Reloading Room Ideas

[El Guapo]

Looking to remodel our basement with all the fun that goes with that. On the bright side, this will allow me to gut our extra office/"storage" room downstairs to studs and rebuild it into a small (8' X 11') reloading room/bow/rifle workshop. I currently do all of this type of work out in the garage.

Wondered if anyone would like to post pics or ideas that they have put together for this type of project? Anything that I should be thinking about up front? Thinking a couple of separate work bench counter spaces for reloading and working on bows, building arrows. Looking at re-wiring for some light duty tools such as grinders, small drill press, arrow saws, tumblers, etc, as well as wiring for sound and a flat-screen. Have an attached closet for hunting clothes, boots, packs, gun and bow cases.

Kind of a mini hide-out where I can get some work done, especially in the winter months. Just looking for any must-haves, cool ideas, things that you wished you thought of, anything else. Thanks!

 

[Ben Lamb]

I'll get some pics later but i would say that the drill press, grinder, etc is best left in the garage unless you want to be constantly sweeping up sawdust, shavings, etc. i have everything in one room now and am looking at some heavy tarps and a rail system to cordon off a part of the room for the dirty work.

 

[HONEY BADGER]

Those work benches that Costco has every now and then make great work/reloading benches. Make sure you have plenty of good lighting...as you get older you will appreciate it. You can never have too much counter space which is what I wish I had more of. If you have enough you can have a reloading bench, a cleaning station, and a build/disassemble station all ready to go and never have to pick up all your reloading stuff to put down your cleaning stuff....if that makes sense. Add some tunes too, reloading without tunes can get old...

Lighting like this under the shelving of the bench so my old peepers can see head stamps and grains of powder.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008DO76NE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Power strip like this one along the back of the bench for easy access to plug ins.

http://www.amazon.com/Legrand-PM48T...424156284&sr=8-1&keywords=diamond+power+strip


Here is my setup using the items described"

 

[tarheel]

Make room for a dorm sized refrigerator.

 

[emrah1028]

Humidifier. Especially if it will be carpeted. In fact, don't carpet the reloading room.

Emrah

 

[deer_shooter]

This is my little corner of the basement

 

[HSi-ESi]

Honey Badger - what scale do you have? It looks like an analytical scale - not just one from the reloading catalog.

 

[idahofishnhunt]

Hmmm...powder hoarding much? lol.

 

[huntin24/7]

Not to hijack the thread, but do you guys clean your brass (tumbler, etc.) every time or just after they've been fired a few times and are really dirty? Some awesome looking setups by the way. Mine is messy but does the trick.

 

[MThuntr]

Those are some clean reloading tables...I built mine out of scrap pieces of 2x4 and 2x6 leftover from a basement remodel. I'll take a pic when I clean it up a little. As suggested, no carpet and probably would keep a separate area for any power tools to keep the mess down and to prevent damage to expensive scales and sparks away from powder. Depending on where you are and how tight your basement is, you may want a dehumidifier in that room to keep your expensive reloading equipment from rusting.

I found a few of those display trays that they sell bulk screws, nuts, and bolts in at a hardware stores. They are handy for separating brass as well as storing small allen wrenches and spare parts.

Huntin24/7...I clean after everytime I resize my cases with a rotating wet tumbler and stainless steel media. I can get my brass shinier than store bought brass with a little bit of dish soap and Lemishine. I don't even bother with dry tumbling anymore.

 

[idahofishnhunt]

Not to hijack the thread, but do you guys clean your brass (tumbler, etc.) every time or just after they've been fired a few times and are really dirty? Some awesome looking setups by the way. Mine is messy but does the trick.

I tumble mine after every use...helps to see any defects better as well as looking really pretty.

 

[ERSS]

I have my reloading set up in my office area, in the loft portion of our house. Since I am lazy, I will load a few, then sit for awhile with my feet up and have a coke .

I have shooting bench and chrony set up that hooks to the railing of my deck, through those doors, and can shoot into a hillside. Makes it nice for instant results on groups of three at various OAL or powder charges when working up a load. Tumbler and dirty stuff goes out on the deck, weather permitting.

I do wish I had a better set up for TV, etc.. End up watching alot of Netflix on laptop when reloading.

 

[fishing4sanity]

When we put the reloading room together we looked through the return/bargain/damaged section at HomeDepot and Lowes and used a counter-top and cabinet sections for the bench. It turned out to be nice and solid and gave us a decent amount of storage right there. I'll second Honey Badger on making sure you have good lighting and Mthuntr about the wet tumble with stainless steel media. Now, if we could just open the doors and be at the range like ERSS.

 

[HONEY BADGER]

Honey Badger - what scale do you have? It looks like an analytical scale - not just one from the reloading catalog.

Ha you will laugh but I actually found that thing on a fishing trip to Humboldt County. It is a magnetic force restoration scale accurate out to .005. The place I bought it said their motto is "every ounce counts", I am pretty sure they were not in the business of selling scales for reloading, but it is super accurate and reliable. Works great.

 

[GSP4EVER]

Like Mthuntr, I need to clean up my table a little bit. I didn't do as much shooting last year due to various reasons, so I haven't had the need to reload any. The tables has kinda become a catch all. My table is a gardeners table that I picked up at an antique shop for $50. I started out in the garage, but then one day my wife says,"I thought you were going to be doing all of this reloading." I told her it was too hot and humid to stand out in the garage. She then said that i could put it in the basement. Our basement is completely finished, so it carpeted. I bought a rubber mat, anti fatigue type mat. Easier cleanup and keeps powder out of the carpet for the most part. I bought a metal cabinet at a garage sale for $10 that I store all of my clean brass in. I keep my powders locked up in the long gun cabinet and a "Stack on" pistol cabinet. My basement is very humid in the summer, so I run a dehumidifier. This past year, I made the move from dry tumbling to wet tumbling w/ stainless steel pins. I cleaned almost all of my brass. I normally cleaned after each firing, although I have loaded some pistol cases without cleaning. Ill post some pics later. ITs not as nice as some of these other reloading rooms, but it gets the job done.

 

[noharleyyet]

Nice propulsion labs fellas....OCD and gunpowder is a good match.

 

[MThuntr]

Ok so I never got around to cleaning my reloading table. It'll get cleaned before the next round of loading. Most of it is 2x6 which makes it way overbuilt but that is what I had. I forget the height but it designed to stand at but you can sit with a stool. I think good lighting is important. I rent an old house now that has terrible lighting so I added a 48" shoplight. Those bins with brass were originally made for screws and bolts at a hardware store. I don't have enough storage so brass is sorted into Ziplock bags and labeled.

Things that I'm going to change include removal of middle shelf (change how that junk is stored), add pegboard system, and implement some sort of track system so I can move my presses and trimmers around.

I built an NRA reloading bench with storage at my old house & it cost about $150 to build but sold it with the house due to its size. I do prefer the NRA bench to this one though.

 

[TimeOnTarget]

You guys sure have clean reloading benches. I'm embarrassed!

 

[TimeOnTarget]

Hmmm...powder hoarding much? lol.

Nah, It'd only be hoarding if those were all 8lb'ers.