Reloading Kits? What did you like and not like ?

bdb.hunting

bdb.hunting

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So I am getting into the hobby of reloading so I can shoot more then what's available from factory for my rifle. (6.5PRC) and will Likely get into others as I go as I am thinking of maybe a 300 PRC or something of that area.

As I start to dip my toes I have been looking at all the kits around and am unable to decide what is a good starting point as I don't want to have to re buy things.

So to all you reloaders new and old what is something your kit either came with and you loved or didn't come with and you wished you had gotten ?

I already have one set of components but am collecting them as I see them or find them. So when I get setup I can start.

Cheers,

(EDIT Thanks to everyone who posted I have decided I wont be buying a kit but building a kit)

cover-me-im-reloading.jpg
 
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Hands down the scale... (especially if you are reloading for those calibers, you will be wanting consistent accurate powder charges for maximum accuracy) and unless you are investing in an expensive kit up front you aren't going to get a great scale. So plan on getting a good one up front and saving yourself a lot of frustration.

After that... case prep. Most kits expect you to load from factory new brass... you want some way to trim accurately at the very least.
 
My first set of reloading gear was a kit.
I don't think they sell it anymore but RCBS had an exclusive package that came with a Rock Chucker 4 and a Charmaster along with trimmer and various other parts.
Basically it was almost everything you needed to get going with the exception of dies, calipers, and tumbler.

Was a good package, but eventually my preferences/standards had changed, and ended up upgrading EVERYTHING after about 10 years of usage.
If I knew then that I was going to be as committed to reloading as I am now.....I should have immediately bought the "big things" like scale, press, and trimmer that I have now but back then.

I am sure that many here will agree with jparent's post.... it is worth getting the most tippy top scale and powder dispenser system that your budget can allow...... FX-120-i with the Autotrickler V3 or V4 is very hard to beat. As for presses, the Forster Co-Ax (if you can find one right now) is money well spent too IMO
 
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I think the posts above got to it - is a mistake to think that with no experience at reloading, that you are going to get all your gear perfect the first time. For sure after 10 years, 20 years you are going to replace stuff or you will call it an "upgrade". I have reloaded 243 Win and 308 Win since mid-1970's and just took delivery of an RCBS Chargemaster Lite last week. It does not stop - today I received some LEE case trimming tools, because I prefer them - and that required owning a Lyman hand crank type length trimmer to know that. I used an RCBS single leverage "Special" press for 30 odd years and thought it was just fine - now there is a compound leverage Rockchucker bolted to the bench. And an RCBS Partner press in a box on the shelf. You simply will not know which is "best" until you try various tools. If you are a bench rest shooter looking to plunk 5 or 10 shots into 0.2" groups on paper, or if you are a hunter trying to get set up for 400 yard elk - is different - and the tooling and process can become a lot of "busy work" or of true value to what you are trying to accomplish.
 
I got the RCBS RC IV kit. It was good but it's missing stuff, tumbler, good scale, powder funnel. Just little stuff but it has made a difference when I upgraded to my good setup. A Dillon 550, Frankford Arms SS tumbler, digital scales. I admit I've invested a lot more money into this than expected, but... I can run 200+ rounds in 1/2 hr in shiney brass, that's been annealed that's near match grade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le7vidIbEQs&list=PLFVkJ1KrFaH9uvpjPuCx2HnzlSdY-Grth
 
I'm not sure the kits are a good value unless you get in on a really good sale. The kits have stuff you won't use or will want to upgrade.
 
kits are meh...

get the press you want (rock chucker is an awesome press, redding ones are better in my opinion),

check list

-scale, buy once cry once, get a redding or an rcbs
-powder funnel, pick your color they are all the same
-powder thrower, redding is king, the others can be fixed with a cardboard insert to level out the throws. lee is junk
-calipers
-case triming system... all have proes and cons, but honestly the lee trimer system on a drill is the fastest, cheapest and most accuarate one ive used
-case deburing tool.
-dies
-lee reloading book
-case tray
-case lube

your set to safety reload

nice items to have

-bullet puller (you will #### up)
-case runout gauge (hornadys is cats ass and lets you fix run out on the tool)
-hornady lock rings for your dies, so much easier, they don't move so you can set your die height once and they go back in bang on when switching dies.
-case cleaning system, personally q big fan of stainless steel media wet tumbling, buy it once good indefinitely. you will wear the drum linner out before you wear the media out.
-neck turning tool .... don't bother unless your doing super percision stuff
-case/primer sealant... if you are stock piling reloads, i find after a few years you get hang fires if you dont seal the cases
powder trickler
-auto prime system on the press,
 
I started reloading with a beginners RCBS kit that my Father had bought me for Christmas over 40 years ago. It was a terrific gift that got me started in a hobby that I still participate in today. I have upgraded almost all of the items over the years as funds and availability of used items allowed. WK
 
LordEvilPepper said:
kits are meh...

get the press you want (rock chucker is an awesome press, redding ones are better in my opinion),

check list

-scale, buy once cry once, get a redding or an rcbs
-powder funnel, pick your color they are all the same
-powder thrower, redding is king, the others can be fixed with a cardboard insert to level out the throws. lee is junk
-calipers
-case triming system... all have proes and cons, but honestly the lee trimer system on a drill is the fastest, cheapest and most accuarate one ive used
-case deburing tool.
-dies
-lee reloading book
-case tray
-case lube

your set to safety reload

nice items to have

-bullet puller (you will #### up)
-case runout gauge (hornadys is cats ass and lets you fix run out on the tool)
-hornady lock rings for your dies, so much easier, they don't move so you can set your die height once and they go back in bang on when switching dies.
-case cleaning system, personally q big fan of stainless steel media wet tumbling, buy it once good indefinitely. you will wear the drum linner out before you wear the media out.
-neck turning tool .... don't bother unless your doing super percision stuff
-case/primer sealant... if you are stock piling reloads, i find after a few years you get hang fires if you dont seal the cases
powder trickler
-auto prime system on the press,
Click to expand...

This info is wonderful. I will be using it and the others to build myself a kit.
 
LordEvilPepper said:
kits are meh...

get the press you want (rock chucker is an awesome press, redding ones are better in my opinion),

check list

-scale, buy once cry once, get a redding or an rcbs
-powder funnel, pick your color they are all the same
-powder thrower, redding is king, the others can be fixed with a cardboard insert to level out the throws. lee is junk
-calipers
-case triming system... all have proes and cons, but honestly the lee trimer system on a drill is the fastest, cheapest and most accuarate one ive used
-case deburing tool.
-dies
-lee reloading book
-case tray
-case lube

your set to safety reload

nice items to have

-bullet puller (you will #### up)
-case runout gauge (hornadys is cats ass and lets you fix run out on the tool)
-hornady lock rings for your dies, so much easier, they don't move so you can set your die height once and they go back in bang on when switching dies.
-case cleaning system, personally q big fan of stainless steel media wet tumbling, buy it once good indefinitely. you will wear the drum linner out before you wear the media out.
-neck turning tool .... don't bother unless your doing super percision stuff
-case/primer sealant... if you are stock piling reloads, i find after a few years you get hang fires if you dont seal the cases
powder trickler
-auto prime system on the press,
Click to expand...

A terrific post! Nothing there that I would disagree with at all! Is a thing, maybe, about personal preferences, to chose some over the other. I have never owned any Redding tools, so I can not give opinion, from experience, whether better or not. Way back in 1970's, I receive box of stuff from father-in-law - reloading tools - so RCBS Uniflow measure, etc. An "Ideal" - I think - beam scale - used a leg hanging down into a reservoir of oil as the oscillation damper - I loaded hundreds, maybe thousands of round with that - worked fine, I thought. I currently have been using a Hornady scale with magnetic dampening - a great improvement, I think! My brother "inherited" my older stuff - I am now using a Lee Powder Measure - throwing light and trickle up to weight on beam scale - did up 100 rounds one day last week - by deliberately "jiggling" it, I could vary the throw plus 0.2 grains to minus 0.2 grains of Ramshot Hunter powder- a reasonably fine grained, more-or-less ball powder.

Moving out of the 20th century, I took delivery of an RCBS Chargemaster Lite last week - have not used it yet - I hope it is at least 50% of the claims for it - but I still have the beam scale and trickler set up - I know they work.
 
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I started with a Lee kit, it was cheap and was fine to start on. Broke the linkage on the press, Lee sent me a new one.

Over the years I have upgraded everything, the only thing I am still using is a Lee hand primer, and its not the original one from the kit.

Powder measure is an old Pacific and easily holds a full pond of powder, scale is an older Hornady balance beam, presses I use most are the RCBS RS2 and RS5, I also have an old JR2 built like a tank, I've given away 2 Lee presses, Hornady powder trickler, dies from all different companies. Shell holders are almost all Lee. Case trimmer is a RCBS, most of the other case prep tools are Lyman.

mix and max of everything.
 
As mentioned above, lots of praise for the RCBS CM Lite. I went from a couple cheap digital scales to that (great deal on sale) and unless you step up to lab grade equipment, i think it's impossible to beat.
 
I started cheap and pieced together a kit that fit in a box a bit longer than a shoebox and half as high.

Bought a Lyman convertible hand/bench mount press, that made a Lee Challenger look like pure rigidity!
Bought a couple sets of used dies. Lee Primer Tool, Lee Scoops, and Lee Case trimmers for the calibers I was then loading.

Made thousands of rounds of decent Gopher shooting ammo, and hundreds of rounds of Deer hunting ammo, over a great number of years, while listening to lots of guys that told me that I had no possibility of success using anything but the absolute best equipment out there...

The stuff I put together was adequate for my needs for a long time. I found a Lee Classic Cast on sale pretty cheap one day, and bought that. Added a fair few sets of dies, over the years. Finally got a scale.

For the most part, every maker makes some pretty decent stuff, and some duds. If you are not shooting high volume, you probably don't need and all singing, all dancing progressive press, and as nice as the co-axial Press is, it doesn't make nicer enough ammo to justify the expense to me. I'd rather spend that money on powder and bullets.

Otherwise, decide if you care about color co-ordination of your reloading bench, which color you like best, and shop accordingly.
 
I did start, many years ago, with the "pound 'em in and pound 'em out" Lee kits - used the scoop - had to buy the correct powder and bullets from the chart. Many hundreds of loads done up that way - took some deer as well. Currently having discussion with buddy - can use $50 (or less) of tooling to make shells that go "bang". He wonders why I use many hundreds, perhaps thousand dollars of stuff to reload - I want more than a "bang", I guess?? But that was "good enough" for many years, for me.
 
bdb.hunting said:
....

(EDIT Thanks to everyone who posted I have decided I wont be buying a kit but building a kit)
Click to expand...

Right on, glad you found some useful info.

FWIW, if you like spending weeks (or months) researching, choosing and then trying to source your ideal equipment before you reload a single round, then that's great. That would make me nuts! Even after all that time spent, there's a pretty good chance you will change your mind on at least some pieces of equipment after using it for a bit - Maybe all of it, as many have reported here.

If you buy a starter kit, you can start reloading and gaining practical experience immediately. Then you have some context for choosing "keeper" items going forward. Different strokes though...
 
woodchopper said:
I started with a Lee kit, it was cheap and was fine to start on. Broke the linkage on the press, Lee sent me a new one.

Over the years I have upgraded everything, the only thing I am still using is a Lee hand primer, and its not the original one from the kit.

....
Click to expand...

I bought a Lee starter kit years ago, and really the only significant change I made to my setup was to add a trickler, digital scale, and calipers. I still use almost everything from the kit (broke a few primer trays, which Lee replaced).

You can make some pretty accurate rounds with just the basics, though YMMV.

Of course, nicer gear is nicer gear, and usually more pleasant to use.
 
It is all relevant. As a new reloader, whether you spend $300 or $3000, you’re still going to be learning as you go. Buy once/cry once is great until you spend $500 on a chargemaster only to replace it with an auto trickler.
It’ll be buy twice/cry twice if you try and buy all high end stuff from the beginning.
Any of the steel presses are a good start.
Most any beam scale and priming tool will do the job no problem. A digital scale is handy too. The $40 Hornady is decent. Anything up from that will be nicer to use if you’ve got $ to spend.
Dies don’t matter too much, $50 more for Redding over lee is probably worth it. Rcbs are very usable as well.
Start with the lee trimmers. They’re cheap and will do the job. You can spend $3-$400 easy on trimming if you want, but usually you’re just doing it faster if you spend more money.
Wet tumbling can be done in small batches with a little rock tumbler from Amazon. I still have the one I started with and still use it sometimes. Bigger fancy tumblers will just do it faster.
Spend at least $100 on a set of callipers. This is one item you’ll need for all reloading you’ll ever do. I’ve got 4 with different attachments on them and use them all the time. The Hornady bullet comparator set is very handy as well, but not a must to start.
A couple of manuals are nice too, but are not required. This is contrary to what a lot of people say. I only ever use them for trim length and a quick reference for suitable powder.

My advice as far as components go is to pick a known good combo of powder and bullet, and stick with that for the first bit. Experimenting with powder and or bullets will only confuse you and you’ll end up with a bunch of half pound containers of powder and partial boxes of bullets.
 
One of the most overlooked part of a good kit is the die's, This is were you don't want to cheap out especially if you planning on shooting PRS or you want to get the best performance out of your precision handloads, I'm using the Redding and Forester comp dies, you can't go wrong with any of these. The RCBS Rock chucker supreme is a solid performer. For powder handling the RCBS chargemaster lite is a great choice. If you want to go down a deep rabbit hole and your shooting F-Class..Then you get an autotrickler setup, but that's just the beginning. Stick to the basics for now and learn how to do load development.

The other mention is the brass for reloading just get yourself some Lapua brass.
 
To get started with the most basic/starter reloading set up, you will need this:

1. Press (single stage) O frame
2. Scale (beam scale) for weighing powder charges and bullets.
3. Priming tool (some presses come with a priming tool, LEE for example)
4. reloading die set for your chosen cartridge AND shell holder (LEE dies come with shell holder)
5. trimmer (not needed for most handgun cartridges) use the LEE handheld trimmers for about $15
6. powder funnel
7. loading block (easy to make it yourself with a piece of 2x4 and a drill)
8. case preparation tools (inside/outside neck chamfer, large and small primer pocket cleaners)
9. caliper (digital or dial)
10. bullet puller, because you will need one eventually

This is a basic setup that will make excellent quality ammunition and is all that many shooters will ever require. At some point you may want to add a powder measure and some kind of brass cleaning machine but you don't need it to get started. An experienced reloader can make 50-100 cartridges per hour with that setup.
 
A lot will depend on how happy you can be knowing that there will always be more expensive (and therefore possibly better) tools out there to do the same tasks with.

Sometimes the extra money will buy better fit and finish (think Redding dies vs Lee); sometimes it buys more productivity (think Chargemaster system vs balance beam and trickler); sometimes it buys better measuring capability (Mitutoyo calipers vs Harbour Freight); or it could bring more repeatable processing results (Wilson case trimmers vs anything else I've tried). It can also buy pride of ownership, which while it won't produce better results down-range, it is a real and tangible end result in itself - I think we all enjoy seeing nice tools on our shelves - especially when it's a tool that you use often.

None of which is to say that more expensive equals better - I've been using a set of Canadian Tire calipers for 10 years that is both accurate and precise (I check it regularly with a Mitutoyo standard), and those calipers may have been the best $15 tool I've ever bought. (I'm guessing they weren't made on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon...)

If you have a chance to do some reloading at a friend's bench - or even just watch the friend at work during a reloading session - you may have a good opportunity to figure out what tools you want and or need to go entry-level on (for now) and what you may want to spend a bit more on initially to avoid buying twice. (It would also be a good time to take notes on how the bench is organized and how that affects workflow.)

Case in point, I can't think of too many items that I bought when starting out in reloading that I still use - I went with the Lee Anniversary kit back then, as I knew nothing about reloading tools at that point, and I had no way of judging where the rabbit hole would lead - namely: Amazon, Brownells, Budget Shooter Supplies, Cabelas, eBay, Higginsons, IRunGuns, McMillan, Prophet River, Wolverine, X-Reload, plus numerous sellers (and a few buyers for the old tools) on the CGN Equipment Exchange. I've mentally written off the costs of re-buying as the price of knowledge (which sounds a lot better than the equivalent "jeez, I've spent a lot of money twice...").

The reloading bench is mostly green now, but there's still some red to be found. It kinda looks like Christmas all year 'round... :)

Good luck with the new hobby - the good news is that there's no wrong way to get into it, as long as you do it safely.
 
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