The Question with no right answer...

What should I do?

  • Get outa Handguns while you still can son!

    Votes: 4 6.9%

  • Buy factory for 1 year, save, buy dillon!

    Votes: 11 19.0%

  • Single stage, try to stay sane, save, buy dillon!

    Votes: 21 36.2%

  • Buy lee, Try to stay patient, save 2 years, buy dillon!

    Votes: 13 22.4%

  • Shoot factory only, and practice on your rifle shooting!

    Votes: 3 5.2%

  • I have a better idea ! : (I hope you will elaborate!)

    Votes: 6 10.3%
  • Total voters
    58
V

Vair

New member
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Location
North-Western Alberta
But I want opinions anyhow!

I have read many of the post here, but I want to describe my situation and get some input.

I have just purchased my first few pistols. (.357 Mag & 9mm)
Now I am trying to decide on reloading!!!
I reload rifle, and have access to my dad's single stage (which I will use forever and always for rifle...)
I KNOW that reloading per cartridge is cheaper, but reloading is more expensive... :D
Obviously I am not involved with CAS, IPSC or IDPA... yet
I don't know how much shooting I will do but I do know, even 9mm is 1/2 price to reload...

So to the point folks, D'yall think I should:

Shoot factory for a year, practice, save up & buy a dillon next year?

Use single stage for a year, try to stay sane, and buy a dillon next year?

Buy lee now, have patience, save, and buy a dillion in 2 years?

Only shoot factory and be happy with only 1,000 rounds a year? (my rifle shooting could use the practice)?

Sell the pistols before the bug has a real solid bite?

Let the opinions flow forward! :stirthepot2:

Cheers,

Vair
 
Your questions are too biased.
Why are Lee and Dillon the only two brands named?
Where is the choice for continuing to use a single stage, etc.?
 
H4831 has a very valid point, if you are reloading only two different handgun calibers why not work with the available single-stage press ?
It is not cast in stone that one must use a progressive set-up for reloading handgun, many hundreds of rounds can be loaded on a single-stage press if you are organized, I know because I've done it.
Sure a progressive is faster, but not absolutely necessary.
 
Hey Vair, I take it that it arrived in one piece?

I single stage .40 S&W and .357 magnum and I do shoot IPSC. It's slow but not too silly, just do a few hundred of one stage till you go nuts, then move on to the next stage, etc. I didn't do it until I got a lock and load powder measure. Beam balancing every pistol round is stupid slow.

I do however use my buddies Hornady lock and load when given the chance for 9mm, as they just seem too small feeling to do one at a time :)

Have fun.

Ryan
 
I have a better idea ! : (I hope you will elaborate!)

this stuff costs money, and if you do it then it can also save money. however, that money is "stuck" in ammo-world.

my suggestion? find more money. earn more money. expand your skills to earn more so that the cost of ammo (either factory or commercial reloads) is a non-issue and you can afford to buy 1k-5k at a time without too much strain.

why? because - if you learn to earn more money, you can use that money for ANYTHING. a nicer house, a vacation, earlier retirement, putting your kids through school, paying all your bills on time and in full, etc.

BUT if you put your efforts into learning to reload, that skill has minimal value outside of reloading. can't retire on it, can weather a tough economy with it (like it or not, your ass along with everyone else's is sitting squarely in the middle of one right now), your kids won't give a rat's ass about it when they're trying to get into a good school, and VISA won't take your ammo as payment.

SAVING money is useless - no matter what bank you stuff it into, inflation is gonna erode it. you can ignore the recent LOW rate of inflation since it's not likely to be a long-term rate. assume a 2% to 4% per year inflation - if your savings are "growing" slower than that, you're actually losing money. it's a false security.

it SOUNDS like you're considering reloading because of the economy of it all. don't. find a different solution to your problem - a solution that works even if you get out of the firearms hobby. let's pretend that in 3 years, you want to get into photography as a hobby - does your reloading skill help you at all in that? nope.


EDIT / update

let me put it in perspective for you. you know how much income you have per year, and how much guns, ammo, housing, food, clothing, and all that costs. because of those numbers, you have a "feel" for how expensive some things get. how affordable is shooting 22LR ammo for you right now, today? i'd guess you think it's pretty f'n cheap, no big deal, you can afford to shoot a brick (500) every month without thinking twice about it. but 9mm, 357, 45, those are getting up there and you'd notice it if you went through 500 per month, every month.

ok, now take your income and tack on another zero at the end. make it 10X bigger. now, everything seems quite affordable. housing, consumables (food, fuel), clothing, going out, hobbies, etc - that all seems quite attainable. suddenly, for you going through 500 rounds of 45 in a month is as easy to swallow as Fred going through 500 rounds of 22LR. except that he's using a $500 gun, and you're using a "$50 gun". same gun, just that since you have much more cash to play with, it "seems" like it only cost the current you $50.

would a $50 Glock be nice for you? a $120 Sig? a $300 IPSC race gun? a $200 monthly mortgage? 10-cent fuel? a brand new $15,000 Porsche? ammo at 5-cent-a-round if you're shooting 9/40/45/357, or as much as 25-cents-a-round if you're shooting 454 / 50AE / 338Lap, and no more than $5-per-round if you feel like taking a few shots with a 50BMG. sounds cheap!!!

if you reload, your $2k mortgage is still $2k, even if your ammo is suddently half price.
if you earn more, your $2k mortgage is only "$200", and at that rate you can own your "$50,000" home in under 5 years.

go make more money.
 
Last edited:
BP7 said:
I have a better idea ! : (I hope you will elaborate!)

this stuff costs money, and if you do it then it can also save money. however, that money is "stuck" in ammo-world.

my suggestion? find more money. earn more money. expand your skills to earn more so that the cost of ammo (either factory or commercial reloads) is a non-issue and you can afford to buy 1k-5k at a time without too much strain.

why? because - if you learn to earn more money, you can use that money for ANYTHING. a nicer house, a vacation, earlier retirement, putting your kids through school, paying all your bills on time and in full, etc.

BUT if you put your efforts into learning to reload, that skill has minimal value outside of reloading. can't retire on it, can weather a tough economy with it (like it or not, your ass along with everyone else's is sitting squarely in the middle of one right now), your kids won't give a rat's ass about it when they're trying to get into a good school, and VISA won't take your ammo as payment.

SAVING money is useless - no matter what bank you stuff it into, inflation is gonna erode it. you can ignore the recent LOW rate of inflation since it's not likely to be a long-term rate. assume a 2% to 4% per year inflation - if your savings are "growing" slower than that, you're actually losing money. it's a false security.

it SOUNDS like you're considering reloading because of the economy of it all. don't. find a different solution to your problem - a solution that works even if you get out of the firearms hobby. let's pretend that in 3 years, you want to get into photography as a hobby - does your reloading skill help you at all in that? nope.


EDIT / update

let me put it in perspective for you. you know how much income you have per year, and how much guns, ammo, housing, food, clothing, and all that costs. because of those numbers, you have a "feel" for how expensive some things get. how affordable is shooting 22LR ammo for you right now, today? i'd guess you think it's pretty f'n cheap, no big deal, you can afford to shoot a brick (500) every month without thinking twice about it. but 9mm, 357, 45, those are getting up there and you'd notice it if you went through 500 per month, every month.

ok, now take your income and tack on another zero at the end. make it 10X bigger. now, everything seems quite affordable. housing, consumables (food, fuel), clothing, going out, hobbies, etc - that all seems quite attainable. suddenly, for you going through 500 rounds of 45 in a month is as easy to swallow as Fred going through 500 rounds of 22LR. except that he's using a $500 gun, and you're using a "$50 gun". same gun, just that since you have much more cash to play with, it "seems" like it only cost the current you $50.

would a $50 Glock be nice for you? a $120 Sig? a $300 IPSC race gun? a $200 monthly mortgage? 10-cent fuel? a brand new $15,000 Porsche? ammo at 5-cent-a-round if you're shooting 9/40/45/357, or as much as 25-cents-a-round if you're shooting 454 / 50AE / 338Lap, and no more than $5-per-round if you feel like taking a few shots with a 50BMG. sounds cheap!!!

if you reload, your $2k mortgage is still $2k, even if your ammo is suddently half price.
if you earn more, your $2k mortgage is only "$200", and at that rate you can own your "$50,000" home in under 5 years.

go make more money.
Click to expand...


Maybe not quite on the topic of this thread but in my experience this guy nailed it. I've noticed this same 'pattern' I guess you could say when I have analyzed my spending growing up. In High school 2.00 for a pizza sub in the school cafe was something to save up for. Now that I make a lot more money I drop twice that on a bagel and coffee while riding in my 1 ton oil burner to work every day! Do I think about spending the money no, not most days. He is right it's all because I make more.

Now there is another line of thought that is not wrong. It's always a good idea to save money! The guy is buying ammunition anyway why wouldn’t you get a better price by reloading. I trade in my evening do nothing time to save 40% on my ammunition costs for me that’s a great deal. If I had the kind of job where I could go to work in the evening and make more money that would make more financial sense...would I do that, probably not ;)

None of the options were ... put the press on my credit card and start buying components.

My vote is use the single stage that is available until you save the money for the progressive you want.

Nic
 
mercuryv8 said:
I trade in my evening do nothing time to save 40% on my ammunition costs for me that’s a great deal. If I had the kind of job where I could go to work in the evening and make more money that would make more financial sense...would I do that, probably not ;)
Click to expand...

you said "trade" and while i know you meant it as "trade-in, convert my evening time to reloading time" or along those lines, i went to defining "trade" as in "buy low, sell high". you can trade currencies in the evening - the forex market runs 24/5. yeah, this is getting off-topic and into other areas, but it IS a potential source of income. then again, there are other things one can do after 5pm to make money (legally).

i trade stocks and currencies - that's where my time & energy goes and where my extra money comes from. it feeds my hobby and my early retirement. time is money - you can preserve money by using time to reload, or you can earn money by using time to trade or do other profitable things.

getting deeper into the $$$ stuff, Kevin O'Leary (a canadian) says it nicely - "i've been rich, and i've been poor, and rich is better"
 
Hu Rah!!

I got all sorts of interesting answers, from the expected, to creative ideas, to financial planning :D
H4831- sorry I seem biased, but based on my research I found that dillon seems to be the 'best of the best' when it comes to progressive. And lee seems to be the best low-economy...
I would go with Single-stage, but I could easily see myself shooting 500 rounds each day (that is even before I get into competition of any sort...), which would take ~ 10 hours to load eghad! (twice as long to load as to shoot!?) By using carbide dies I could see some time being saved, but I haven't found any other ideas that would substantially reduce that time!
If anyone has any great ideas for efficiency using a single stage, I would be incredibly HAPPY to hear from you!

BP7- If you honestly believe I can multiply my income by 10 I will happily come to where you live and become your student, once it happens I will buy you one of those 15000 porches!

Cheers,

Vair
 
I know a guy that bought a Dillon cuz' somebody else told him it's what he needed. He tells me he wished he'd never bought it, cuz there's so many damn accessories, attachments etc, that are required.

I can't imagine loading for 9mm, .45ACP etc. If I did, I would look to get some sort of progressive press though.

I bought the dies to load .44Mag and .480Ruger and one of these years I'll give that a go, on my old single stage press.
 
You could start off by buying a supply of remanufactured ammo, which roughly splits the cost difference between factory ammo and reloads. This can tide you over until you are ready to get a progressive press, by which time you will have an ample supply of brass to reload.

Get a Dillon over a Lee press. Lee makes OK single stage and turret presses, but their progressives will require a lot more fiddling to work properly compared with anything from Hornady, RCBS, or Dillon. The upfront cost may be more, but the difference over the long run between a cheap and a nice reloading setup is small compared to component cost.

Estimate your likely ammo consumption and use that to determine what press capacity you need. If you match your press to your consumption, reloading need not be inordinately time consuming. I can easily exceed a cyclic rate of 500 rounds/hour with my Dillon 550 fitted with the bullet tray and empty case bin. An automatic indexing press with a case feeder will be even faster, but at the expense of greater complexity and a higher cost to change calibres. This may not be a problem if you only plan on loading one or two calibres with the press.
 
hehe! hey, i never said it was EASY, i just said that if / when you get to that point (if depends on whether you want to and decide to, and when depend on which path you take and how much effort you put into it), the results will likely be well worth it. nothing good is easy, cuz if it was everyone would already have it.

i'll PM you some thoughts since i don't wanna derail this thread TOO much...
 
tjhaile said:
You could start off by buying a supply of remanufactured ammo, which roughly splits the cost difference between factory ammo and reloads. This can tide you over until you are ready to get a progressive press, by which time you will have an ample supply of brass to reload.
Click to expand...

probably a good idea! low cost, plenty of ammo, and parts for the future if you decide to reload on your own. the only "problem" with this is that you end up buying 1,000 rounds at a time, and that stuff can get heavy! after all, it's lead and brass, neither of which are lightweight aerospace composites :p

if you figure you're likely to go through 500 rounds a month, then get yourself maybe 2k, and reload 1k every two months. by all accounts, that should only take an afternoon to make 1k (with a good progressive, from what i've been told). that way, while you've got 1k in empty brass to reload, you've got the other 1k to use on range days - and by the time you're done those, you presumably have reloaded the other batch of 1k.
 
50% of your options end with "buy Dillon".

Just do it and quit wasting our time, and yours.













You know you want to.......;)
 
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