no idea what to do, worth getting in to reloading?

I am a bit of a noob so far, I have only loaded about 4 or 500 rnds of .308, but here is my advice.

- Do like others have said and buy some books, ABC's, Lee loading book, Lymans , Hornady's book is great, I have had good luck with there bullets and there book is laid out well.

- Build a nice sturdy bench in a locable room, others mentioned this and it is law if your going to have primers or powder out or unlocked, easily done if you leave powder in the powder measure.

- Buy LEE's breach lock challenger kit, there are definitely better ones out there but it is a solid single stage system and it will get you used to reloading. Buy extra collars, shell holders and case length guides to start.

- Buy RCBS dies DO NOT BUY LEE DIES, I had nothing but trouble with my lee dies, almost quit loading, rcbs dies are great compared to lee, forester, redding are even better from what I have read.

- Buy RCBS's collet bullet puller, I tried going cheap and used a hammer puller and it is a mess and some what disturbing to hammer away on a live round. The collet bullet puller works great I just went through about 100+ rnds that needed to have there powder checked, this leads me to my next point.

- DO NOT buy a cheap digital powder scale, use the little beam scale that comes with the kit, the digital one was off by 5 grains! Even the lee cheapo beam scale is accurate enough for loading.

- Buy a good digital vernier caliper for measuring cases, bullets and coal.

- Buy some mtm bullet trays and some ammo boxes.

- I bought the RCBS lube pad and lube, works way better then the lee paste, when first loading I had the fear of not lubing enough, well I lubed to much, and dimpled several rounds.

- Buy some brass, new or once fired. Buy some powder and primers. Buy the primers by the 1000, trust me on this if you sit down to load for a week night and you find out your out of primers then your pretty much sol as they don't sell em at safeway. Buy bullets based on what your shooting, you don't need match grade bullets if your shooting paper at 50 feet.

- I would recommend buying an ultrasound case cleaner, wow does it do great work on cleaning brass, but if your pistol shooting a tumbler might work to the volume. I also have the lyman case prep tools and they make prepping easy.

Thats about it, reload a few hundred rounds to start and if you feel you need to step up then buy a progressive. Sell what you no longer need on the EE. Hope this helps, I greatly enjoy reloading and I have only been doing it for a little while, it is a great feeling to shoot better knowing that the ammunition you use is tailored by you.
 
mihasic said:
If you are reach, you can pay a $500 kit, but if you want just to reload for a handgun, you needn't do that. Kind of $200 will be enough. But yes, it will take some time to load 1000 rounds: 50 handgun loads take me 1 hour. And generally speaking, more you pay faster you go (if you don't waste your money). Me too, I have same calibers as handguns: 45ACP and 357mag. As for the cost, it is just fantastic: with cast bullets, both 45ACP and 357mag are as cheap as 5 or 6 cent a round.
Click to expand...
I find it very hard to believe that you can reload .45ACP for 5 or 6 cents a round.
Large pistol primers are nearly impossible to find for much less than $30.00/1000. Add to that 1.3 cents per round for powder (4.7gr Titegroup $20.00/lb) and that only leaves 0.7-1.7 cents per round for bullets. The cheapest cast lead bullets I could find in .45ACP cost $63.00/500 plus shipping which I find expensive but that's still 12.6 cents a bullet.
This puts the minimum reloading cost for .45ACP at 16.9 cents per round with free brass.


You still need to add taxes to those prices to give you a realistic cost on reloading.

I can understand it costing you that little if you cast your own lead bullets but it's unrealistic to expect a newbie reloader to begin casting his own right from the start.
 
Hotwheels81 said:
True, but I think we all know how much fun loading hundreds of rounds a week on a single stage press can be... And by following the advice here on CGN the noob will know a powder check die and a decent load book are a must...
Click to expand...

Thats how i do it , im able to load about 100 rounds in 3 hours , paying attention to what im doing , maybe a little less.

I dont think it slows me down , im less likely to make mistakes , im able to pay more attention to the task at hand instead of trying to crank out thousands of rounds.

My press was 50$ and most of the other stuff i had or was given . 2 sets of dies for 40 and 308 were 25$ a piece .

I save roughly 18.00 a box for 40sw and almost 19.50 per box of reloads in 308 .

I love reloading .
 
You probably won't save any money, no matter what we tell our wives. First you'll shoot more, then you'll buy more gear/widgets/gadgets to make it "easier" to reload. Then you'll want to go faster for hand gun/triple gun/IPSC/CAS. Then you'll come across a great deal on dies/components, and have to buy/build a gun to use the components you got the great deal on. In the end you'll spend a whole whack more money, but have a lot of fun doing it. Go for it. - dan
 
Folks that cast their own, will say that the bullets are free(not really), you have to pay for the casting equipment and good molds are $100 or more each, sizers, dies, raw materials, etc. I would use a figure of $40/500 for bought 200gr. swc for the .45 ACP if you are figuring costs of reloading. One thing that nobody is mentioning is the idea that your reloads will/should be better then factory ammo and tailored to your needs.
 
thump_rrr said:
I find it very hard to believe that you can reload .45ACP for 5 or 6 cents a round.
Large pistol primers are nearly impossible to find for much less than $30.00/1000. Add to that 1.3 cents per round for powder (4.7gr Titegroup $20.00/lb) and that only leaves 0.7-1.7 cents per round for bullets. The cheapest cast lead bullets I could find in .45ACP cost $63.00/500 plus shipping which I find expensive but that's still 12.6 cents a bullet.
This puts the minimum reloading cost for .45ACP at 16.9 cents per round with free brass.


You still need to add taxes to those prices to give you a realistic cost on reloading.

I can understand it costing you that little if you cast your own lead bullets but it's unrealistic to expect a newbie reloader to begin casting his own right from the start.
Click to expand...

Cast bullets are called cast because you cast them yourself. At zero price. Why not realistic? I spent 30 minutes to learn casting and since then I load only homemade bullets for my handguns. In general, I do not share that view that reloading is a kind of esoteric knowledge and one needs to spend lots of time for learning and heaps of money for the equipment. No, it's very simple and extremely cost-effective. For handguns $200 is enough for the equipment and a couple of evenings for learning.
 
GaryH said:
Here's the low down, I have a 45 and just bought a 357, I have no clue when it comes to reloading!
how long does it take to do say...1000 rounds? . . .

I will get into it at some point as I plan to have a few guns, I like the idea of messing around with grains and weights but I need to know what I'm doing first!
Click to expand...


Handloading is a satisfying and rewarding pastime and wanting to learn the ropes before you jump in is the correct way of doing it. Begin by purchasing as many loading manuals as you can manage. There is a huge volume of information there just waiting to be exploited.

As to how long it takes to make 1000 rounds of pistol ammo, I'll relate a personal experience.

When I lived down south I was the member of a small club and volunteered to load 1000 rounds of .38 Special per week for our group in exchange for not having to pay for my components. Then as now, I did all my loading on a single stage press. I didn't think it would be difficult, and it would pay for my shooting. At first it wasn't bad; a few hours a night each night throughout the week got it done. I would resize the first night, prime and expand the case mouths the second night, charge the cases and seat the bullets the third night, and crimp and ensure the loaded rounds would chamber without effort the 4th. This gave me a couple of nights of leeway in case something came up, like wanting to load some rifle ammo.

But over time, I began to lose my enthusiasm for this chore, particularly after my powder measure went out of adjustment and I had to start all over, leaving 700 loaded rounds for use in my .357. It wasn't long after that, that I began to put things off until finally I was loading all 1000 rounds in a single long night. As a result, uniformity suffered, and issues with high primers tying up guns, misfires, and difficult chambering became far too common for me to be satisfied with the quality of the ammo.

So I just began to purchase ammo from a fellow who loaded on an old Star progressive press. If you intend to shoot anything like a 1000 rounds a week, you need a progressive press. It was a long time before I could load pistol ammo without dreading the chore. Even today, I don't get much joy from loading pistol ammo, unless I'm experimenting with new (to me) components, and that episode occurred back in the mid '80s, more than 25 years ago! I still remember the load though, 4.5 grs of Unique under a 158 gr SWC.
 
Agreed with Boomer.

I think that starting out with a single-stage press is advisable (less to concentrate on, IMO), but if you're doing large quantities, you definitely need a progressive.
 
mihasic said:
Cast bullets are called cast because you cast them yourself. At zero price. Why not realistic? I spent 30 minutes to learn casting and since then I load only homemade bullets for my handguns. In general, I do not share that view that reloading is a kind of esoteric knowledge and one needs to spend lots of time for learning and heaps of money for the equipment. No, it's very simple and extremely cost-effective. For handguns $200 is enough for the equipment and a couple of evenings for learning.
Click to expand...

They are called cast because of the casting process not because you cast them yourself.
You are also assuming that he is in a location where he can cast his own bullets.
I can't see him doing this on his balcony if he lives in a downtown apartment building.
Without a full explanation you would have left him wondering how you can produce your ammo at a price he couldn't.
 
If you're just starting out, you can just run one case at a time through a progressive press until you get the hang of it. This makes the learning curve a little less steep, but you're still starting out with the most appropriate tool for the job. Personally, I think that dropping the charge, then seating the bullet at the next station leaves you much less likely to make a mistake than charging a whole loading block of cases, then seating the bullet on the batch. Monotony is not your friend when it comes to avoiding mistakes.
 
thump_rrr said:
They are called cast because of the casting process not because you cast them yourself.
You are also assuming that he is in a location where he can cast his own bullets.
I can't see him doing this on his balcony if he lives in a downtown apartment building.
Click to expand...
On the balcony or right in the apartment - why not? I do it in my basement.
 
Davie Sprocket said:
- Buy RCBS dies DO NOT BUY LEE DIES, I had nothing but trouble with my lee dies, almost quit loading, rcbs dies are great compared to lee, forester, redding are even better from what I have read.

- Buy RCBS's collet bullet puller, I tried going cheap and used a hammer puller and it is a mess and some what disturbing to hammer away on a live round. The collet bullet puller works great I just went through about 100+ rnds that needed to have there powder checked, this leads me to my next point.

- DO NOT buy a cheap digital powder scale, use the little beam scale that comes with the kit, the digital one was off by 5 grains! Even the lee cheapo beam scale is accurate enough for loading.

- Buy a good digital vernier caliper for measuring cases, bullets and coal.

- Buy some mtm bullet trays and some ammo boxes.

- I bought the RCBS lube pad and lube, works way better then the lee paste, when first loading I had the fear of not lubing enough, well I lubed to much, and dimpled several rounds.

- Buy some brass, new or once fired. Buy some powder and primers. Buy the primers by the 1000, trust me on this if you sit down to load for a week night and you find out your out of primers then your pretty much sol as they don't sell em at safeway. Buy bullets based on what your shooting, you don't need match grade bullets if your shooting paper at 50 feet.

- I would recommend buying an ultrasound case cleaner, wow does it do great work on cleaning brass, but if your pistol shooting a tumbler might work to the volume. I also have the lyman case prep tools and they make prepping easy.

Thats about it, reload a few hundred rounds to start and if you feel you need to step up then buy a progressive. Sell what you no longer need on the EE. Hope this helps, I greatly enjoy reloading and I have only been doing it for a little while, it is a great feeling to shoot better knowing that the ammunition you use is tailored by you.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you on several points.

First of all there is nothing wrong with Lee dies.
I own Lee, Hornady, RCBS, and just bought my first set of Redding.
For the purpose of manufacturing straight walled pistol ammunition the Lee dies will work just as well as the rest.
I have a set of Lee .308 dies that cost me $38.00 that produce .25 MOA groups when I do my part. Will my new $200.00 Redding dies give me much smaller groups than that? I doubt it.


As far as bullet pullers go there is nothing wrong with using a kinetic hammer.
You are not hammering on the live round.
The problem with a collet puller is when you realize that you don't have the proper sized collet for that new caliber you just started reloading.

A vibratory tumbler is great for large quantities of pistol brass but you really want is a rotary tumbler with stainless steel media for rifle brass.
Ultrasonic doesn't compare to stainless steel media.

As far as scales go, no matter what scale you purchase a set of check weight is indispensable.
 
Im fairly new to reloading, but i think you defiantly save money, especially if you are shooting something other than 9mm. It might take a little self control on your part not to buy every fancy gadget out there, and not spend 2hrs at the range every night, but there is a cost savings there, especially if you shoot something less than common (357, 44, etc)

my advice, buy something like a dillon 550, a simple beam scale, a set of cheap dial calipers and a few books (abc's and a reloading manual). You will be in it for less than a new gun and have all the functionality you will ever need.

You can start out with the single stage ( i did, sore back, elbows and bum, with not very many rounds to show for it), but for what its worth, save your money, buy a 550, its a very simple machine, makes pistol and rifle rounds, it can run like a single stage when you are first learning (it will still be faster than a single stage), and then progressive later on. Heck if you dont like saving money by reloading, you can sell it for pretty close to what you paid. Its a good deal.

The other benifit, mentioned by others, is the availability of ammo, youll never have another wasted trip to the gun store only to find they are out of your favorite round, killing your weekend.
 
The larger the caliber, the more the savings.

Look at 500-Magnum for example. Factory ammo is $60 for a box of twenty, so that's $3 per round.

You can buy the bullets for $0.26 each, and then add the cost of a primer and some powder.

After shooting 1000 rounds, the savings are pretty huge.
 
To the OP, one more good point (that should be obvious by now).

You can get involved in discussion and argument about every aspect of reloading. As sort of a corollary, no matter what aspect of reloading one's OP is about, every thread will include "violent" disagreement about something else you didn't even ask about.

Ain't that fun?? ;)

It's also the reason for this emoticon being included d:h: in the choices.


:rolleyes:
 
rral22 said:
To the OP, one more good point (that should be obvious by now).

You can get involved in discussion and argument about every aspect of reloading. As sort of a corollary, no matter what aspect of reloading one's OP is about, every thread will include "violent" disagreement about something else you didn't even ask about.

Ain't that fun?? ;)

It's also the reason for this emoticon being included d:h: in the choices.


:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

hit er on the head with that one :agree:
 
mihasic said:
On the balcony or right in the apartment - why not? I do it in my basement.
Click to expand...

A place with better ventilation is advisable (or maybe a fume hood), as it gives off mercury vapour. There is a reason why hatters were mad. The worst offenders for lead contamination are vibratory cleaners. This is best done outside or in a garage. When you are not around.

A beam scale is more reliable than a digital. You need reliable when reloading. Keep in mind that everything costs money, even casting. Power and lead are not free, unless you can scrounge the lead.

Not so sure about a progressive for someone new to reloading. Although you will want something faster after you get started. A nice turret kit can be had for a reasonable price as well.
 
tactical lever I must ask, why do you say that casting/melting lead gives off mercury vapour?
 
I haven't read throught the entire thread so I hope this is not a revamp of what others have said.

You are loading pistol. Get a turret press. I have a Lee and it work fine (make really doesn't matter as long as you can make it work). Here is what I like about the turret press with a mounted powder thrower;
-three/four times faster than a single stage.
-you never have to remove the case from the shell holder for the operation.
-allows you to operate in single stage mode to learn or complete the same task (bullet pulling).
-I prime off the press so it is easy to swap the resized case for a primed case.
-Not so slow as to make you completely ill about reloading for your pistol shooting.

I started with, and still have, my single stage. I find the single stage great for precision reloading for my rifle, but drove me nuts trying to reload for the pistol. The turret press suits my needs for pistol reloading since I shoot about 1000 to 1500 rounds a year. I have no experience with a progressive so can not comment.

Also, you must find a scale you can trust. If you do not trust it to be 100% accurate all the time you will not sleep well at night. Check weights are very helpful for this. Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom