The one thing my husband asked for when we moved was to have enough room in the house so that he could have a reloading room. As an avid rifle and shotgun hunter he has discovered that reloading is a key ingredient to his successes in the field. It is one of the many ways that he stays active with his favorite hobby even in the off-season. So when we looked at house we loved the fact that it included a small bedroom with knotty pine wood paneling and wood floors. The room would work perfectly for a man who needed a work bench and good lighting. The small room is now a work room with a reloading bench that any gun nut would love to have.
Downloadable plans for a reloading bench
Tom was able to find the plans on-line and with a lot of scrap lumber, Tom made this bench only purchasing plywood and a sheet of Masonite. Even the paint for the bottom and legs was from the previous home owners collection of left over paint. At one time most of the parts of this bench where scraps from cement forms that Tom saved from being sent to the local dump from a construction site. The 4 x 4’s were actually found in the basement of the other house and were free. With scavenged lumber and paint I think our cost to build the bench was well under 100 dollars. The normal cost of materials could have cost around 350 dollars or more.
bottom portion of the reloading bench
Top Portion of reloading bench almost finished
As you can see from the plans Tom did not make the sliding doors for the front of the cabinet portion yet and may not use them at all in the future. Trying to find the track for the sliding doors has been a bit of a challenge and may lead to him not using them at all. It really will depend on if he feels the need to cover up all of his supplies.
Tom getting ready to use his new reloading bench
The next step in the process is to mount some of his reloading presses. In his case he has two shoot shell loaders and two rile reloading presses. So the front of the bench will be home to several holes so that the presses are removable at any time. In most cases once the presses get mounted they will be on the bench for long periods of time. Making a sturdy work area for the thousands of cases my husband loves to load.
It took Tom less than a month to do this project on nights and weekends and it will soon be joined by a smaller wall mounted drop table top for gun repair and cleaning. Soon he will finally have a place to really enjoy his guns and reloading work with out worries that one of the kids has gotten into some of his supplies.
Tom hopes to get things finish up and mounted as we only have 3 months until turkey season and we are both so excited to get back in the woods with our spring gobbler tags. He plans to spend at least three weekends hunting and that means being ready with home loaded shot shells. I am guessing that this recycled wood and 100 dollars going is the best investment he has made it a long time.
West Virginia Mountain Mama 
That looks great! Good job Tom. If he doesn’t need to have more than one press available at a time, he might want to do what I did. I have a bench where I use a mortising machine, a small chop saw and a bench grinder. I installed a universal set of threaded inserts into the workbench, and I made mounting plates for each machine out of 3/4″ plywood. Each tool is permanently mounted to its own base but all the bases can be mounted to the workbench using the same threaded knobs. Switching from one machine to another takes about 2-3 minutes. If I need to use two machines at the same time, I can clamp the 2nd machine’s mounting plat to a different bench for a few minutes.
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Dan when Tom gets home tonight I will review your comment with him and see if that is something that is workable for him… I do know that he it thinking about this problem and may find this very helpful
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If pictures would help, I can get some this weekend.
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I talked with Tom and he is going to mount the presses to one spot and build another smaller work bench so at this time the presses will not move unless replaced. He will use your idea in the when he makes the bench in the garage when he wants to use things for shorter amounts of time… if you want to send photos that great it will help in the future.. .again thank you Dan.
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I probably will write a post about mounting those machines, because I have another setup in my shop that is designed to support multiple machines and this will let me write about jigs and fixtures (which I love).
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wonderful Dan cant wait!
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Nice work bench. Our son also reloads shells and repairs guns as a hobby. His reloading bench is very similar to toms. He built it but I don’t know if he used a pattern. It’s great that Tom is so handy. It sure saves a lot of money.
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My husband also reloads and he enjoyed your post very much. Thanks for sharing the bench plans.
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The bench looks great! BTW we shared it on our Facebook page a few days ago. 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/SierraBullets
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Thanks for the repost… I am glad you like it. Tom loves your products and I am sure we will be talking more about reloading, shooting and hunting again soon.
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The place I worked at got rid of old wooded entry doors. Made a great bench thick solid wood for reloading pressing needs. Quick question savage 7 mag elk hunt which bullet? Range maybe out to 500 yards shots. Thanks
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What a nice story about a husband by a wife
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