Forgive me for being blunt but you should give up the idea that reloading is going to save you money as soon as possible. As I've advised others, it allows you to shoot much more due to the purchase of components in bulk but you will spend the same or more. It also requires a significant commitment of your time to get the results you want. I've never randomly stumbled on a consistently sub-MOA load.
I've heard this argument over and over, and it's only true if you actually do shoot much more. In my case, and others, I'm quite sure, that isn't the case. True, I did sometimes shoot more than I did when I had to buy factory ammunition. But, I'm not someone who shoots bucket loads of pistol ammunition in competition, so the increase was modest overall.
For me, reloading was essential, simply to make shooting center-fire ammunition possible. Some years were pretty lean, and the ability to crank out 100 reloaded rounds of .45LC or .44 magnum and 40 rounds of .30-30 for a Sunday excursion made all the difference.
The cost of a press, dies, scale, and powder measure, plus the small accessories was soon amortized.
Significant commitment to time to get the results that you want? Not for me. I wasn't looking for super accuracy, and found that my reloads taken from existing manuals were equal to factory ammunition from the very beginning.
Should you begin reloading? If you intend to continue shooting center-fire in anything beyond very modest amounts, you would be foolish not to.
I'm with nerdboy. It is a black hole that most of us step into when we start reloading. We start to "save money" and end up shooting more, testing more, reloading more, improving and adding to the equipment, purchasing better components, fine tuning powder types and quantities, adding calibers to reload, and on and on. Yes, you CAN limit yourself as shootist says, but it is difficult to resist the lure of better ammo made specifically for your own firearms.
As has been mentioned by others, reloading straight wall versus bottleneck is an entirely different can of worms. Bottleneck casings run at much high pressures in general and the cases need some love and care after a few reloads. When I shot 40S&W and 45ACP a lot, cases were loaded to a specific power factor and other than a quick dry tumble, for the most part they were dumped into a bucket and reloaded over and over and over with a quick check every so often for any obvious signs of incipient problems/failures.
During load development, my bolt gun precision cases are checked immediately after firing, and thoroughly inspected and measured after cleaning, every time. I use the same make of cases and each lot are kept together separated by reload count. Basically once they go into an MTM box they stay with that box forever and with that specific firearm forever and the box is marked to keep track of reload count, trimming, neck sizing, shoulder bumping, and body sizing. I have two .308's I use and each has its own finely tuned ammo. Each also has slightly different chamber measurements and once fired in the gun with the slightly longer chamber, the case will not fit into the other rifle without a full length resize. 308 is where I started reloading and I learned a lot with having two rifles of what I thought were the same caliber. I originally bought two rifles of the exact same make and type thinking that I could swap back and forth between them to keep shooting while the other cooled. The range is a significant drive away, so maximizing shooting time was and still is a primary concern.
So, bottom line is that if you are going to reload bottleneck rifle cartridges and want to keep it on the cheap, you will have to full length resize at least every second or third reload and I would suggest full length resizing every reload. I started by buying 100 rounds of the cheapest Winchester hunting ammo I could find, shot them and used them as my casings to reload. I would NOT use so-called once fired cases. You have no idea how many times they have been 'once-fired' or if they are damaged.
1) For a press I would suggest the Lee Classic Turret but don't get the kit. Get turrets for the dies of each caliber you want to reload. Once you have the dies set up, keep them in the turret and just swap out turrets as needed. It is what I started with and I still use it today for quite a few calibers.
2) Get the Lee Deluxe Perfect Powder Measure. It's not perfect but nothing is when working with any kind of extruded powder. I really like mine and you can also use the quick change drums on the Lee Automatic Powder Measure. I have one of these as well for use on the respective turret when reloading 44 and 357 Mag.
3) Get a
decent magnetically dampened beam scale, something like the Redding #2. I had a Lee beam scale once upon a time and it is functional but very frustrating and slow to use. I personally use an RCBS Chargemaster 1500 electronic scale, but I also have access to a very high end electronic triple beam scale to ensure it is working properly. It does tend to drift about 0.05 to 0.1gr and I use the triple beam to check if the 1500 needs recalibrating.
4) Get a manual powder trickler, something like a RCBS powder trickler #2. Use the Lee powder measure to bulk measure out a load about 0.1 to 0.3 grains under what you want to end up with and then trickle in the remainder required.
Purchase and read several reloading manuals! Electronic ones are ok but I like paper books that you can have open and refer to while you are holding, setting up, measuring, operating and looking at the hardware. Watch youtube videos! There are lots to watch and there is a lot of good info and some not quite so good but still overall very informative.
