3 Great New Reloading Products for 2024

Shooting Times has a long history of announcing new products in the June issue following the annual SHOT Show. Carrying on that tradition, here’s a quick look at three new reloading products.

2024 Hodgdon Annual Manual (MSRP: $14.99)

Hodgdon has a new-for-2024 Annual Manual. I’ve been contributing to the Annual Manual for close to two decades and keep copies of every edition near my loading bench. While comparing the first one with the latest one, I discovered a few interesting facts. Both contain about 200 pages. They include rifle, handgun, and shotgun load recipes, usually with both velocity and pressure data. Propellant descriptions include suggested applications. There’s a comprehensive powder-burn-rate chart for almost all currently available powder options. The list has expanded from 103 to 164 different propellants over 20-plus years, reflecting new products and those that are no longer available. The first manual included recipes only for Hodgdon brand propellants. A few years later, Hodgdon arranged with Winchester to distribute their canister powder and promptly expanded the load data provided. In more recent years, they acquired IMR’s intellectual property rights and the Accurate and Ramshot product lines, which required adding even more data to subsequent manuals.  Every edition of the Annual Manual offers up to a dozen interesting articles prepared by prominent and upcoming writers from across the industry. This year’s edition introduces handloaders to three new powders: Hodgdon Perfect Pattern shotshell powder, Hodgdon High Gun shotshell powder, and Ramshot Grand magnum rifle powder. It also includes reloading articles on primers as variables in .308 Winchester handloads, loads for subsonic rifle ammunition, the effects of barrel length on velocity, and more. My contribution to it is an article on handloads for 9mm budget bullets.

Hornady Click-Adjust Bulletseating Micrometer (MSRP: $109.73)

Hornady is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and the 2024 catalog announces the Click-Adjust Bulletseating Micrometer. The typical Hornady seater die features a floating internal sleeve and seating stem. The sleeve ensures the case and bullet are properly aligned as the stem presses the bullet into the case mouth. A threaded plug mounted in the top of the die body is adjusted up or down to achieve the desired bulletseating depth. The new accessory replaces the threaded plug. So what does this gain the serious handloader? First of all, the old part is unadorned with any markings to allow you to record the position it’s adjusted to in oreder to obtain the desired cartridge overall length (COL) for a favorite handload. Several of my old Hornady seater dies have an ink mark drawn halfway across the top of the plug so that when I achieve the desired bulletseating depth, I will note on my load data sheet the clock position the mark is pointing at. I often have unscrewed the plug and counted the number of rotations required to reestablish the proper position of the seater stem in the die. This crude process works, but it’s obviously tedious. With the new seating device installed, simply adjust the stem/dial setting until you achieve the COL desired and record the micrometer reading for later reference. If you, like my late mentor John Redmon, shoot five-round batches of a test load with everything the same except COL, you now can easily adjust the micrometer setting five-thousandths of an inch, ten-thousandths of an inch, or lower in multiple steps to evaluate the effect of bulletseating depth on accuracy. It’s a handy device.

RCBS Commemorative Summit Press (MSRP: $379.99)

RCBS has offered many new reloading presses, both metallic and shotshell, since the company started making bullet swages during World War II. When I started reloading in the early 1970s, I wanted an RCBS A2 single-stage press because it was the “Cadillac” of anything on the market. Fred Roe, another mentor of mine, had one on his bench and was so startled with my oohing and ahing when I saw it, he stamped his name on it! My first press was an RCBS Jr., and I progressed through a Rock Chucker, an A4, and a Rock Chucker Supreme. However, I also have provisions and room to mount other presses I have on hand (including an A2 I acquired a few years back—not Fred’s!) as needed. One of those on standby is an early production Summit press. It doesn’t have the leverage of the Rock Chucker models, so I don’t reform cases or full-length resize .416 Rigby brass with it. Fitted with the short operating handle, the Summit press mounts in a small footprint on your bench and doesn’t have to overhang the edge. I often load straight-wall handgun and small rifle ammo that requires much less leverage when resizing with it. And I usually seat rifle bullets with it because I prefer to hold the bullet in position and lower the die instead of trying to keep the bullet properly aligned with the die while the ram lifts my hand holding the bullet atop the case mouth. It’s just a scheme that seems to work best for me. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Summit press, and the new limited-edition commemorative Summit press wears a bold red, white, and blue Freedom camo finish. It’s every bit as good as the original one I have used for a decade. 

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