A newbie asks for opinion on presses

If you're going to bill out your time like that then you may as well just buy the stuff. There is no way on earth that reloading will be cost effective in that sort of thinking. But that sort of suggests that you should be billing yourself for TV watching time and even time spent preparing dinner or pay yourself for going to the gym or submit a bill to yourself for cutting the lawn. In short I think you're off key on that concept. The only way "billing out your time" makes sense is if you are self employed and work long enough hours that if you have to aside the job to reload. You are then literally losing money by spending time reloading. THEN your idea of billing your time makes sense. Or if you work at a job where overtime is there for the asking then again it makes sense to look at it like this. Instead of reloading you can just ask for and work a few hours extra to pay for the ammo. Again this makes total sense. And frankly unless you totally hate your job it's likely the very best way to "reload".

If you're not in one of those last two situations I'd suggest that a more valid way of looking at it is the time used for reloading that could be used for some other family activity or hobby. Basically you have just so much "me time" and you need to decide how to budget it out. If you are dating seriously or if you are married with younger kids you know that "me time" is precious. Do you even have time to consider reloading? Or what are you willing to give up to allow for reloading and saving some money over buying ammo. It's likely already a stretch to get to the range let alone find time to reload. If time is tight and you have enough play money to buy your ammo you might not be a candidate for reloading.

But if you have a few hours a month where you watch idiot shows on TV just to fill your time and can't buy as much ammo as you would like because play money is limited then you could be a good candidate for reloading. Just turn off that stuff that makes fungus grown on your brain, turn on some good tunes in the background and set up and start pulling on that press lever. Watch the pile of nice shiny ammo grow before your eyes.

Which press to get depends on how much time you can set aside for reloading and what your ammo consumption is like. If you end up only shooting a couple of hundred rounds a month and can spare two hours a month to reloading then you can keep up with a cheap single stage setup or a slightly more costly and convenient Lee turret press. If you're tight on time and our ammo use goes up for some reason then a switch to a lower cost progressive that allows you to spit out 350 to 400 an hour will keep you in ammo with the same amount of time spent reloading.

So which of these situations and various factors fits your personal situation? No need to tell us. Just answer it to yourself.
 
BCRider said:
If you're going to bill out your time like that then you may as well just buy the stuff. There is no way on earth that reloading will be cost effective in that sort of thinking. But that sort of suggests that you should be billing yourself for TV watching time and even time spent preparing dinner or pay yourself for going to the gym or submit a bill to yourself for cutting the lawn. In short I think you're off key on that concept. The only way "billing out your time" makes sense is if you are self employed and work long enough hours that if you have to aside the job to reload. You are then literally losing money by spending time reloading. THEN your idea of billing your time makes sense. Or if you work at a job where overtime is there for the asking then again it makes sense to look at it like this. Instead of reloading you can just ask for and work a few hours extra to pay for the ammo. Again this makes total sense. And frankly unless you totally hate your job it's likely the very best way to "reload".

If you're not in one of those last two situations I'd suggest that a more valid way of looking at it is the time used for reloading that could be used for some other family activity or hobby. Basically you have just so much "me time" and you need to decide how to budget it out. If you are dating seriously or if you are married with younger kids you know that "me time" is precious. Do you even have time to consider reloading? Or what are you willing to give up to allow for reloading and saving some money over buying ammo. It's likely already a stretch to get to the range let alone find time to reload. If time is tight and you have enough play money to buy your ammo you might not be a candidate for reloading.

But if you have a few hours a month where you watch idiot shows on TV just to fill your time and can't buy as much ammo as you would like because play money is limited then you could be a good candidate for reloading. Just turn off that stuff that makes fungus grown on your brain, turn on some good tunes in the background and set up and start pulling on that press lever. Watch the pile of nice shiny ammo grow before your eyes.

Which press to get depends on how much time you can set aside for reloading and what your ammo consumption is like. If you end up only shooting a couple of hundred rounds a month and can spare two hours a month to reloading then you can keep up with a cheap single stage setup or a slightly more costly and convenient Lee turret press. If you're tight on time and our ammo use goes up for some reason then a switch to a lower cost progressive that allows you to spit out 350 to 400 an hour will keep you in ammo with the same amount of time spent reloading.

So which of these situations and various factors fits your personal situation? No need to tell us. Just answer it to yourself.
Click to expand...

You're a wise man!

I guess my next step will be to find how long it takes me to shoot 1000 rounds. Or how many rounds I'll shoot in a year. I'll keep my brass, so if I decide to reload I'll have them handy, otherwise they're gonna end up for sale on EE.

Thanks a lot guys!
 
Reloading is a hobby. Unless you are making minimum wage expect you an make more money than save by reloading. As other have said by definition you can't place a value on a hobby.

Making your own ammo is fun.
Big benefit is customizing. Light/powder puff bulleyes or full magnum loads.
 
If you're shooting .45ACP you very much SHOULD keep your brass. 9 and .40 is on the ground for the effort of bending over. But .45acp tends to be a choice for those that reload. It's seldom you'll find it sitting out on the ground or even in the brass buckets.

If you get to where you have a couple of 4 liter ice cream buckets full and still don't feel the need to get into reloading then give it away or trade it off for something.

I sort of gather this is your first handgun. If so you're in for a lot of fun at first. But frankly after a couple of thousand rounds I found that standing in one spot and punching paper got old. So I moved on to some of the different competitions in my area and the "new" was back like an avalanche! The matches are keeping me smiling both for the challenge of shooting while on the clock to try to find a perfect balance between accuracy and speed as well as hanging around and chatting with a host of folks with similar interests. So I suggest you attend a few of the events as a spectator and check out what is happening at the clubs in your area.

In fact don't just spectate. Show up in the morning and introduce yourself to the folks doing sign up and tell them you want to go around with one of the squads as a spectator and help with taping the targets or keeping score or whatever because you're interested in possibly taking up that event. If you do that at the end of the day or at lunch you WILL be offered a gun or three to try and likely someone will herd you through the stage so you can shoot it in the same manner the competitors did. We folks in these "games" love to get others infected. And the best way to do that is to get them to shoot a stage of it. We are sort of like drug dealers in this way.... :d

At the same time you'll get a chance to try a different gun or two.

If you don't have a great time for the whole day you can come back and I'll let you rake me over the coals. But I'm pretty safe in saying that this won't be the case.
 
BCRider said:
If you're shooting .45ACP you very much SHOULD keep your brass. 9 and .40 is on the ground for the effort of bending over. But .45acp tends to be a choice for those that reload. It's seldom you'll find it sitting out on the ground or even in the brass buckets.

If you get to where you have a couple of 4 liter ice cream buckets full and still don't feel the need to get into reloading then give it away or trade it off for something.

I sort of gather this is your first handgun. If so you're in for a lot of fun at first. But frankly after a couple of thousand rounds I found that standing in one spot and punching paper got old. So I moved on to some of the different competitions in my area and the "new" was back like an avalanche! The matches are keeping me smiling both for the challenge of shooting while on the clock to try to find a perfect balance between accuracy and speed as well as hanging around and chatting with a host of folks with similar interests. So I suggest you attend a few of the events as a spectator and check out what is happening at the clubs in your area.

In fact don't just spectate. Show up in the morning and introduce yourself to the folks doing sign up and tell them you want to go around with one of the squads as a spectator and help with taping the targets or keeping score or whatever because you're interested in possibly taking up that event. If you do that at the end of the day or at lunch you WILL be offered a gun or three to try and likely someone will herd you through the stage so you can shoot it in the same manner the competitors did. We folks in these "games" love to get others infected. And the best way to do that is to get them to shoot a stage of it. We are sort of like drug dealers in this way.... :d

At the same time you'll get a chance to try a different gun or two.

If you don't have a great time for the whole day you can come back and I'll let you rake me over the coals. But I'm pretty safe in saying that this won't be the case.
Click to expand...

You're close. It's my 2nd gun, first one is a 22lr. Got my PAL late december, so everything is still new to me. I expect that 6 months from now I will either have moved on to different things and shooting will be a "fun thing I used to do" or I'll own enough firearms to invade France and most of my spare time will be spent at the range. I know I do like shooting .22, and I don't think getting a .45 will change how I feel about .22. It's like having 2 kids, you can love them both :)

I intend to go check some ipsc at some point, but spare time is the #1 resurce I keep running out of. I think I've ditched pretty much all the boring stuff one can ditch (I got a roomba and a cleaning lady, no lawn to mow, etc...). My comment about the value of time reloading is more of a choice of how I can better optimize my time. If I have, say, 3 hours of spare time during my week, do I reload for 2 hours and go shooting for 1 hour, or do I work and extra 1.5 hour and go shooting 1.5 hour? The more you like reloading (or the more your job sucks), the more appealing the first option is. The less efficient your press is, the more of those 3 hours are spent reloading and the less is spent at the shooting range.
 
I spend way more than I save with reloading.
It's a hobby. It has cost me much more than what it would have cost me for factory ammo.
I don't care, I keep buying gear, I really enjoy the hobby.
I don't do it for the savings.
 
Don't forget that as long as you have your components you can make what you want whenever you need it. No searching for ammo when you want it and it is either wayyyy over priced or can't be found. Although the same can be said for components as of late. Glad I had the foresight to stock up. Still shooting at prices from a few years ago.
 
I'd say you have a good handle on the choices. Reloading isn't for everyone. And from the way you describe your situation it may well not be the thing for you at this point. Keep it in mind for later though.
 
^^^It sounds like you got your set up and working without any major hiccups. I keep hearing about people that have had problems and have wondered if its just that they haven't taken the time to set the Lee progressive up carefully. Perhaps some of the other brands do work easier right out of the box, but I think if you watch each step you do,and set everything up nicely that you will have good results.
I doubt that I'll ever outgrow my turret press, and reloading is something I'll do mostly in the winter months only at this point.
I already have a few thousand pieces of brass all tumbled and ready to reload next season.
 
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