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Building the Perfect Reloading Room
- Thread starter sirhrmechanic
- Start date
Lots of great benches here. Crazy the amount of stock I see in some of the older ones, wonder if they are still sitting on all that stock.
I'm way more stocked up now than in the past. Recently picked up 7000 primers. We went to the Scheels near Johnstown on Saturday and loaded up on 9 and 45 projos, etc. Been pretty lucky with powder lately. Lots of brass prep ongoing. EOW mode, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Just got back from Home Depot with a load of birch plywood, adding another bench.
I’ve seen some awesome setup and ideas for when I build a reloading room. I picked up a solid maple desk this weekend, from the estate of a woodworker. He put his makers mark on it, it’s great to know he was proud of it. So I have a bench in the garage for dirty work, case trimming etc. and a rolling tool box I mounted my Dillon 650 to for pistol loading. I’m setting up the desk for precision rifle loading. I loaded 223 rifle on the 650, works okay and goes bang. I just bought a Barrett MRAD with 260 REM barrel, with a 7mm REM Mag added. I want to extend my loading now, and spent for all kinds of precious loading tools. All I need to get setup is my COAX on my desk, without drilling through the solid maple top. Any ideas out there?
Attachments
If you rock and fire tape, you will eliminate all sorts of air leaks and dust invasion points. You can rock, fire tape then ship lap. This is what I do in houses where the owner desires the look of ship lap. I also paint that rock a dark brown before we apply the siding.
After taking a break from reloading for a few years I'm looking to get back into it and do things a little differently since I'll be in the basement of my new place instead of a garage. I've been reading through some of these threads I've had bookmarked for a while now and wanted to run some of these thoughts by you guys. I plan on laying everything out in a way that makes the most sense with my space before I end up putting everything together.
Brass Cleaning
I usually decap my brass then clean it and store it in labelled bags until I'm ready to use it. I had previously used a tumbler with walnut media in the garage which had good airflow but I like the idea of wet tumbling with the stainless pins to potentially help with the air quality in my basement. Regardless, I am still installing an exhaust fan and maybe going to put an air purifier down there. I will likely still use a tumbler with corncob media and brash polish to clean the lube off after the cases have been sized.
New Presses
The RCBS press has served me well but it would need to have some refurbishment after spending a couple years in the old garage. I'm also interested in some of the other presses out there, especially looking to see if there are any cleaner options that will be better about containing primer dust and not having primers popping out and rolling across my basement floor. I am moderately interested in some of the progressive presses but I never felt like they were a necessity for me. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Trimming
I have been interested in the Giraud trimmer for a while now and especially appreciate how the brass shavings are contained now that I'll be inside.
Benches
I have read some of the other threads where industrial packing tables were mentioned rather than building a bench which is the direction I'll probably go but see if I can find a way to secure it to a wall. I may end up with 2 different benches on different walls, one for seating and one for brass prep if I feel like I need the space with a rolling bench for additional bench space.
Brass Cleaning
I usually decap my brass then clean it and store it in labelled bags until I'm ready to use it. I had previously used a tumbler with walnut media in the garage which had good airflow but I like the idea of wet tumbling with the stainless pins to potentially help with the air quality in my basement. Regardless, I am still installing an exhaust fan and maybe going to put an air purifier down there. I will likely still use a tumbler with corncob media and brash polish to clean the lube off after the cases have been sized.
New Presses
The RCBS press has served me well but it would need to have some refurbishment after spending a couple years in the old garage. I'm also interested in some of the other presses out there, especially looking to see if there are any cleaner options that will be better about containing primer dust and not having primers popping out and rolling across my basement floor. I am moderately interested in some of the progressive presses but I never felt like they were a necessity for me. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Trimming
I have been interested in the Giraud trimmer for a while now and especially appreciate how the brass shavings are contained now that I'll be inside.
Benches
I have read some of the other threads where industrial packing tables were mentioned rather than building a bench which is the direction I'll probably go but see if I can find a way to secure it to a wall. I may end up with 2 different benches on different walls, one for seating and one for brass prep if I feel like I need the space with a rolling bench for additional bench space.
I have in my mind what I want to build, I'd like about 20x15 to work on guns and reload with a side of windows down the long end, and another 20x30 as a trophy room with no windows. Ideally with a view on the windows side. Long way from building something like that, but I know what I'd like to have. An old timey gunsmith in Wyoming, had something similar. Made a nice place to work and hang out.
If i was assembling the perfect reloading room, it would be large enough to have an island in the middle of it. I would utilize all four sides to mount presses or equipment rather than mounting each of them a traditional bench top.
So a kitchen, but for bullets. Food for your guns.
Scored a used packaging table from a friend who's business was making some changes. I'm setting up in my old home brewery space which is front half of the 3rd car space in the garage. The back part of the garage already had a storage area in it. The bench is made by U-Line so lots of "accessories" for it. I ordered another shelf that's laying on the bench to be installed along with an outlet that mounts in one of the legs. I'm not sure what I'll do with the pegboard as I prefer tools put away in the tool chest but we'll see. It has casters that I'll likely remove for more stability.
It'll be cool to have a more or less dedicated space and I've slowly acquired several things to upgrade my reloading including a chargemaster, annealer, measuring tools, etc. All I had previously was a press, powder measure, a couple beam scales, and a few other things.
The other project is the rust bucket Co-Ax I'm rebuilding - more on that later.
I have a stainless tall table I'll use for cleaning and general stuff. The brewing system is going away so I'll have more room. I'll update as the project progresses.
Just reworked my reloading station a bit due to finding an old lab bench for sale here locally. I think it turned out pretty good.
Upgraded to a whole new bench/shelf setup a while back. Can't remember if I saw it here or somewhere else, but using the T tracks is great for keeping the stuff that doesn't get used as often out of the way.
f ing A man, i know this is old, but f in A manI recently built a new haven for my daily operations.
Here's some pictures in no particular order. There is simply too much going on in this room to get pictures of everything.
Thanks.
I've since built an entirely new setup... and it makes that old one look ridiculous and small time. I might do a write up on it some day. We'll see.We would all enjoy that.Thanks.
Myron
I built a bench and put it in one of the rooms I reclaimed from the women of the house.
I really need to add channels like that to one of my benches for quick changeout stuff. I really like that.My buddies bench he just built, I'm using him as a ginny pig. It works so well!
My wife thinks I only have 3 guns
I bought some cabinets at the hardware store and created a 2x4 frame on the bottom with some heavy duty cantilever brackets. Threw a few butcher block tops on and this is my setup
My space was very limited as I retired recently and converted my home-office into office/reloading room. Used a combination of built-in counter space, Frankford Arsenal's Platinum Series Reloading Stand, and leveraged Inline Fabrication Quick Change Mounts and Wall Organizers to save space. While not as visually awesome as many of the tables shown here (which I lust after but couldn't work in m limited space) ... it's remarkably functional and works for me. The Frankford Stand and Inline Fab stuff worked way better than I thought it would, and there's nothing I've wanted to do thus far, that hasn't worked in this setup for the five calibers I'm reloading now. Being able to move the press from "light duty" (on the Frandford Stand) to "heavy duty" (on the counter-mounted stand) via Inline Fab mounts is super helpful. Out of sight behind me is another shelf system where I store primers, bullets, blocks, hand-tools, etc. Here's a photo of my Low-Tech / Low-Budget / Space-Optimized "reloading corner". Very thankful my wife allowed this, and I've been surprised at how well it's worked.
For a limited space, it is very well done.
Thank you for all the details.
May need to see more of the space to get the framed handgun in view and the heavy duty storage cabinet to the far right.
The framed case has two "special" pistols ... left is a never-fired mirror-polished 1978 Walther PPK ... right is a never-fired mirror-polished 2018 SIG P220 Compact with 24K gold-plated controls. I may fire them "someday" ... but not "today".
The "heavy duty storage" on the right side is a 2nd Amendment Pistol safe.
Photos follow:
No reloading room is complete without Folgers cans and zip loc bags.
Don't feel bad ... everyone else's is a mess too ... they just clean up for the photo.
Well that just wont do. Doesnt have the same structural stability as a Folgers can.
At the rate my 8 kids go thru ice cream I can just about trade all of them out monthly. And I gradually slipped into coffee snobbery so this house hasn't seen a folger's can in a while lol.
Its funny you say that, I dont think Ive ever drank folgers at home.......I have no idea where all these cans came from lol.
Frame is built out of cedar 4x4s and 2x4s assembled with the Eastwood bench brackets. A Lowe’s solid core wood door. The bottom shelves will hold about 8 "fat fifty" ammo cans.
I am working on shelving for the rear of it now to take up some of the width.
I also have a Hornady 366 shotgun press that I may add on the end where the safe is.
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update on #695. Got the shelves built. 2x12s on 1” pipe pedestals and the back secured to each shelf. It doesn’t move.
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