Aug 20, 2016 4 min read

I once hunted with a fellow we nicknamed, the Gadget King.

The reason for the name was he had to own every gadget offered by the industry. His goose decoys filled his garage and some were on poles and hopefully appeared to be flying.

The last time I saw him he was contemplating the purchase of a giant decoy you actually sat in. He even bought artificial corn which I assume was to be scattered among his decoys.

If he had used it where we were hunting I doubt he could have found it after the hunt for the ground was littered with the real thing.

Why bring this up in a piece written about reloading?

I must admit to being a gadget lover when trying to create better hand loads. You don’t have to be a genius to realize a loading bench, dies and a balance are needed when reloading, but my bench holds far more than that.

I have often said at loading seminars I don’t believe the major cause of accidents is too much powder but bad casings. This includes cases that are too long. To avoid that problem, a case trimmer is needed.

But there is another tool that should be on the bench with the trimmer – a caliper. The caliper is used to measure case length. It also doesn’t hurt to have a micrometer to check bullet diameter and head expansion.

Hornady offers a tool to measure the length of a cartridge with the bullet seated touching the lands. It is a useful gadget and beats looking for landmarks on the bullet.

Funnels are a necessity but I have a variety of sizes. Without a funnel, it’s all but impossible to get the powder in the primed cases. I guess it could be done with tweezers if you put them in one at a time. But on my bench there are funnels for this and larger ones for returning powder to the original can.

A magnifying glass is handy for checking cases for split necks, off center flash holes or even something simple like the maker’s name stamped in the head. Case inspection is more important than many reloaders realize.

A mallet with a brass and plastic head is useful for tapping something too tight, and it isn’t expensive. I try to keep a roll of paper towels on my bench, for obvious reasons, along with a rag.

A toothbrush is useful for cleaning debris from small items. If you clean brass in a vibrator filled with stainless steel media, sometimes the media gets caught in the case or even in sized cases the flash hole. A straightened paper clip makes a good tool for the junk removal.

Many of us who reload are elderly, so it doesn’t hurt to keep a spare pair of reading glasses on the bench. That saves a lot of walking back and forth looking for the pair that was used reading this article.

More advanced re-loaders might want to turn the necks on his cases. Inside neck turning is for safety. Cases can attain thicker necks when used a lot.

So an inside reamer is used to bring them back to specifications. Outside turning evens the necks and creates a potentially more accurate case.

While I am sure there are other things on my bench, some of which don’t belong, there is one that does, a small pen light. I have used a larger flashlight but the pen light is better.

After charging the casings with powder, I look into each one to make sure the powder levels look equal and to make sure each one has powder in it. The small beam from the pen light works to perfection.

I’m sure there are more gadgets out there. I always find and try new ones but these are a few of my favorites.

• A hunting buddy of mine Mike Weber recently lost all his hens to raccoons but his rooster survived by flying up to Mike’s deck.

Since the coon attack, the rooster spends the night and part of the day huddling next to Mike’s turkey mount which is on the wall of the deck.

I assume he thinks that mounted Tom Turkey will protect him if the raccoons come back. Pretty smart for a chicken.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.