My wife and I moved recently - not far, just down the street - and it's been several weeks of packing, moving, unpacking, and doing all the stuff that comes along with moving. As a result, it's been probably three weeks since I've been to the shooting range and even longer since I sat down at the loading bench. Part of the reason for the delay in getting back to it was that my wife encouraged me to purchase an actual workbench that fits into our space to replace my old workbench, which was really just a cheap particle board writing desk I had repurposed. Now I have an actual workbench and a dedicated space in our oversized utility room instead of being stuck in the hot garage.

That said, after waiting for the bench to arrive and putting it together, it still took me over a week to actually sit down to get back into the practice. I think part of it was that it had been long enough that I was just a little bit worried about forgetting where I left off or minor process improvements, leading to mistakes. Additionally, I wasn't looking forward to learning a new setup at the new bench. Being a creature of habit and someone who isn't particularly fond of change, the old bench - while not the most optimized - was a familiar layout.

I finally decided to bite the bullet, and sit down and make some progress. After spending a handful of weeks working up and dialing in a premium .270 Winchester load for my west Texas hunts, I hadn't yet loaded a full batch. I started with that, just to get the wheels turning again, loading 130-grain Barnes TTSX bullets over Staball6.5 in shiny brass I had tumbled. I had intended to use full-length sized brass to improve reliability and feeding in the field, but I forgot and used neck-sized brass. Not a big deal - just something I'll have to remember going forward.

I also loaded some .360 Buckhammer range rounds, using 180-grain Hornady XTP bullets over CFE BLK. I figured that I would make the same mistakes I usually do - overflaring a couple cases or buckling them while seating. I decided to try running them all through the expanding die one after the other instead of waiting until the powder loading step like I usually do. As a result, I was able to avoid overflaring cases, even if it meant the pour-through die wasn't as useful. Additionally, by slowing down and getting the bullets seated as deep as I could with just my fingers, I was able to prevent buckling any cases and got a consistent crimp every time.

I had originally intended to load some .357 Magnum since I am planning on shooting my Ruger 77/357 next weekend when I go visit my parents in rural East Texas, but I decided to go ahead and tumble the brass first to make it look nice. And since I was already tumbling, I decided to throw in some .35 Remington brass just to clean it up as well.

Not a groundbreaking session and no new experiments or loads worked up, but it did feel good to progress and get back to systems that I enjoy. All in all, it felt good to get the rhythm back.