First time realoading

jrcarbine

jrcarbine

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I want to get into reloading, but I don't know where to start. I don't want to spend to much money. What press and other tools should I start with. Ill probably going to load 9mm, 8x57, .303 brit and .243 win. So what would be the perfect starter equipment?
 
About a year and a half ago I was in your position. Bought a Lee anniversary kit and never looked back. One day I may buy more expensive stuff but for now it will do. And get yourself a good scale. I load for 5 different calibers. I even use the press for sizing lead bullets and making my own gas checks.
 
If you're not in a hurry, you can pick up some good deals on the EE. All the leading reloading companies offer a 'starter kit', but I built mine on reading and listening to the very knowledgeable people on these very forums and made my purchases accordingly.
Buy a good scale.....

Bassy
 
Best to get with a friend who reloads for starters and read all you can on Youtube for the different opperations .. get as many loading manuals as you can afford and hide your credit card for at least a month till you do the first part.

There are reviews here on CGN on a few setups but it will come down to how much you can afford.. I'd start with a really good Single stage press and then move on up after you have some experience..
 
yomomma said:
About a year and a half ago I was in your position. Bought a Lee anniversary kit and never looked back. One day I may buy more expensive stuff but for now it will do. And get yourself a good scale. I load for 5 different calibers. I even use the press for sizing lead bullets and making my own gas checks.
Click to expand...

So if I got that, I would have the buy the dies I need, a reloading book and a good scale?
 
Lee has your back if your wallet is thin.
A single stage press, dies, shell holders a scale+powder trickler and a reloading manual (Lyman)
Are all you need to start .
After that a powder measure ,calipers ,case trimmer and chronograph and a few more reloading manuals.
 
jrcarbine said:
So if I got that, I would have the buy the dies I need, a reloading book and a good scale?
Click to expand...
The balance scale that comes with it works well enough but it's far from convenient or quick. Why are you getting into reloading? Chasing accuracy, wanting cheaper high end bullets, wanting done light plinking loads, just because it sounds fun? Knowing what your end goal is can help with what equipment you need.
 
Start with a LEE anniversary press.....$150, comes with an ok scale to start.
LEE 9mm dies.....$35
Projectiles......$55/100
Primers...$5/100
Powder....$52/lb.
A good book....$35-50
Pistol is easier then rifle. Pistol dies more forgiving. Prices are new, local to me.
 
Amazon has a Lee Challenger breech lock press for $149 (kit). I was looking at it before but decided on getting the classic turret press. I'm still reading on the reloading books before I really start on reloading. For now, I'm collecting the brass when I go to the range.

Primers are usually $35-$40/1000 (CCI) small pistol primers.

LeBaron projectiles are around $25/100, and ppowders are around $35-50 /lb container. I usually look/browse through Cabela's site.
 
Go with a good single-stage press to start (lee, Lyman, RCBS, everybody makes one of these). Check kijiji ebay and this site for used equipment. You'll need dies and shell holders in each calibre - Lee is cheapest to buy new and they are good dies - get the four piece set if you can and make sure your pistol (9mm) set is carbide. You'll need a tumbler to clean brass or a cheap ultrasonic (Harbor Freight in the US). Buy a decent digital scale for powder and a digital caliper for measuring OAL. Get a good manual, Lyman is best to start. If your press does not have a primer system you'll need a hand-held unit - again lee is the budget reloader's choice. Above all ask questions and TAKE YOUR TIME!!!
 
jrcarbine said:
Would it be worth it to reload pistol?
Click to expand...
Ioad 9 mm for 17 cents a rnd. Using a rbcs single stage press . There's one on the EE now for $180. Dies are about $50 for new . 1000 9 mm projectiles $90. 7 lbs tight group $300. 1000 primers $45. You will need scales, priming tool, trimmer,calipers, lube ( lanolin and isopropyl works great). Tumbler is good to have. A reloading manual. I started last December and had a few small hiccups along the way . Nothing that you tube and the knowledgable folks on here couldn't solve. I'm now loading 9mm .45 LC, 38 special,.357 mag and .223 . It's not as difficult as it appears. Just take your time , be aware. Ask lots of questions.
 
If you're on a budget then the Lee single stage stuff works OK. But for a little more money I'd rather have a press with a cast iron main frame instead of the aluminium that Lee uses. A Hornady, RCBS or just about any other single stage that has a cast iron frame is only a little more money than a Lee when you consider the cost over your lifetime.

For the other equipment Lee dies and other accessories are just fine.

I'd start with the rifle rounds. Loading rifle rounds with a single stage works really well. You CAN load the 9mm with it but for now I'd just continue to buy the cheaper ammo and collect all your brass for later on.

If you're going to trickle the powder charges up to weight then you can save some money by using dippers to dole out the majority of the charge then trickle in the last few grains to bring the charge up to weight. No need for a fixed powder measure. You can make your own dippers from old cases with some copper wire soldered on as a handle. Or just buy the Lee dipper set.

Most presses allow for priming the cases in the press so you don't really need a separate hand primer or other bench primer. But if handling primers one at a time be sure your hands are washed and free of any oil.

So you'll want the following;

-Press
-Loading block to hold the cases so you can keep the steps organized. In fact TWO loading blocks is better for this reason if you can swing it.
-A good scale be it digital or the older beam balance. And some sort of small light pan to hold the powder. Plastic is bad as it can build up a static charge. It should be some sort of smooth metal pan with no corners to hold powder.
-Dies for each caliber
-For shouldered rifle reloading like you're doing you will need a case trimmer sooner or later.
-A set of calipers for measuring case length and overall length of your loads. Digital ones are cheap now but I prefer the dial style since there's no battery to wear out.
-Some way to clean your fired brass. More on this below.

For my rifle brass I like to clean the brass after the used primers are pushed out so the primer pockets get cleaned as well. But I don't want to run dirty brass into my sizing die. So I bought a "universal decapping die" which works really nicely for doing this. And I strongly recommend you get something similar. If you're attending swap meets a cheap way to get a "no touch" decapping die is to find someone selling random reloading dies and buy a sizing/decapping die from some big fat round which you'll never want to use and that can be the die you use for decapping all your smaller size rifle brass. A new one is less than $20 though. So it won't break the bank.

On cleaning brass. There's a few ways to look at. I started with the vibrator and corn cob media with polishing liquid. It didn't do diddly for cleaning the inside or primer pockets. The outsides were nice and shiny but it was the insides that I was concerned about. Looking over the web suggested that cleaning with a mix of water, vinegar and a dash of liquid laundry detergent in an ultra sonic cleaner works well. I tried it first with just the liquid in a jar and the results looked promising. I bought a US cleaner and the results were staggering. The brass came out looking like new inside and out with clean primer pockets.

A lot of folks are going with a wet tumbler and stainless pin media these days. There is no doubt that it works well. But it's not that cheap to get set up. A small size 1.3liter US cleaner from Ebay is only about $65 delivered to your door. I feel that this is a good bang for the buck for a method which is way better than the vibrator style cleaning and just about as good as the stainless pin tumbling method.

Another option would be to go with the stainless pin media and tinker together your own way of making up a drum of some sort and the slow turning wheels to run it. How handy and how many tools have you got?

For handgun loading and assuming you shoot more than 200 to 300 rounds a month the only sensible way to go is with a progressive press so you get one round for ever pull of the lever. I had a Lee 1000 progressive and found that I had to make 3 or 4 minor modifications to it and a couple of major modifications. I really don't recomend them. I would suggest you bite the bullet and go with a Dillon. The Square Deal press is a bit cheaper than a 550b. But it uses special Dillon only dies. So it's great if you just want the one press to load the one ammo. Not so great if you want to switch from caliber to caliber easily. Or possibly a Hornady AP. As long as it's pretty much anything other than a Lee progressive. The Lee Loadmaster looks inviting but here again if you look on You Tube you'll find that a big number of the Loadmaster videos are about tweaking this or that or fixing some issue or other to make them reliable. That put me right off and I went with Dillon in my case. But in looking over the Hornady AP I have to say that it looks pretty darn good too.

But the progressive can come later on. Start out with the single stage and the rifle ammo. And if you're only shooting around up to something like 200 a month for handgun ammo you can consider loading it on a single stage too. With a bit of a proper setup you can reload around 150 handgun rounds an hour. So one evening of reloading could easily set you up for a month or two if you don't shoot higher volumes.
 
BCRider said:
If you're on a budget then the Lee single stage stuff works OK. But for a little more money I'd rather have a press with a cast iron main frame instead of the aluminium that Lee uses. A Hornady, RCBS or just about any other single stage that has a cast iron frame is only a little more money than a Lee when you consider the cost over your lifetime.

For the other equipment Lee dies and other accessories are just fine.

I'd start with the rifle rounds. Loading rifle rounds with a single stage works really well. You CAN load the 9mm with it but for now I'd just continue to buy the cheaper ammo and collect all your brass for later on.

If you're going to trickle the powder charges up to weight then you can save some money by using dippers to dole out the majority of the charge then trickle in the last few grains to bring the charge up to weight. No need for a fixed powder measure. You can make your own dippers from old cases with some copper wire soldered on as a handle. Or just buy the Lee dipper set.

Most presses allow for priming the cases in the press so you don't really need a separate hand primer or other bench primer. But if handling primers one at a time be sure your hands are washed and free of any oil.

So you'll want the following;

-Press
-Loading block to hold the cases so you can keep the steps organized. In fact TWO loading blocks is better for this reason if you can swing it.
-A good scale be it digital or the older beam balance. And some sort of small light pan to hold the powder. Plastic is bad as it can build up a static charge. It should be some sort of smooth metal pan with no corners to hold powder.
-Dies for each caliber
-For shouldered rifle reloading like you're doing you will need a case trimmer sooner or later.
-A set of calipers for measuring case length and overall length of your loads. Digital ones are cheap now but I prefer the dial style since there's no battery to wear out.
-Some way to clean your fired brass. More on this below.

For my rifle brass I like to clean the brass after the used primers are pushed out so the primer pockets get cleaned as well. But I don't want to run dirty brass into my sizing die. So I bought a "universal decapping die" which works really nicely for doing this. And I strongly recommend you get something similar. If you're attending swap meets a cheap way to get a "no touch" decapping die is to find someone selling random reloading dies and buy a sizing/decapping die from some big fat round which you'll never want to use and that can be the die you use for decapping all your smaller size rifle brass. A new one is less than $20 though. So it won't break the bank.

On cleaning brass. There's a few ways to look at. I started with the vibrator and corn cob media with polishing liquid. It didn't do diddly for cleaning the inside or primer pockets. The outsides were nice and shiny but it was the insides that I was concerned about. Looking over the web suggested that cleaning with a mix of water, vinegar and a dash of liquid laundry detergent in an ultra sonic cleaner works well. I tried it first with just the liquid in a jar and the results looked promising. I bought a US cleaner and the results were staggering. The brass came out looking like new inside and out with clean primer pockets.

A lot of folks are going with a wet tumbler and stainless pin media these days. There is no doubt that it works well. But it's not that cheap to get set up. A small size 1.3liter US cleaner from Ebay is only about $65 delivered to your door. I feel that this is a good bang for the buck for a method which is way better than the vibrator style cleaning and just about as good as the stainless pin tumbling method.

Another option would be to go with the stainless pin media and tinker together your own way of making up a drum of some sort and the slow turning wheels to run it. How handy and how many tools have you got?

For handgun loading and assuming you shoot more than 200 to 300 rounds a month the only sensible way to go is with a progressive press so you get one round for ever pull of the lever. I had a Lee 1000 progressive and found that I had to make 3 or 4 minor modifications to it and a couple of major modifications. I really don't recomend them. I would suggest you bite the bullet and go with a Dillon. The Square Deal press is a bit cheaper than a 550b. But it uses special Dillon only dies. So it's great if you just want the one press to load the one ammo. Not so great if you want to switch from caliber to caliber easily. Or possibly a Hornady AP. As long as it's pretty much anything other than a Lee progressive. The Lee Loadmaster looks inviting but here again if you look on You Tube you'll find that a big number of the Loadmaster videos are about tweaking this or that or fixing some issue or other to make them reliable. That put me right off and I went with Dillon in my case. But in looking over the Hornady AP I have to say that it looks pretty darn good too.

But the progressive can come later on. Start out with the single stage and the rifle ammo. And if you're only shooting around up to something like 200 a month for handgun ammo you can consider loading it on a single stage too. With a bit of a proper setup you can reload around 150 handgun rounds an hour. So one evening of reloading could easily set you up for a month or two if you don't shoot higher volumes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the info man! Very helpful.
 
Strongly suggest that you pick up a copy of ABCs of Reloading. It doesn't have much by way of 'recipes', but gives an excellent introduction to reloading, the types of presses and so forth. It will answer all sorts of questions you didn't even know you had.

Agreed on starting with a single-stage press. Progressives are great at churning out large quantities but are considerably more complicated (and expensive).

Here's my call on what you need (keep in mind that much of this is subjective, so a lot of it is just Ford vs Chevy opinion).

Must-haves
Press
Dies and shell holder for the calibre in question
Scale (which IMO doesn't need to be digital)
Loading block
Components and proper storage for them
A solid bench (which need not be concrete or made out of railway ties, despite what some will say)
Fire extinguisher (you won't need it unless you really need it!)
Reloading manual from a major ammo firm like Hornady, Lyman, Sierra, etc (Don't take any loads off the net until you have some experience!)
Good lighting
Priming gizmo. It can be one that fits on the press or a hand-held, but you will need one
Lube system for cases. My call is Imperial Sizing Die Wax.

Should-haves
Micrometer or calipers (needn't be digital, to my mind)
Stuck case extractor (cases only stick after the store closes on Saturday night)
Spare primer pins to fit your dies (they only break after the store closes...)
Case trimmer (for bottle-neck cases). You'll need it eventually.
Neck chamfering tool
Powder trickler
Primer tray

Nice To Have
Tumbler and media (cases can be cleaned by hand). One real advantage is that shiny brass makes it easier to spot cracks.
Note book to keep records of which loads work and which don't
Small flashlight
Magnifying glass
Powder dippers. As noted, Lee makes a good set.

Nobody makes bad stuff, but you get what you pay for. Lee works, but is lighter in construction. I have a Lee SS press set up permanently for primer extraction and an RCBS press for everything else. Much of it is personal taste.

I have an Excel spreadsheet which will give you payoff times, costs per round, etc based on what you plan on reloading. PM me if you would like it.

Last point - the only bigger gear-whores than reloaders are fishermen and there are all kinds of flashy gimmicks calling to you as you walk down the aisles. Start small and work up or your wallet will kill you.
 
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