My son bought a Dillon 550 a while back and we are having great luck with it. Only load 9mm at the moment as that is the only pistol he shoots at the moment. First one we got so nothing else to compare it too. As others have said, get a good scale and pay attention to your powder load.
Going to start Reloading- Lee Precision Anniversary Challenger Kit II
- Thread starter andrew223
- Start date
there's always a few questions to ask when your getting in to reload. are you doing it primarily for savings or for accuracy? accuracy is the best reason with savings second as you usually always get both but you'll probably end up like most of us and save on the quality and consistency of the ammo we make only to end up shooting more and spending the same amount of money as we would buying ammo although be it in a lesser quantity.
may I suggest the Lee classic turret press. X-reload has the kit for 286 right now or some of our sponsors carry it as well. If I could go back in time it's what I would have gotten for my first press and as a kit as it's simple, cheap, gives you room to grow, and can be used to produced a higher quantity of rounds per hour as you get more experienced. Lee honestly makes some innovative products even though people knock them. I'd steer away from progressive presses and stick with single stage or turret press to start out.
you'll realize quite quickly that the lee scale although accurate is a PIA to use. It's not so bad when using a powder measure but I like to weigh every charge to 0.1 of a grain so not for me. That is the limitations of the Lee kit's is that they really seem to be used with a powder measure more than weighing every charge. The lee Perfect powder measure has been quite accurate for me and should do you well enough if using smaller kernel powders however if using anything large grain that varget it's going to be somewhat innacurate and you will fluctuate a lot with most larger kernel powders. varget gives me 0.2 grain fluctuation with the perfect powder measure. Accurate and consistent enough to make accurate ammo. you can always upgrade to a cheaper electronic scale which is what I did for rifle ammo.
Theres a few other things you'll need, the biggest things being a bench, factor that in if you don't already have a work bench that'd be viable as a reloading bench. It's one of the more expensive costs that people don't realize and that's even when making your own. Also dies, a trimming tool or dies for trimming your brass and you'll probably want to invest in a good chamfer and deburring tool immediately or atleast a chamfering tool which I find a necessity for rifle handloads. trimming is really going to be whatever you choose, there's the cheaper case gauge trimmers, the Lee quick trim system, or universal trimmers and a few other trimmers. I've tried all 3 methods and am a fan of the quick trim system for a few reasons but if you reload for many different calibers than it gets expensive buying dies. I find it way quicker than the other methods, more convenient, and a variation of 0.001" or less in trim length.
dies: you'll find a wide variety of opinions on these. Lee, RCBS, Hornady are all fine with Hornady and RCBS having better finish and quality than Lee but my Lee dies work just fine and are easier to use a lot of times. I would buy Hornady and take advatage of their "get loaded" promotion and get some free bullets with them which offsets the cost of them greatly if you can benefit from the bullet choices offered. Forster, Redding, and Whidden are going to be your higher quality dies imo which you aren't really a need. I didn't see a huge accuracy improvement with my Forster dies but I did get noticeably better consistency.
lastly you have components but think of that the same as buying ammunition. There costly at first and you should really pick and choose where you get your components from as you need to shop around because prices vary greatly! e.g. Cabelas charges $65 for 100 ELD-match 6.5mm, 147 grain projectiles. My local store charges $54 per 100, online I can find them for $47 and with discount brings em down to $44.65 per 100, big difference! also powder and primers can also be found for considerably cheaper at different places or when buying larger quantities so you really have to shop around because prices are not consistent. Match primers will not make the difference most people think they will with their reloads, test it out for yourself sometime but don't think their a necessity for accurate or consistent loads at all.
a lot to take in but some things to think about.
edit: totally forgot, get yourself a reloading manual to learn from! Another cost I forgot to mention if your kit doesn't come with one. The lee and Lyman manuals come with a variety of bullets from different manufacturers and shouldn't lead you a stray. I use Hodgdon reloading data from their website as a reference to everything to double check the book and use a reference and their data is usually the most accurate of anybody. I don't trust Hornady anymore as find their data to be inaccurate and usually low and had rounds that were in their data that was too low of pressure for the brass to seal the chamber. Thanks Hornady.
may I suggest the Lee classic turret press. X-reload has the kit for 286 right now or some of our sponsors carry it as well. If I could go back in time it's what I would have gotten for my first press and as a kit as it's simple, cheap, gives you room to grow, and can be used to produced a higher quantity of rounds per hour as you get more experienced. Lee honestly makes some innovative products even though people knock them. I'd steer away from progressive presses and stick with single stage or turret press to start out.
you'll realize quite quickly that the lee scale although accurate is a PIA to use. It's not so bad when using a powder measure but I like to weigh every charge to 0.1 of a grain so not for me. That is the limitations of the Lee kit's is that they really seem to be used with a powder measure more than weighing every charge. The lee Perfect powder measure has been quite accurate for me and should do you well enough if using smaller kernel powders however if using anything large grain that varget it's going to be somewhat innacurate and you will fluctuate a lot with most larger kernel powders. varget gives me 0.2 grain fluctuation with the perfect powder measure. Accurate and consistent enough to make accurate ammo. you can always upgrade to a cheaper electronic scale which is what I did for rifle ammo.
Theres a few other things you'll need, the biggest things being a bench, factor that in if you don't already have a work bench that'd be viable as a reloading bench. It's one of the more expensive costs that people don't realize and that's even when making your own. Also dies, a trimming tool or dies for trimming your brass and you'll probably want to invest in a good chamfer and deburring tool immediately or atleast a chamfering tool which I find a necessity for rifle handloads. trimming is really going to be whatever you choose, there's the cheaper case gauge trimmers, the Lee quick trim system, or universal trimmers and a few other trimmers. I've tried all 3 methods and am a fan of the quick trim system for a few reasons but if you reload for many different calibers than it gets expensive buying dies. I find it way quicker than the other methods, more convenient, and a variation of 0.001" or less in trim length.
dies: you'll find a wide variety of opinions on these. Lee, RCBS, Hornady are all fine with Hornady and RCBS having better finish and quality than Lee but my Lee dies work just fine and are easier to use a lot of times. I would buy Hornady and take advatage of their "get loaded" promotion and get some free bullets with them which offsets the cost of them greatly if you can benefit from the bullet choices offered. Forster, Redding, and Whidden are going to be your higher quality dies imo which you aren't really a need. I didn't see a huge accuracy improvement with my Forster dies but I did get noticeably better consistency.
lastly you have components but think of that the same as buying ammunition. There costly at first and you should really pick and choose where you get your components from as you need to shop around because prices vary greatly! e.g. Cabelas charges $65 for 100 ELD-match 6.5mm, 147 grain projectiles. My local store charges $54 per 100, online I can find them for $47 and with discount brings em down to $44.65 per 100, big difference! also powder and primers can also be found for considerably cheaper at different places or when buying larger quantities so you really have to shop around because prices are not consistent. Match primers will not make the difference most people think they will with their reloads, test it out for yourself sometime but don't think their a necessity for accurate or consistent loads at all.
a lot to take in but some things to think about.
edit: totally forgot, get yourself a reloading manual to learn from! Another cost I forgot to mention if your kit doesn't come with one. The lee and Lyman manuals come with a variety of bullets from different manufacturers and shouldn't lead you a stray. I use Hodgdon reloading data from their website as a reference to everything to double check the book and use a reference and their data is usually the most accurate of anybody. I don't trust Hornady anymore as find their data to be inaccurate and usually low and had rounds that were in their data that was too low of pressure for the brass to seal the chamber. Thanks Hornady.
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Good to know.
