Portable Handloaders

Brocolt

Brocolt

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Looking for ideas on a portable handloader, wife doesn't want me to reload in the house anymore as we have a finished basement and we don't have the room. So I'm looking for a portable hand loader that is well made & strong.

Now I know Lee has one but I personally think it's not that strong of a unit. I broke a Lee loader years ago and never bought another Lee since. would like a hand loader that can be used anywhere or carried in a back pack. I sometimes have down time & could size casings at work.

Any Ideas here guys?
 
I have resized hundreds of rifle cases with my lee hand press and never a problem. Just be sure to lube your cases properly. They are the only truly portable press I can think of.
 
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Sinclair International sells a wooden "Press Stand" (item #09-820) - simply a portable wooden frame that you setup on a flat surface (e.g., your kitchen table) with a C-clamp. Accomodates most presses (e.g., RCBS Rockchucker, Hornady 007, Redding Boss and Big Boss, etc. Designed for "range use or for the home wehn permanent mounting isn't an option". Of course, this is not a portable handloader, but if the Lee portable press is not for you, I'm not aware of any other similar products (would be interested in one if there is).
 
Workbench style and stick it under the stairs when you are done. LEE has one also. Way cheaper than a new wife.
 
Take up crochet, outdo her in all shape and patterns, in no time she'll find room for you firearm toys.

Sorry, couldn't resist. A house without a man cave is not a home :)
 
OP, I really feel bad for you, brother. When we bought our house this winter, wife said, well, now that you have a garage, you can get all of your gun stuff outside and not clutter up our finished basement. I told her, gently, that if that were the case, she had better get used to spending a lot of time in the garage with me, since that is where I would be spending most of mine. Since I do case prep on the couch watching movies with her all winter, she quickly realized that having the stuff in a bedroom was not such a bad idea. Besides, the house has 4 bedrooms, family room, living room, dining room, etc. I told her I could have a gun room, and she could have the laundry room...and every other room in the house. She was good with that.
 
Personnaly I have a Lee loader but I know that Lyman makes one unit that is portable and can be mounted on a table.
 
rookie wildcat said:
OP, I really feel bad for you, brother. When we bought our house this winter, wife said, well, now that you have a garage, you can get all of your gun stuff outside and not clutter up our finished basement. I told her, gently, that if that were the case, she had better get used to spending a lot of time in the garage with me, since that is where I would be spending most of mine. Since I do case prep on the couch watching movies with her all winter, she quickly realized that having the stuff in a bedroom was not such a bad idea. Besides, the house has 4 bedrooms, family room, living room, dining room, etc. I told her I could have a gun room, and she could have the laundry room...and every other room in the house. She was good with that.
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Sounds like the female version of marking her territory.
 
Lee makes a great little press that you don't need a bench of any sort for.

It is perfect if you're neck resizing only. You need to be pretty tough to full length resize with it.

It will perform very well on most small to magnum cases.

I used one for a long time on the bench rest circuit. It produced very accurate ammunition.

Look it up on the Lee site. With one of these units and the kit that goes with it, you can get a decent set up that is also cheap and fits into a small drawer or box.

I used the press to decap and resize the necks, then primed the cases with a Lee hand primer to save time. I also used a cut off cartridge as a scoop for the load I worked up.

Now, for bench rest shooting, I used a decent micrometer adjustable powder measure but in all honesty, the cut off cartridge scoop was hard to beat.

One other thing about the hand held press, the cartridges had little or no runout.
 
I use the Lee hand press to decap/resize and flare while sitting in my lazyboy. I will do a couple of hundred cases while watching a movie. I have never had a problem with the press.

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I was thinking of that but was wondering if any other company pakes one as I have hand bad luck with Lee products.

also does it take a lot of strength to use this loader? right now I'm healing from a torn bicep and it's been 7 months & I'm still having issues. I might be nerve damage & I still can't hold my rifle & handguns without pain. I have a ton of spare time & starting to run out of things to keep me busy.
 
To my knowledge the only easy to find portable type reloaders are the Lee hand press with normal dies, Lee Loader hit with hammer, and Lyman 310 tool with special dies that only comes in old cowboy type calibres.

Your other option as some have mentioned is any normal type press stuck to a board that you clamp to anything, or a small portable bench.
 
Nothing wrong with the lee hand press. My size/ decap, flare and prime kit for stand-by time at work consists of:
Lee Hand Press
Small tin of Imperial Sizing wax (great stuff, Goes for miles!)
Shellholders and dies for project at hand
RCBS universal hand priming tool
2 coffee cans
Primers
Handful of rags (stocked in my truck)
 
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