handload

present singular third person handloads · participle present handloading · participle past handloaded · past handloaded

1. ambitransitiveTo load (cartridges for firearms) by hand.

   He handloads his shells with less powder than factory loads have. The lighter load seems to kill a turkey just as quickly, but doesn't do as much damage to the meat.

   1988, John E. Phillips, Outdoor Life: Complete Turkey Hunting, →ISBN, page 208

   4 more examples

   He handloads his match ammunition. For long range he uses 49½ grains of 4064 powder, the Sierra Match King (boattail) bullet and Government (F.A. [Frankford Arsenal]) primers. How does he get Government primers? He pulls the bullets out of […]

   1956, Sports Afield, volume 138, page 85

   You need what all of us could do with more of—off-season practice on running targets. That moral thought is all very fine if you live where jack rabbits skitter twelve months a year. The man from Butte or Boise can shoot moving-target rifle practice until he handloads or goes broke. But what of the chap from Binghamton, from a settled section […]

   1956, Field and Stream, volume 61, page 118

   […] in the .30-06. Of course he handloads, and American primers are easier to punch out than the foreign Berdan, a simple cup primer, for the anvil is formed in the case's primer pocket. Accuracy of the 6.5x55 and 6.5x.257 is about the same, he finds. The .30-06 […]

   1958, Henry M. Stebbins, Rifles: A Modern Encyclopedia, Stackpole, page 111

   […] adequate power for the game in question, and as a matter of course he handloads. Instead of going to the 50,000-pounds-pressure levels he gets a case that's big enough to start with and doesn't need to be strained!

   1958, Henry M. Stebbins, Rifles: A Modern Encyclopedia, Stackpole, page 348

2. ambitransitiveTo load (a firearm, usually a pistol or rifle) by hand.

   Antonyms: autoload

plural handloads

1. A cartridge that is handloaded.

   Factory pressures on these items don't run over 46,000 but your handloads undoubtedly would, and the old action design seems to me a poor bet. If you want to build a 6 mm. single-shot, I'd suggest a Winchester high wall, or the action made by Wilbur Hauck of West Arlington, Vermont. —W.P.

   1956, [columnist] W.P., Field and Stream, volume 61, page 89