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Hi Gang. This is mostly a neighborly question. Still waiting to take possession of our new house and my Dillon 650 XL. Yea! In the deal with buying the house came all of the previous owner's reloading stuff- hence the Dillon. There must also be 6 to 10 full plastic tubs full of varied cleaned and processed brass [45 acp, .223, 357 mag etc] awaiting reloading along with all the dies and bullets, etc. This includes the .380. He must have shot a lot of .380 judging by the quantity of brass. Me not so much so. So my curiosity got the best of me and I am asking about reloading the .380. Is it worth the effort and worth the learning curve? Thanks for your input. Pops
 
I load .380 at the most once a year and then it might be 2-300. I have a couple .380's but they hardly ever get used so ammunition isn't a priority, they're more of a novelty here.
 
Yep, been reloading .380 since about 1986 or so... The deminutive cases can be a challenge, but not much more than 9mm... Personally, for me, because I cast my own lead, loading .380 is cost effective. I can reload .380 for about .06 or .07 per round. YMMV...
 
If you already know how to roll there is nothing hard about it other than the smaller cases. Rolled it for a long time back when we could not mail order ammo, even cast slugs. Even if you do not want to bother I would keep the supplies. I keep all the stuff I need for every caliber I own. Remember the last couple real great panic shortages? Times like that it's comforting to know you can roll some ammo if you need to.
 
The most important thing about reloading 380 is not to shoot 9mm on the same range outing. Picking up brass results in time consuming, difficult for old eyes, differentiation between the brass. I don't shoot it in volume to justify reloading it frequently, but when panic-buys clean the shelves, you'll be glad to have the components.
 
Great feedback ya'll. I forgot all about the ammo panic times. Holy cow I would have to wear two pair of reading glasses at the same time to reload 'em. LOL
 
Good point above. There's been several "panics" over the past few years. Rest assured there will be more.

This. Not that many years ago, you couldn't go into a store and buy .380, nobody had any.

As a practical matter, most .380 owners don't shoot them all that much. But as others have already said, you now have the stuff and own a .380, why not?

By the way, why would someone throw all their reloading stuff into a house deal? Not very smart. Maybe a widow that didn't know any better. But great for you.
 
Pfft... why would anyone waste time loading .380?

Browning 1911-380... that is why! :)

I have .22's, .50's and a LOT in between... the Browning 1911-380 gets more than its fair share of trigger time! With tuned loads it is an awfully accurate shooter with really quick follow up shots.
 
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Man each time I find any .380 brass on the range I qurenteen all my 9mm from that day. Stuff sneaks into 9mm like a dam STD at a free whorehouse. Jams the 1050 OR worse yet actually had it once get loaded and the bullet seat just enough to stay in place until it was about to be loaded into a mag and it fell apart.
 
By the way, why would someone throw all their reloading stuff into a house deal? Not very smart. Maybe a widow that didn't know any better. But great for you.

So here's the rest of that story. The first time we walked through the house looking to buy it I gazed upon the Dillon. I asked our Real Estate Agent [jokingly] to see if the owner would sell the Dillon along with the house. Surprised me but the owner said OK and named a price and threw in the rest of his reloading stuff with it. Couldn't write him that check fast enough. LOL!
 
So here's the rest of that story. The first time we walked through the house looking to buy it I gazed upon the Dillon. I asked our Real Estate Agent [jokingly] to see if the owner would sell the Dillon along with the house. Surprised me but the owner said OK and named a price and threw in the rest of his reloading stuff with it. Couldn't write him that check fast enough. LOL!
Some things are ment to be.
 
The most important thing about reloading 380 is not to shoot 9mm on the same range outing. Picking up brass results in time consuming, difficult for old eyes, differentiation between the brass. I don't shoot it in volume to justify reloading it frequently, but when panic-buys clean the shelves, you'll be glad to have the components.

My eyes are old, what I do though is pour all the cases in a box and then take a loading block or plastic tray from a commercial package (*) and sort of pour the shells over the block (above the box to catch the ones that fall) and shake the block at the same time. Easily 80% of the block will fill up without any real effort. Then I look across the block from the side -- the 9s are super obvious and I pick those, put them in a container, and dump out the 380s into another.

What gets me is mixing .40s and 9s/380s and getting that Russian doll effect, then having to pull them apart one by one.

(*) I make my own loading blocks for different diameter cases about 3-4mm in diameter wider than case I'm loading -- cases fall into these really easily. It might work better if using a commercial tray to use .40 or .45 trays for the 9s/380s -- the cases will fall straight to the bottom rather than stick part way, and they usually fall case mouth up.
 

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