I want to start reloading Rifle and Pistol.

bill c68

bill c68

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I do a little shotgun reloading now but I feel a need to reload rifle and pistol rounds.

For rifle I mainly want to load 22-250, I amy eventually want to load other rounds such as 30-06 and 30-30 (I have been saving brass) I am not too concerned with quantity here, just want to make a few hundred custom rounds when I need to.

For Pistol I am looking at .44 mag, 9mm and .38/.357. Here I am more concerned with being able to produce the ammo as fast as I can shoot it.

I really don't enjoy reloading (shotgun that is) I only do it out of necessity. If I can buy as cheap as reloading I will, I have been buying 12 and 20 gauge target loads so I think I will retire my presses to non tox loading only.

What do you guys recommend for a press for pistol and/or rifle? I may be able to use my father's rifle press and he is set up for 22-250, very slow but not an issue really.
 
Depends on the quanities you want to load. if you are looking at only loading a couple of hundred rounds a month then the Rockchucker is the way to go. however if you are going to be relaoding 500 rounds a month or more then you want to look at a progessive price. The dillon 550 will allow yo to load most rifle rounds. the 650 is a bit more restrictive as to what you can load on it. go to their web page to see what calibres are availalbe for their presses. google Dillon Precision.
 
Walter Hornby said:
however if you are going to be relaoding 500 rounds a month or more then you want to look at a progessive price. The dillon 550 will allow yo to load most rifle rounds. the 650 is a bit more restrictive as to what you can load on it. go to their web page to see what calibres are availalbe for their presses. google Dillon Precision.
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Or he could ask one of the dealers here about the dillon stuff...
 
I use a Lee Challenger press, it came with an aniversary kit, for a really good price and it works quite well for both rifle and pistol ammo
 
bill c68 said:
I am likely looking at a progressive for pistol and for rifle, I want to concentrate more on quality rather than quantity.
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FWIW, the 550 can be used as a single stage if you want.

Talk to Bear. He da man!
 
If you want to buy only one press for reloading both rifle and pistol that rules out some of the lighter progressive pistol presses (like the Lee 1000 and the Dillon square deal). For the one-press-loads-all progressive you are probably best suited with either the Dillon 550 , or Hornady Lock and Load progressive. However both are a fair bit of $. Both work well and can turn out both quality and quantity.

Personally I would recommend starting with a decent cast iron frame single station or turret press. This won't break the bank and will load everything you need, although not at a blistering speed. Everyone need a good single stage press, no matter what progressive you might move on to later. Currently I think the Lee Classic Cast is probably the best deal around, much nicer than their potmetal presses (I have seen a few of those with cracked frames). RCBS makes an excellent press in the Rock Chucker Supreme, but more $.

With a good "system" you can load pistol ammo pretty quickly on a single stage unit. The trick is to do large "batches" of the same step. I have loaded many thousands of rounds in this fashion. Yes, the progressives are faster but are more of a pain to set up and change calibers. Many progressives have their quirks and some have their dangers (mostly in the priming systems).

Basically for more money you get the ability to load more rounds in a given amount of time. But when you think of it many of us think nothing of spending hours in front of the computer or tv. You can load a lot of ammo in that time on a single stage press.

Just my $0.02 worth.
 
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