How much room do you dedicate to a reloading room? Looking for an efficient set up.

I basically reload rifle only, have a bench about 6 feet long with a shelf underneath, a cabinet with small drawers and a shelf about the bench.cabinet sits on bench and holds bullet boxes, primers and dies.shelf above holds a few tools and my scale.press and powder measure is mounted to bench and powder and bulky items go on shelf under bench.
whole setup could be in a room space 6 foot by 6 foot.
word space makes what I'm trying to say make more sense, my reloading space is only for reloading so that there is nothing extra in the way.

I think trapr gave a great start point if you're just beginning or don't plan to load extensively. I would call that about the minimum.

Just like a trapping shed, make it bigger than you think you'll need. I started off with a small bench and a single stage press and now have dedicated progressive loaders for pistol and shotgun plus a lot of cool toys to make loading easier and/or faster.

I just have an old, small wooden desk my wife picked up at a garage sale for $5. It has a few drawers and I have a shelf mounted on the wall above the desk. That's all I've ever needed.

Of course, the first several years I was reloading I held everything a plastic toolbox that I kept under a desk. I only loaded for one caliber back then, though.

I guess it all depends on how much equipment you plan to use.

Been reloading for years on a small bench. Not much room needed. Make sure it's strong n level.

I built a bench about 42" wide and 24" deep. Put a shelf and drawer below and a set of shelves on top at the back. Gives me plenty of room for my 1 press. There is a separate cabinet for powder, bullets, etc.

Google "reloading benches" and you can find hundreds of photos. Pick a set-up you like and build something like it. It doesn't take a whole room, just one corner.

10x10 area dedicated for reloading. I need that much to store 40,000 primers, 100 pounds of powder, 100,000 casings, and 75,000 bullets in all calibers, plus presses, tumblers. Not too mention live ammo in storage box.
Make it bigger then you think, trust me. Sarge

I had an entire bedroom for my "gun room" until i got married.

When it got bad enough i had to move some stuff to get to the wall my station is set-up, i got my room back!

a bed room is a good size to start it really depends how much you have and reload for and want to reload for , and if you cast

I have it all in my office 11x14 room there is other stuff in there also mostly tools

my press is attached to the desk I work at it has limited space to reload but is very convenient to be able to prep brass while talking on the phone and watching my computer.

some people keep all their stuff in a closet and reload in the dining room then put it all away.


if say all I did was reload and didn't cast and didn't coat my own bullets and have buckets of brass to sort through on 3x6 foot bench would be fine with sorage shelves under it and over it

but I do more than that I have a bench for casting , and a stand with a convection oven for coating and kydex with shelves under it and a 3x6 foot bench for work space and a seperate 2x4 table that I use , file cabinets to store things

how much volume will figure into your space need

I'd say you could squeak by with a new 40x80' pole building with a concrete floor, insulated with heat and AC, of course you may want to go 60X100' to be on the safe side. Tell the ol'lady to quit buying those expensive junk surgical blade knives that are just throwing money away every time she changes blades you should be able to afford it.

took over my little brother's old bedroom for my loading and gun stuff.
dang room is tiny but handy. press is mounted on a 3 foot cabinet and keep powder and bullets in it too.
dies are stored in a wall cabinet i built just for loading tools.

if your looking for efficency

what I have an really like is a bunch of bread pans , I have a stand up bench at a comfortable working height , some may disagree but I find the top of the bench even with the bottom of my ribs to be about perfect. that leaves a lot of room to store stuff under the bench.

I scavenged a few old desk tops from desks that were getting tossed at work , old metal bottom desks with heavy laminate tops the drawers were junk so I just took the tops they are very solid 3x6 foot but if you were making a new bench from lumber doubled up 3/4 or 5/8 plywood glued and screwed form the under side on a 2x4 frame with a nice coat of poly or painted white.

I left the desk edge hang 4 inches over the front under support 2x4 that was just right for my press to mount to the edge of the desk top then I put a 2x4 spacer to move the bread pans out and screwed bread pans to the 2x4 they are off the desk top and a very convenient height to grab brass or bullet.

here is a picture without showing you much of my messy reloading area , you should keep it free of clutter , good luck with that.

most things in relaoding are one preccess at a time , so tow bins are good most of the time as you can see the bread pans are doubled up , they are hard to clean out if you use the one screwed tot he bench but a second one nests right into the one screwed tot he bench so I have a collection of them they are just the cheap ones at the grocery store like 2 dollars each it is handy to be able to change out the pans and leave the brass or bullets in them.

I run a turret so I start with prepped brass in rifle and just clean brass in pistol and 4 pulls o fthe handle later I have a finsihed round.

I typically run brass in the one closer to the press and bullets further I am going to add one more for finished rounds or holding small hand tools like primer pocket reamer

sometimes I divide the bullet bin in half with a small card board box now to accomplish this now.

a bread pans easily holds about 4-500 9mm or about 150 223rem cases

if you run a bolt action rifle , the lee collett die saves a lot of time , my 308 reloads nearly as fast as 9mm because I don't drop my brass al over the place getting it dirty and because I keep that brass to that rifle , with the collett die it only neck sizes so I avoid full length sizing and trimming

in 308 I set the cartridge box in the bras bin start on one side and as I remove the case it goes into the press pull one is size and decap on the up stroke , prime on the down stroke , powder on the up stroke , place bullet when down , up into the seating die , down and up into the crimp die and done

on the semi auto stuff I have to clean , full length size , trim or at least check length , if it has primer crimp chamfer the primer pocket then it as at the same stage the 308 brass is coming out of the MTM cartidge box.

I keep my pressure very reasonable so my brass don't grow very often and I have brass on 6+ reloading in 308 and the bolt still closes easily

Great idea on the bread pans. The clutter monster is already trying to invade me. Took over a spare bedroom built a sub frame of 2 X 6 with doubled 3/4 BC plywood and the press is mounted as well as the RCBS priming tool. Next will be shelves in my progression.

if a guy had room in a basement or something to have a 4x8 bench that you could get all the way around or even 3 sides you could do a almost everything at one bench if you kept it clean

press on one corner vice on the other room for cleaning and maintenance on he other side lots of storage underneight

I would build that bench so that the top was even with the top of my belt buckle then make a riser for the press to get it up or get a stool and sit at the press

something like this could make very efficient use of space in a bedroom that you would someday want to put back as a bedroom , shelves and safes against the walls

My previous setups were in workshops and had plenty of room. Now I don't have a workshop so I just set up my area this week and it is an old metal office desk that weighs about 250-300 pounds. Has multiple drawers and the top is 34 inches by 60 inches. Very sturdy desk. Bought it at a thrift store for $50. I think it is going to work fine.

GREENCOUNTYPETE Did this one and liking it enough going to do a second one for the other side. Will be doing shelves as well between them. Found the loaf pans at dollar tree for $1 each.

That’s a pretty cool setup. Would work for most anything. Screws, nuts/bolts, etc. Or even brass and reloading supplies? lol.
Great idea!!

dang now i can add one more project to get done lol

Is an easy one though Cotton. Did mine in an hour and had some time to spare LOL. Might get fancy and do a couple slide under the bench for my tools that litter the bench.