Thinking of buying a press - few reloading questions!

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jona710

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Hi I was considering starting to reload as most of my rifles have expensive ammo. I know it's not the best of the best but I was thinkin of getting the lee turret press kit as it's reasonably priced and seems like a slick little rig.

Is there anything an amateur should replace right off the bat? How many rounds per hour can you do with this thing?

Also I was wondering the average cost some of you guys might be spending per decent round including/excluding brass for the following:
30-06
30-06 garand
.308
9mm
.303 British

Any help appreciated. Thanks!
 
Cry once and buy a Dillon ..... depending on how much you want to pump out.. the 550(b)...the xl650 which I have ...great machine. Or the 1050 ... you tube is your best friend look at all the videos compare them ..... and this is my recommend stay away from lee... just garbage
The only thing I have from lee is a single stage press and dies
Try to find someone in your neck of the woods and try it if possible
 
Both my dillon and hornady presses work very well for reloading ammo. Honestly, i question all the buy once cry once talk. Had I had the chance to use both before buying i likely would have just gone with the Hornady.
 
My father-in-law has been reloading for 40 years, and finally bought a progressive a few years back. He got the Lee, and HATES it!!!! I bought a Dillon 550C at a great price off X-Reload, though Tenda has them for good prices too.

It set up quickly, adjusts easy, and I can see it pumping out rounds for MANY MANY years. I'm doing fairly high volume 5.56mm and 9mm with a little .30-06, 7.62 x51, 7.62x54r and 6.5 Swede mixed in there.

Good luck!
 
jona710 said:
Hi I was considering starting to reload as most of my rifles have expensive ammo. I know it's not the best of the best but I was thinkin of getting the lee turret press kit as it's reasonably priced and seems like a slick little rig.

Is there anything an amateur should replace right off the bat? How many rounds per hour can you do with this thing?

Also I was wondering the average cost some of you guys might be spending per decent round including/excluding brass for the following:
30-06
30-06 garand
.308
9mm
.303 British

Any help appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The only thing I would replace right off the bat would be the scale. It is not dampened and takes a long time to settle when weighing out a charge. Upgrading my scale was a huge bump in speed for the money.
 
Lee makes great products to a lower price point. I would however suggest going with the cast lee turret press.
I have had great success with all the Lee products I've used. Including the loadmaster progressive that so many seem to struggle with. If you're mechanically inclined, you'll have no trouble reloading. If you're not, you'll struggle with a Dillon as well.
 
The LEE scale is garbage, I have seen people shoot them and smash them with a hammer out of frustration. I bought a Rockchuker about 35 years ago, and I am still using it as my only press.
 
Why not start with a used single stage and see if reloading is something you'll be interested in? I guess a turret press wouldn't be a bad option, either.

Will you load a bit cheaper on a per round basis? Sure (well, maybe). Will you spend less money overall? It depends on what you load, the quality you want to load and how much you shoot (more than before). Do you have time to invest in both doing the loading and developing the loads?

So much of this conversation depends on what your goals are and I think you may find that your goals change once you start reloading. It may begin with aspirations of saving money but before long, you might find that you're only interested in components that have "match" or "benchrest" on the box. IMO, it would also take a long time to see the return on a progressive setup unless you shoot a lot and you're not really loading for accuracy (I'm guessing you're in it to the tune of $1000 by the time the press is setup with dies, accessories and your first batch of components). YMMV.
 
It all depends how many rounds you are thinking about loading a month.
Considering you have 9mm in there I would look at the following units

RCBS Turret Press -
Link for more info: http ://www.amazon.com/RCBS-88901-Turret-Press/dp/B000NOQJ5S

Redding Turret Press -
Link for more info: http ://www.brownells.com/reloading/reloading-presses/reloading-press-accessories/t-7-turret-press-prod38307.aspx

Dillion RL550 press -
Link for more info: http ://www.christiangunowner.com/dillonrl550.html

Or if you have money to burn - 2-3k minimum :)

Dillion xl650 - https ://www.dillonprecision.com/xl650_8_1_23803.html
Dillion 1050 - https ://www.amazon.com/dillon-1050/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adillon%201050
 
I started out 40 years ago with an RCBS single stage press called a Reloader Special (I think). 40,000 rounds later it's still the only press I have. My advice would be to start out with a single stage press. If you decide to upgrade down the road you will already have manuals, dies, scale, measure etc. You will probably be doing some load development at first which should be simpler with the single stage. Welcome to the world of reloading.
 
If it were me, I'd continue to buy 9mm as the savings aren't there in reloading.
I'd buy a single stage press, something in a nice shade of green, and load for the rifles. Then you'll have an option of low cost rounds, or high quality rounds, not both.

Re-loading and or hand loading, won't save you money. If you can break even, it's a good secondary hobby.
 
LEE Classic Turret run as a single stage work's great for rifle. Cost's about $150ish.
Check the price on the other's before you decide. If you decide to get out of reloading, you wont be at such a large loss
 
A turret is a really good starting point. You can disable the auto-indexing if you want to operate it as a single-stage. I'm not gonna buy a turret cause I have a single stage and a progressive, but wish I had started with a turret instead of a single stage. You can setup all your dies on a single turret head, and they stay adjusted when you switch from one calibre to another. With single-stage presses you have to re-adjust the dies everytime you switch them unless you use hornady bushings or Lee rings, but in total the price adds up quite quickly.

The 3 things I would get to speed things up a LOT:
1-a Lee auto-drum to dispense powder with the press. That's especially usefull if you're loading large volume of pistol ammos.
2-a Hand-priming device. The primers on the Lee press works ok, but it's an operation that takes time and can be eliminated by using a hand primer. I have the lyman, which I think is the best, but they're all decent. I prime while watching tv;
3-A cheapo 40$ electronic scale.

As for price, the only calibre I shoot in your list is 9mm, so I can't tell about the rifle calibres, but my 9mm currently cost me 16¢/round. Of all the calibres I reload, that's the one I save the least on, on a per round basis. For 30-06, if you use campro bullets (or any other bulk 308 bullets), you can expect to save quite a bit on a per round basis.

To be honest though, reloading small pistol calibres on anything but a progressive press will get old really, really fast. Personnaly I think I would start with reloading only the rifle calibres on a single stage or a turret, as that's where you'll save the most money anyway, and if you want to reload 9mm, later on you get a progressive.
 
Thanks for all the inputs.

I probably am not going to be after any of those Dillon ones, as cool as they are I really don't shoot enough to warrant that sort of thing. Even the 9mm I will probably just keep buying as I only plink with them.

The 30-06 and even more so the .308 is what I shoot the most and even at that I usually put less than 40-80 rounds down range on a given trip to the range. I was more so hoping to be able to get a similar quality that you'd find in a 40-50 dollar box of .308 for cheaper as even shooting 40 or 60 rounds of that is an expensive day.

The reason I was considering the lee is it is cost effective and doesn't seem as tedious as the single-stage presses.
 
jona710 said:
Thanks for all the inputs.

I probably am not going to be after any of those Dillon ones, as cool as they are I really don't shoot enough to warrant that sort of thing. Even the 9mm I will probably just keep buying as I only plink with them.

The 30-06 and even more so the .308 is what I shoot the most and even at that I usually put less than 40-80 rounds down range on a given trip to the range. I was more so hoping to be able to get a similar quality that you'd find in a 40-50 dollar box of .308 for cheaper as even shooting 40 or 60 rounds of that is an expensive day.

The reason I was considering the lee is it is cost effective and doesn't seem as tedious as the single-stage presses.
Click to expand...

Last time I worked out my 9mm costs, it came to about 15 cents per round to reload, as opposed to the almost 40 cents per round for commercial.

I have a single stage press that I use for .308 and .303, and I also use it for 9mm, .38 S&W, and 7.62 x 25 Tokarev.

You mentioned "tedious", and you're right, when it comes to pistol rounds. At some point, I'll be getting the Lee turret press for those.

But even doing them on a single stage isn't so bad, as long as you do it in steps:

- de-prime and size
- re-prime
- powder and seat bullet.

I mostly reload over winter, so I'll spend a week or so on the first step, come back to it later and do the second step, and later on, the final step. No way in hell I'm doing all that at once.

From what you've said, a single stage press will meet your needs quite well.
 
i've have a lee turret had it for over 30 years i also have a rock chucker and a hornady progressive. had a lee 1000 i gave it away (hated it) i have no complaints about the lee turret though
 
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