Considering getting into reloading

[AdamVIP]

This is very similar to the other thread going on right now but I guess Ill chime in here too. I would suggest starting single stage with a quick swappable die setup. My choice would be a Forster Co-Ax but there's others in the marketplace now too like the Franklin M press for less money. You get all of the advantages of a single stage and the biggest drawback (time to change dies) is eliminated. Plus if you get a progressive setup you still want a single stage to be a partner press for things like de-capping anyways so it will always be useful.

[mikeyr]

there are many reasons to reload, you save money (how much depends on the caliber), its a great hobby (my friends say I only shoot to use up my reloads and reloading is my primary hobby they say) and while the deposit on the press can be high, the costs to get in are not bad (I call the purchase a deposit since presses depreciate very little and in a decade you will sell for almost the price of new, so it was basically a rental, not a purchase). As to my rental idea, well you do have to sell, I still have my rockchucker from 70s and my Lee from the 90s and now 4 Dillons, never sold one so maybe my rental idea is not so good
In all seriousness, the real reason to reload is to go shooting, I never stopped shooting during the Covid era where everyone was complaining about not being able to get ammo, I quietly reloaded and went shooting twice a month as always. I am finally now getting low on primers, only about 6,000 left since I stacked everything high and deep while the going was good before the Covid shortages.

[pennstater]

USMCmatt, you've gotten a lot of very good advice here. I'm in the Single stage camp and, there a number of quality single stage kits out there, say at midway, sheels etc. As others have mentioned, you'll need to have the time to devote to this hobby. Whatever your decision, ask questions here, you'll get help.

MLC

[L4D]

Its fun not saying .30 cents!, .30 cents!, .30 cents! after every trigger pull of factory ammo.

Now I just say "I have no idea, as i've lost count of all that ive spent and the time involved to make those 30 rounds"


You might want to look into a turret press. You sound like time is limited and shooting volume is not high. I go through about 500-700 rounds per month of 9, 223 and 300 BO just for 5chits, the LCT has been ideal.

[Tripplet918]

I prefer my old 550 over the 650/750. That said, even if you get a progressive, I STONGLY recommend having a single stage press on your bench too.

Definitely less putzing with it on the 550. I have a case feeder on my 650 and it double the adjustment/calibration/tweaking. Mods (after market upgrades) further increase tweaking. There a learning curve to most mods, it just takes time to figure out whats it affected and how to compensate.

[Cowboy T]

USMCmatt, I will add my voice to the chorus of those suggesting to go single-stage first, before going progressive. Learn how to crawl before you try to be Usain Bolt. Any of them out there, be they Hornady, Forster, RCBS, Lee, or similar will be just fine. One of my shooting buddies uses his Dad's old RCBS Rockchucker for everything, to this day. It's strong enough to take an A-bomb blast and continues to load very precise ammo. The single-stage on my own bench was, until very recently, a Lee Reloader Press. Both work very well.

So, what happened to my Lee Reloader Press? One of my young employees, a 23 year old college student, just got into reloading and bought it from me last month; I gave him a good price on it. So, I replaced it with a Lee APP because it lets me size my cast "boolits" and do really fast depriming and primer pocket swaging for the .308 Win military cases.

Another option would be a Lee Classic Turret Press. This is sort of mid-way between single-stage and progressive, and it's quite good at doing both rifle and handgun cartridges. Its strength is its versatility, much like the .30-06 Springfield cartridge. If I were allowed to have only one press, that would be it.

Here's how reloading is done.

https://www.sanfranciscoliberalwithagun.com/basicreloading.html