that was the only way they could get meat. By hunting nd by hunting with roll yer owns. Again, how the world has changed. Lee Loaders pushed out of the way by cling wrap and upsized burgers with fries.

The world tends to work in cycles of a sort. Perhaps our task is not to recruit the unrecruitable but to preserve the knowhow.

I have a bunch of grandkids, all but one are boys and the eldest are now 15. I take them all shooting and hunting. The interest waxes and wanes with the exception of a 9yr old who is besotted and sits at my reloading bench maki g ammo for his dad. A couple of them I suspect will move on to other things and are unlikely to come back to it. But at least its within their horizons. The girl is a hot prospect. The pig in the pen is not a pig to her, its bacon! The feral goat is just another kind of lamb roast! Some of them are too young right now but they will get their chance.

Interestingly a couple of young tradies who did some work for me and who hunt a couple of times a year asked me to load for them. I made the bench available and had them roll their own. Hooked! A mate from Uni days, a few years younger than me, and finallyb retiring, put his hand up for help to buy a couple of new rifles including his first deer rifle, a 7mm08. He has some cast and some jacketed ammo from me to put thru it on his first range visit. And bought his first jugs of powder.

But who knows. A little here, a little there. Bread on the waters. And a forum like this plays a huge part in preserving the knowledge, furthering the sport.

Cheers J.

PS. Dinner tonight was Shepherd's Pie made with slow roast Goat Shoulder cooked in gravy beans, carrots, garlic and onion, meat pulled and returned with layer of frozen peas, corn and garden spinach all topped with a mashed potato crust sprinkled with grated cheese and ground pepper then baked for 30 min. From hill to table, a young nanny, neck shot at 65m with a hand loaded 223 from a Ruger Ranch II. (A cast bullet from my 44-40 next year I hope). Yum!