Reloading in the cold

Blurry1

FNG
Joined
Dec 31, 2024
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97
The title says it. Has anyone found that reloading in a cold area affects the accuracy of your loads? I load in an unheated garage and with temps dropping I have to think resizing even annealed brass is going to be troublesome. Sure I can fire up the space heater and I may get the temp in the mid forties on a cold night but that is even pretty cold. Any other pitfalls besides brass sizing to consider?

Blurry
 
I dont see it being an issue. Though storing stuff where it doesnt get big temp swings isnt a bad thing..

How cold are you talking?
 
Probably low twenties at the coldest. I’m in CO so it’s low humidity and I store my powder in a stable environment so I’m not really worried about that. Mostly just concerned about brass sizing and anything I might be overlooking.
 
No notice in accuracy, but in South Louisiana, I load develop in the summer when its 95*. Sucks, but I know if I find pressure when loading, I know for sure I'm good in the winter hunting months. Then also, If I want to just go shoot, my loads will be ok to do so. I have before check accuracy in the hunting months with no change, so I don't even bother with it anymore.
 
My digital scale takes a long time to stabilize if it's super cold. It tends to drift around a little bit like 0.1 grain when it's warming up. If you add a little bit of heat ( that doesn't also add moisture). It will drive down relative humidity in the room which is good.
The main thing you have to be careful of with a space heater it's turning it on maybe an hour or two ahead of when you're going to load and the air temperatures come up a little bit but the primer and powders and cases and everything are still really cold there's a remote chance of some condensation happening. I guess what I'm saying is a stable temperature cold is okay. But problems happen as the temperatures actually changing. I can bring the temperature up about 10° per hour in my shop during the coldest part of the morning. I'm just careful to let it stabilize for a few hours before I actually start doing something.... But only if I am handling open primers or powder. Nothing else really matters unless there's a stupid big temperature differential somewhere.
 
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