Looking to Get Started with Reloading (9mm & Rifle) - Help me!! :)

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Envitro

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Hey guys and gals,

I have been starting to shoot more and more, and of course, reloading make lots of sense when doing IPSC and USPSA & 3Gun.

So, I've been doing lots of reading and research, and it seems that from everything that I've seen, I'd have to get separate setups (and probably presses) for pistol and rifle reloading (turret vs. progressive, etc.).

So, with all of the right people here on this forum, I figured I'd pose the question and hopefully get pointed in the right direction.

With that said, I'd like to keep the budget to as low as possible. Best bang for buck.

Thanks all!
 
How many rounds of pistol and rifle a month? Rifle for precision, plinking, hunting?

Cheapest option is LEE. They have progressive setups and turret presses along with single stage.

Most will recommend a single stage for rifle(precision) rounds and progressive for pistol.

If you are shooting 1 pistol caliber only, then a dillon square deal b in said caliber paired with a nice single stage would do the trick.

Be prepared to spend $$$. Reloading may save money per round, but its quickly consumed by getting more equipment and components as you will shoot more
 
You are going to get a lot of differing opinions but my choice and suggestion is the Lee classic turret press kit. One extra turret. Lee Ultimate 4 die Rifle and Lee Deluxe carbide pistol dies in the calibers you need. It will be the least expensive option and works quite well. You might want to get the RCBS M500 scale aka 5-0-5 or the Chargemaster/Lite down the road as the scale which used to, and as far as I know, still comes in the kit works, but takes forever to come to rest when measuring. You can blow a TON of money on all sorts of better gear but that is something to think about in the future in my opinion. I still have and still use my Lee Turret regularly. I don't recall exactly how old it is, probably 15 years or so with tens of thousands of various rounds made with it. While I have moved my bottleneck reloading to other presses, I still have a rack of 7 Lee turrets, dies mounted, ready to go with the various mostly straightwall calibers from .357 through 45-70.
 
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Thanks for the info. Yeah, totally appreciate what it would take $$$ wise. I'm looking to do about 500-1000/month for pistol, during the summer anyway. That's about what I've been going through now.

For .223 (AR) and .270 (my hunting rifle), much less than that for now, but I haven't gotten into 3Gun just yet. Once I do, I just want the flexibility to reload that as well down the road.
 
XL650 by Dillon for that volume then. It’s expensive when you add the case feeder but if you shoot 1000 a month in pistol and want to feed an AR for potential 3 gun, it will be worth it. You can get yourself a lee classic cast single stage for the hunting guns and precision work. Best to check out a couple YouTube videos on the Dillon xl650 and see if it tickles your fancy.
 
Stay away from lee.....
If you shoot lots ...get the blue press..Dillon x650..... but you might wanna go the 1050 route...hey cry once buy once ...I’m telling you from experience
5 station compare to a 7 station.....look at videos on YouTube It’s going on 4 years now and I’m still debating about getting the super 1050because of the 7 station
 
The XL650 will do both pistol and rifle. For pistol you can't go wrong. Pistol loads that vary by .1 grain of powder aren't noticeable when action shooting, but will be when shooting something like bullseye you may notice. I would wager that the 650 will load as consistent of rifle rounds in terms of the build of the cartridge as a lower end single stage press. I don't load precision rifle on a progressive but if I were to, due to budget constraints, I would simply not use the powder drop on the progressive and remove each case, put in a precise amount of powder and then re-insert into the press for each round of rifle going through the press. Doing this will get you as good of quality for rifle and once a rhythm is established will be significantly faster than a single stage of any type.

Fair warning though, once you run a Dillon you will never buy cheap reloading equipment again.
 
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