Want to start reloading, need advice!

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ginnz

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Hi guys....

Recently i bought my first "precision" center fire, a Weatherby Vanguard varmint in .223, and want to get into reloading my own ammo for it. Along with the purchase, the guy included approx. 130 rounds of .223 (rem) that he reloaded himself..... The rounds included were 50 grn (Nosler Ballistic Tip), and 53 grn (Hornady V-Max)....

the Nosler ballistic tip is apparently shooting at 3350 fps, and the V-Max stuff at 3325. He stated he didn't do too much in the lines of load development, and that these loads were "good enough", my first impressions are very good, and so far my best groups have been with the 50 grn Nosler stuff, but im sure if i got into it, i could improve on it! Im getting .5" groups with the 50 grn. in my first outing, and about .75" at 175 yards.....

this is the data he gave me, for the 50 grn Nosler loads, 26.3 grn of Benchmark, 2.25 coal, Federal small rifle primer (3350 fps)

for the 53 grn V-max, 25.9 grn Benchmark, 2.25 Coal, Federal small rifle primer, (3325 fps)

Now, for starting off, im not looking for anything that'll do it all in one for me, I just wan tto reload 150-200 rounds at a time, and have the time, so with that in mind, can someone please recommend a good starting setup and all the stuff i would need to acquire to get started? Is there a reloading kit that has all the equipment needed to get started that doesnt cost an arm and a leg? Or would i be better off buying most of it used in the EE area one at a time?

or, better yet, maybe someone out there could put together a basic all in one starter kit for me? or most of the stuff needed? ;-)

I certainly will get some manuals, and do the research needed, but am looking for advice and suggestions! all feedback is greatly appreciated!

thanks for now,

GiNNz!
 
Hornady, RCBS and Lee all offer complete starter kits. There's not much you won't need if you get one of those kits. The exception being a case cleaner, bullet puller and some calipers.
 
Thanks guys! I will look into the starter kits, i have a couple sets of precision calipers already (from machining).... if i keep my eyes open, i may stumble on a deal of a used kit? ;-)

in your opinions, who offers the better quality starter kits? or does it really make any difference?

ginnz.

-edit-

just looked at cabela's local site, and found the "Lee 50th Anniversary Reloading Kit" for 129.99! i may just pick that up, along with dies, and the Lee Pilot & Shell Holder For Lee Case Trimmer.....it looks like it may be a place to start?

I also see the "Hornady Lock and Load" kit for 399.99.... which one would be a better starter kit in your opinions? sure the Lee one is less than half the price, but maybe there's a reason?

your opinions here are very valuable to me! and i really appreciate them!

Doug (ginnz)
 
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The Lee kit will be fine.
I don't know the difference between the two, but I have mostly lee tooling and it works fine for me.

You're going to need a fair amount of accessories to get things rolling smoothly, so starting off with the cheaper press is good. You'll end up spending $399 by the time you have everything together, but will have everything you need to make decent ammo without a lot of headaches.

The lock and load kit you're looking at seems to be missing some of the same stuff the lee kit is that you'll need to get anyway.

Don't get too caught up on making perfect match grade ammo at first, you'll just waste money on high end components and be pulling your hair out. It's going to take some tinkering and experience to get to that level.

Once you have you're kit together, just buy some cheap FMJ bullets and play around with loading them with an economy powder like 3031 or 4198 (which are great for general purpose 223) to get a feel for how everything works.

Avoid Remington primers. Try Winchester or CCI for now, until you're ready to get benchrest primers for your match ammo.

I use a Lee turret press, it's great for loading in volume, if you had a semi auto, but there is a bit of play in the turret disk that make your bullet seating less consistent.
A single stage press will be a bit slower, but making match grade ammo can be slow to begin with, and once the die is locked into place, there should be no play and more consistent results.

The powder measure the Lee 50th kit comes with is decent, but I would recommend a powder trickler to go with it. I think mine is a lyman. When I load match grade, I calibrate my powder measure to "price is right rules" then trickle the difference. I find this to be the fastest way to load power into my match grade rounds until I have like $300 to spend on an auto measure.

Invest in a digital scale, I use a Hornady GS-1500. It's cheap and it works great.
Using scale that comes with the Lee kit is like trying to herd cats.

You're also going to need a caliper measure. They got decent digital ones on sale at Candian Tire all the time. "Mastercraft Digital Caliper" Just keep spare batteries on hand.

If you were getting the better lock and load kit that is shown on the Hornady website, it seems to have most all you'd need.

Of course you're going to need dies. Again I use lee. They will make more accurate ammo then you'll be able to until you know what you really want/need.
If you do get lee dies get the deluxe kit with the collet neck sizer.
The neck sizer is a good way to help you make match grade ammo until you get more advanced with precision sizing and custom headspacing. And it's also handy as hell when you just want to bust out a quick batch of plinkers.

And then if you go lee, you need to cutter/shellholder kit that matches you caliber.
Again, it's good enough until you get more advanced.

One trick to reloading accurate ammo on the cheap is to develop consistent habits that you can duplicate everytime you whip up a batch. Until you got that down, like I said, just play around a bit to get a feel for things.

As for reloading manuals. If you go to the RCBS website, there is a "Guide to Reloading" and "Step by step". It pretty much gives you the jist of it.
From there, all the load data you need is on the websites of the powder you want to use. That's how I learned to reload.

Beware of the Alliant website for load data, they ONLY LIST THE MAXIMUM LOAD.
You have to take their data and reduce it at least 10% to get your starting load.
Read all the warnings and what not on the load data sections of their sites and it'll tell you little things you need to know.

Also, mind the OAL/COL that is listed on the data sites. That is a very important number. It's how long you round it suppose to be with the bullet seated. If that number changes, it throws off the load data listed . . . if you don't know that one already.
 
Oh, I should also mention, it'll be a while before you're reloading "150-200" at a time, you'll be loading small batches at first to work up your loads.

The primer pocket cleaner tool that comes with the lee kit work but it kind of lame. I use the RCBS one that's like a brush.

It's also good to have a nice power drill for any spinning applications. Trimming and primer pocket cleaning by hand can get tiresome.
I use and old 12v cordless who's batteries are long dead, and rigged it to run off a power supply, it's perfect.
If you use a corded drill, beware of the torque, sometimes while trimming the case can slip out of the shell holder.
If you use a cordless, get extra batteries. Nothing, when reloading, is more annoying then being knee deep in a batch of case prep and running out of juice.


And bare in mind, some match grade barrels supposedly have to be cleaned after a certain amount of rounds fired. I hope you have a good system of mucking out copper fouling. If you shoot a lot of rounds at once, and your barrel gets coated, and you're loading hot near max loads, you could be in for an unpleasant surprise.
 
Conte said:
The primer pocket cleaner tool that comes with the lee kit work but it kind of lame. I use the RCBS one that's like a brush.
QUOTE]

I have to agree. I just bought a RCBS primer poacket brush and installed in a drill that I have mounted to my bench. it works super fast.

George
Click to expand...
 
Conte,

Thanks! thats the info i was looking for! and as for tools, i have a well stocked garage, corless drills, calipers, bench space....

and, i realize i'll have to start slow. i'll prolly make a dozen at a time to start! see how things go, and set up as i go along.... I'll more than likely get the Lee kit, and whatever else needed, along with the trickler, scale, pilot/shell holder, trimmer, ect..... its a decent starting point.

i have good cleaning stuff, and i typically clean my barrel after every 50 rounds or so....

thanks for all the advice.

Edit-

so ive priced everything out, and this is what i came up with..... i think its pretty much all id need to start.

Lee 50th anniversary kit
pilot and shell holder
die (223)
Hornady scale
bullet puller
rcbs powder trickler
lee case trimmer
couldn't find a collet/neck sizer

price of all listed is 329.93, thats not bad i think, i'd imagine i should budget about 500.00 when all's said and done, and then go from there ;-) it'll be a slow work in progress.... but i have a decent man room, and it'll all come together rather nicely i think. ill make it a fall/winter project.
 
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cancer said:
Hornady, RCBS and Lee all offer complete starter kits. There's not much you won't need if you get one of those kits. The exception being a case cleaner, bullet puller and some calipers.
Click to expand...

Lyman does too don't they?
They used to at least. That's what I picked up when I started.
Lyman Orange crusher II O frame press
Lyman 500 scale
Primer tray
Case holder tray
Case Lube and lube tray/mat
Deburring tool
Neck cleaning brush
Powder funnel
Lyman case trimmer
Bullet pulling kinetic hammer
Lyman reloading manual 47th edition (the new 49th is way better, but I started a while back)

Things not included in the lyman starter set;
Lee die set
Case tumbler
Digital vernier caliper
Powder trickler
Lee powder scoop set

And shortly after a powder measure for convenience.

That's the basics and there is always more you can add.

I chose Lyman becase it was better quallity than Lee but 1/2 the money of RCBS.
 
ginnz said:
Conte,

Thanks! thats the info i was looking for! and as for tools, i have a well stocked garage, corless drills, calipers, bench space....

and, i realize i'll have to start slow. i'll prolly make a dozen at a time to start!

couldn't find a collet/neck sizer
Click to expand...

You're welcome.

I usually make batches of 20 at a time, cause, that's the common size of a box of ammo.

The Collet Sizer comes with the "Deluxe".
The standard Lee kit comes with the resizer, bullet seater, and factory crimper.

The deluxe kit comes with the resizer, bullet seater, and collet sizer.

For match ammo, you do not need a crimper. So if they have the deluxe kit listed, get that, it'll be more useful.

Cleaning a target rifle can be important cause if you don't pull all the copper buildup out, it can collect, and virtually make your bore smaller which can cause an increase in pressure. It's generally not a problem if you are making typical moderate loads. Some people make really hot loads for target shooting that are OVER the Sammi listed max pressures, but safe enough that the action can handle it, however, if the bore is not maintained properly and copper collects, it can cause a once safe hot load to become dangerous. Usually you just end up ruining brass really fast and perforating primers. I've yet to hear a gun actually blowing up for that.

My 223 target rifle shoots great but collects a lot of copper every session. I can take me a week to soak it all out using Hoppes Benchrest.
 
thanks again for all the advice guys....

im almost there! yesterday i was at my local shop, and some kid was selling a bunch of stuff off. I went to see what he had, and i got a full jug of H335, 150 pieces of primed .223, 1000 primers, .223 Lee dies, 100 Nosler 55gn BT ballistic tip bullets, 100 55 gn FMJ, and some case boxes, all for 45.00!

so i went to Cabela's today and picked up the 50th Anniversary Lee Kit, on sale for 120.00! I got bullet holder, and some other stuff right away, so i have everything I need to start reloading. Im gonna get this guy from around here thats a seasoned pro to come by and help me set it all up, then go from there.

thanks again! maybe i'll update this thread with my beginning experiences.

Ginnz.
 
get the rcbs chargemaster 1500 from natchezss. cheaper then anywhere i could find it and you will be happy you you got it. I just got mine this week and it ROCKS
 
Hey, good deal, I have had good success with H335 with 23.5 gr and Hornady 68 gr HPBT and Sierra 69 gr HPBT or 25 gr of H335 with 52 gr Hornady HPBT. Good luck with your reloading and shooting. Cheers Roscoe
 
Thanks again guys! Well i made up my first rounds today! I tried yesterday, and screwed up! the first round i chambered, went in a bit tight, and the bolt closed hard...... Turned out i didnt set my de-capping/sizing die correctly.

once i got that ironed out, it took a bit to find the right setting for seating the bullets. all in all i made 10 rounds with 55 grn fmj, just to try out. i just got back from the "range", and even with gusty winds, and no rest but my truck hood, i had really good groups! at 150 yards i had all five within an inch, prolly more like .75"! i can totally live with that! now im gonna make up 40 more that are all ready with 55 gn nosler's ;-)

thanks again!
Ginnz.
 
ginnz said:
Thanks again guys! Well i made up my first rounds today! I tried yesterday, and screwed up! the first round i chambered, went in a bit tight, and the bolt closed hard...... Turned out i didnt set my de-capping/sizing die correctly.

once i got that ironed out, it took a bit to find the right setting for seating the bullets. all in all i made 10 rounds with 55 grn fmj, just to try out. i just got back from the "range", and even with gusty winds, and no rest but my truck hood, i had really good groups! at 150 yards i had all five within an inch, prolly more like .75"! i can totally live with that! now im gonna make up 40 more that are all ready with 55 gn nosler's ;-)

thanks again!
Ginnz.
Click to expand...



And so it begins :D .... go for it ginnz ;)
 
well, im gonna work with what i got for now. i think the first thing i wanna upgrade will be the scale. the one in the kit seems to work fine, but its kinda slow, and you gotta fiddle with it so much to get a perfect reading.

i loaded 3 different loads tonight, which i wanna try tomorrow.... their all with the H335 powder i got, and Hornady 55 gn V-Max bullets. there as follows.

winchester .223 brass, remington 6.5 small rifle primers

24 gn H335/2.260 COAL
24.5 gn H335/2.260 COAL
25 gn H335/2.260 COAL

itll be interesting to see which one does the best, or if there will be any real difference between them. I used brand new, never fired brass for this..... i'll find out tomorrow, and post results. btw- i wish i had a chronograph!
 
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