Reconsider mounting the Dillon, if it earns a place under the bench in a box, like mine, it may as well hava a spot on your bench. You could have up to sixteen linear feet of bench space.

craigd wrote on Jan 30^th, 2024 at 8:25am:


so why is yours not on the bench?

More like kind of a collection of furniture and storage.  Like the old saying "A place for everything and where did I put that?"

Jack

I downsized last year to a place in town close to my disabled wife's Dr's.I miss the bigger ares and have half my crap jammed in a 3rd car garage bay.I still need to build a separate casting shed out back.

SchwartzStock,
Are we helping your cause? I know that after seeing pics of other benches, I am not going to clean mine. I feel better now!

SBoomer wrote on Feb 1^st, 2024 at 8:06am:



Is that your shooting port window in the second photo? With what looks like a hatch door folded up? Very nice setup!

Otony wrote on Feb 1^st, 2024 at 11:56am:


Yes it is. I had to make the door to try to minimize escaping heat in the winter. I regularly shoot at temps of down to -20f and the escaping heat mirage is almost unmanageable. The lower door is for bench and the upper door for offhand use. It works very well as long as you remember to open the double-hung first . The red dots are on the glass for a reason! The other pic is my 100 and 200yd range. I had the use of a D5N this fall and finally pushed it in so I can do snow removal. In a “normal” year you would be looking at 5ft banks by now. It was my dream to have this shooting set-up and I am very thankful for it. I have a permanent quick release chrono stand built in location with the readout inside next to my camera monitor.

One thing I've done recently is "cull" my dies, bunch of them went away via ebay. Stuff like 22-250 (never owned one) duplicates (3x 45 ACP, 2x 44 Mag) etc. This helps a lot with storage! I've never been one to load for others so there is just no need for calibers I don't shoot.

I still have 416 Rigby but just for nostalgia, the rifle is long gone. I also kept 7 and 8mm Mauser dies but I figure one my crop up in the future....

SchwartzStock wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2024 at 8:39am:



I have triple digits of die sets  Many of them doubles and for calibers I don't own guns for.I find sometimes they can use them for forming other cases and even tapering bullets.

rkba2nd wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2024 at 12:45pm:


When I list a gun for sale I often add a disclaimer: "If this gun accumulates much more dust I will have to increase shipping charges" 

I bought several surplus upper cabinets from the Habitat for Humanity store.  They work well for storing stuff that otherwise gets in the way, and they were super cheap.  Price cheap, not quality cheap.  I think they came from a doctor’s office based on the labels that were on them.  Below my benches are drawer cabinets that came out of a chemistry lab that was being renovated.  The benches still get loaded with crap even with tons of storage.  I have 2 Dillon 550 presses that sit on one bench (one bought new, and the other picked up used for $100).  With 2 Dillons I don’t have to switch the priming system between small and large primers.  The other bench has a quick detach system for my RCBS Rockchucker, a bench vise, bullet sizer, etc. 

Obviously I’m very good at keeping it clean and organized

Y2K I was living in an apartment.   Built this box to contain everything needed.  (It originally had a cover that could be locked.)

23 years later, still using it.  Sitting on a roll-around kitchen cabinet which stores small hand tools and powder. RCBS Junior mounted on a heavy bench just to the right, (which mainly supports my "small" lathe). On the left out of view is a bookcase holding dies, bullets, primers, gas checks, bags of brass, etc.   All easily within arm's reach.  Lyman Junior is permanently set  up for .38 Spl and 9mm.  Tong tool does all my decapping.  Brass tumbler lives in the kitchen under a counter. 

First off, I'm a bachelor so I can get away with this. I built a free standing bench out of a repurposed oak benchtop 1 1/4" thick, 30" x five feet, with massive 3x4" ash legs and cross members - all finished with oil and varnish. Furniture-grade work, because it lives in the center of my living room. It doubles as my desk and "gunnery" bench, so I humorously refer to it as my "dench". My Gerstner tool chest resides on it as well as a Lyman press and a melange of trinkets, gizmos, and other such clutter that soothes my soul. All other loading apparatus is stored on wall shelves (those that aren't underfoot) and three footlocker-size wooden chests I built. Powder and primers are in big Tupperware bins (how many of them is a secret best kept from the fire marshal), brass in more of those bins, and bullets share space with the couple thousand books I have crammed into several floor-to-ceiling shelf systems I built. I would post a picture but it's my private space and I gotta draw the line with Internet privacy someplace.

Speaking of drawing the line, I do that with my casting setup too - not in the living room, rather off site in my shop.

So far the only apprehension about my "gunnery stuff" in my living room resulted from when I did a Cerrosafe chamber cast and I overflowed the chamber. The spillage hit the Persian rug and blended itself into the carpet fibers. No pulling it off, I had to excise the frozen lump of Cerrosafe with a razor blade leaving a decidedly bald spot. 

Nary a woman in the world would sit still for my antics. My long term GF is abhorred and doesn't like visiting here, which is fine I just go to her. My arrangement is a reaction to all those years of being relegated to basements and garages and ex-wives who didn't tolerate that which I'm most passionate about. Notice I said "ex-wives".....

I did a cerosafe cast a couple of days ago and a tiny bit splashed on my leather shoe.  I took it off to pick off the splat and spilled more on my now holey sock.

I have been thinking I may use steel supports for legs on the bench and have been looking on a website called "Small advertisements". While searching this morning I happened on these. While they are much more than I need for the reloading bench they are perfect for the new work bench I want to put in the garage to replace two small benches in there now that have a couple of grinders and a drill press on them. Note the circular "drawer", they call is a turning drawer.

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How deep (front to back) are your reloading benches? I am thinking of using two layers of 1" thick USB as the table/bench top. A standard size here is 2.5m long and 1.2m wide. If I rip it I can get two pieces about 24" wide by 8' long. It just happens that a bench that size works well in my garage as well, I can squeeze by the Mustang...