What do I need to start loading?

The hornady lock-n-load classic kit has about everything you need to start. The only separate thing you really need is a case trimmer. A brass tumbler or sonic cleaner is good to have too.
 
YouTube is your friend, also buy any of the good reloading books as they usually have the first few chapters on the fundamentals of reloading. I started 3 years ago and I just read all I could find on the subject, and watched a zillion you tubes. Worked for me.
 
Books, books, BOOKS. Before you go and spend money on equipment, get yourself at least two books on the subject of reloading and read them from cover to cover. You'll get a much better appreciation for what's involved and the toolsets you might get. There's good series on YouTube also, notably from Hornady, Lee, Dillon, RCBS and others, but of course they promote their own brands of reloading equipment.

People are too often fixated on the press because it's the main tool we need, but you need to think about case cleaning, case preparation, the dies, the powder balance, a priming tool, calipers and/or micrometers, storage for supplies, etc... all those little and not-so-little details add up and if you buy the latest and greatest bells and whistles, you can spend $2k on equipment. Or you can get away with a lot less automation and do it for $500-600 with a single stage press.

I strongly suggest the "oldie but goldie" ABCs of Reloading from Rodney C James (there's other authors that made books called "ABC", be careful). And most definitely Lyman's Reloading Handbook, latest edition (50th I think, though 49th might still be on shelves).
 
Before buying anything.
First decide what you want to reload for. Pistol, rifle or shotgun. Chose one at a time. Then start reading about the subject. Then watch on youtube that particular reloading aspect you are interested in. When you feel like fully understanding the theoretic part of the process then start asking about what tool you want to buy and people here will answer your every question.
 
I am a firm believer in beginning with a single stage press, and getting whatever accessories are necessary - powder scale, measure, trimmer, and of course, dies! I just think that going through the process, one step at a time, initially loading only a few (20 to 50) cartridges in a session, lets a person learn some of the intricacies. Those who start with a turret or progressive add a whole whack of equipment variables that are not encountered in a single stage press, making it more difficult to learn.

Not a whole lot of difference between rifle and handgun reloading, can do both on same press, just different dies and procedures. Shotgun is a whole different game, with far less tolerance for "experimentation" or random component substitutions. And, shotgun requires a different press as well.

But first, start with an "ABC's of Reloading", a good up-to-date manual - Sierra, Hornady, all explain things in detail - and buy the best you can afford. Buy once, cry once. If you find you are bored stiff, can't stand handloading, or just don't have the patience, good stuff sells a lot quicker than the less popular brands. Not that you won't take a bath trying to sell used gear, but you will be out of the water and dried off sooner!
 
Moose_Master said:
Before buying anything.
First decide what you want to reload for. Pistol, rifle or shotgun. Chose one at a time. Then start reading about the subject. Then watch on youtube that particular reloading aspect you are interested in. When you feel like fully understanding the theoretic part of the process then start asking about what tool you want to buy and people here will answer your every question.
Click to expand...

- What he said.

If you're reloading for rifle, I highly recommend a good ol' single-stage press; in fact, I REALLY, REALLY recommend you start reloading for rifle, just because you'll be much more likely to figger-out (the hard way) when you've $crewed something up. Contemplate sticking to mid-range loads at first, to shoot at pieces of paper, and I'd recommend Trail Boss; it's hard to over-fill a cartridge case with it, and a 2/3ds load will be a good plinking load.

- And REALLY pay attention to this bit: learn the difference between Boxer and Berdan primers! We use Boxer, the Europeans use Berdan, and Berdan are ~impossible to get over here; but a lot of cheap / surplus ammo have Berdan primers, and if you run one of those through your de-primer die, you'll snap-off your decapping pin and your loading session has just ended. Look down the mouth of your casings, ALL of them, with a good light; if it has one hole in the centre, it's Boxer - if it has two or three small holes around the cantre, it's Berdan; bin it.

If you're going to be reloading for pistol, soon enough you'll discover what an unbelievable pain it is to size/deprime them all, one-at-a-time - then bell them, one-at-a-time - then fill them, one-at-a-time - then seat bullets, one-at-a-time - then crimp them, one-at-a-time - and end-up, two hours later, with 100 rounds of ammo that you burn-through in under 10 minutes. We all start here - and this is also a real good reason to start with Trail Boss, because it's really hard to put two loads of Trail Boss powder in a pistol case, it won't fit; a double load of 'most anything else puts your gun and/or yourself at risk, which is why we always wear eye protection - it happens.

First edit - I forgot, "prime them all, one-at-a-time". Primers are class-4 explosive; they're tiny little caplets of unbridled ferocity, be careful with them. The primer contains an unstable substance (used to be lead styphnate) that the firing pin crushes against an anvil to set it off. And this is the difference between Berdan and Boxer primers. The Berdan primer does not have an anvil, it's in the cartridge case (which is why the flash holes are around the edge of the primer hole - the anvil is in the middle), but the Boxer primer has a little triangular bit of stamped brass pressed into the mouth of the primer cup that makes-up the anvil. If that primer goes-off by itself (I've never had one do so), that anvil is going out through the roof - even if your head is in the way. Wear eye protection, and treat primers with care.

Also, there are TWO types of pistol ammunition - rimmed (usually for revolvers) and rimless (usually for autoloaders) - and a BIG difference in how they're finished. Revolver bullets are usually roll-crimped into their cartridges; but many autoloaders headspace on the cartridge mouth (i.e., that's how they position the cartridge the correct distance into the chamber, so the firing pin will actually hit the primer). If you're reloading for an autoloader, make sure you know this - if you roll-crimp rounds for a cartridge that headspaces on the cartridge mouth, most of them won't work.

- So in any case, if you're reloading for a hungry semi-auto pistol, you'll soon end-up wanting a progressive press. I personally swear by the Dillon Square Deal if you're only reloading one calibre - but I admit I haven't used any of the others - and if you're doing more than one calibre, the Square Deal is a pain in the @$$ to change calibres. If you're reloading 9mm or smaller, get yourself a case gauge!!! - 9mm is so small that its dimensions are critical, and they tend to jam in the action a lot more than 45's.

And why do we reload? I've got a lot of horrible range sweepings in the garage; when I could be bothered to smelt a buncha' lead out of them, run it through the bullet mould, lube/size 'em and load 'em up, I shoot for ~7 cents a round - i.e., cheaper than you can shoot .22. And I don't do this to chortle to myself about how much money I save on my ammo - I do this because otherwise, I couldn't afford to shoot at all :(

- From a standing start, it takes about four hours to fill an ammo box though, we usually buy our bullets which ups the price of 'em to 15 cents each; still 'way cheap for .45. This is another reason to contemplate .45 - lead bullets and 9mm's don't really mix that well, we get a lot of leading in the barrels.

Second edit - with bought'en bullets and a full primer tube, I can reload 100 rounds in ~20 minutes - if I don't $crew anything up... :(
 
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I started with a RBCS kit,3 yrs ago. It has most everything you need,including a book.
You'll need a set of calipers,trimmer,and a case cleaning system.
It's not so hard to learn, you'll make a couple of mistakes, but there's lots of help here.
I now use a spray lube( isopropyl and lanolin).
Single stage is great if your doing a hundred rnds or so , but gets tiring when doing a few hundred weekly.
Same goes for a manual trimmer.
I load 4 handgun and 2 rifle,so I just got a Dillon 650 and plan on a Frankfurt case prep station.
I'm keeping my Single stage for rifle.
Most bullit manufacturers has load data ,on their website.
 
Brianma65 said:
Single stage is great if your doing a hundred rnds or so , but gets tiring when doing a few hundred weekly.
Same goes for a manual trimmer.
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This is why you should start with a single stage, loading for a bolt action rifle. We rarely go through more than 30 rounds per range session with our bolt actions, and if you've fired a case in your rifle ( - except for a Lee Enfield; see below - ), you only need to re-size the neck; your brass will last much, much longer. Our rifles are .223, which is just the thing for ruthlessly slaughtering pieces of paper; I bought a bucket o' used brass, 2,000+ for $150 but they're all through AR's; autoloaders stretch the brass, since the action is opening while there's still pressure in the barrel, so they all need to be full-length resized. Use enough lube on the cases, and don't worry about inward-dents caused by maybe using a bit too much lube - they'll fireform to fit your chamber when you shoot 'em off. My wife's .223 has a slightly more generous chamber than mine, so we segregate our brass; hers goes into her rifle, mine goes into mine.

The cases? - new ones need the full prep; my rifle has a tight chamber, and they won't fit otherwise. 1) clean - Thumler for the win!, 2) full-length resize, 3) primer pocket swage, at least a third of them, 4) trim - full-length resizing stretches the cases; I've never had one not donate brass peelings to the top of my case trimmer, 5) inside / outside chamfer, I have a chamfer tool - somewhere - eventually I gave-up ever finding it and bought one, and was APPALLED at how much that li'l chunk of iron is worth nowadays! Then it's ready for primer, powder and bullet.

Why not a Lee Enfield? - it locks-up at the back of the action, so the action stretches when it fires and the brass does too. And the brass work-hardens when it stretches, and when you full-length resize the cases; eventually it gets brittle, and splits. I've talked to people who got many reloads out of their Lee Enfield brass, and other people who were lucky to get 5 reloads before the cases split. I shoot .303 too, but my rifle locks-up at the head of the bolt; I've never had a cartridge case split in my rifle.

Once you learn the game, go for a progressive press; but it may not be the panacaea you hoped for. We have a Hornady LnL, which I use for .223's; but the charge thrower is not accurate enough, especially with Varget, whose granules are large enough to block the thrower, so our .223 is a multi-stage, multi-press operation:

- size the cartridge cases - neck-resize on the Hornady if they've been through our bolt-actions already, full-length otherwise, on our old RCBS single-stage. Cast iron, plenty strong enough for the significant force you need to full-length resize. Another point to pick-up - BUY USED!!! I doubt I paid $20 for that RCBS, but I've had it a really long time...

- prime, by hand; I've got one of the Lee primer tools. It's really neat, and quick; but a downside of surplus brass is that a lot of it is ex-military, with crimped primer pockets. This was done so the serial recoil of a machine gun won't back the primers out, and it also helps resist moisture, but that primer pocket will do just about ANYTHING to resist you putting a new primer in - and as noted above, primers aren't really something you want to put a lot of force on. So once my mil-surplus brass has gone through the Hornady full-length resizer die on the RCBS single-stage, I equip it with a RCBS primer pocket swager and give all their primer pockets a loving squeeze.

- Throw charges; we use a RCBS (yeah, love dat green) automatic powder scale / charge thrower; lotsa people make those, for significantly less than what RCBS wants for theirs, which begs an uncomfortable question; so I checked the reviews and paid the extra for the RCBS, it's pretty well considered the best on the market.

- Cartridge and powder meet their bullet and go into the Hornady LnL. If I'm just neck-resizing, the case doesn't need any lube so I neck-size / deprime on the LnL; but I don't use the LnL to prime the case. The LnL is a temperamental beast, and most of the trouble I've had with it was in the priming mechanism, which is somewhere between Mickey Mouse and Rube Goldberg; and (I gather) all progressives are a royal pain to change primer sizes - if only because if you don't run them entirely out of primers before you try to change sizes, the ones left in the tube are going on the floor (and half of them under the freezer). And it's astonishing how hard it is to come-up with 100 cases that you can put small rifle primers in, halfway through a reloading session. So even when I size / deprime on the LnL, the cases go to the Lee hand tool for priming.

Incidentally, do pay attention to what you have in what ( - powder as well as primers - ). Small rifle primers are considerably tougher than small pistol primers, to withstand the much higher pressures; this suggests that the trick titanium firing pin in your high-buck Kimber will just bounce harmlessly off them, rather than make it go 'bang'. I do all my large pistol primers on the LnL, and all the small pistol primers on the Square Deal; and I prime rifle with the Lee tool.

- Oh yeah - case, powder and bullet. They go onto station 4 of the LnL, and get bullet-seated. Then the press rotates them to station 5 and they get crimped - this is a separate operation, and on the LnL (with Hornady dies; I don't buy junk if I can avoid it), I NEVER got the bullet seater adjusted to where it would seat the bullet to depth and crimp the case mouth in one operation, despite how carefully I measured / trimmed the cases; I'd either end-up with bullets wobbling in the case or (if I turned it down just a bit further) A new, and much bigger case shoulder. "Ah yes, one of those three-necked rifle rounds..." It's a good thing I bought all those milsurp cases, I ruined a number of them trying. So I bought a Lee universal crimp die, which sits at station 5.

The whole thing isn't nearly as long or as tedious as it sounds; but it is tedious, and I'm glad we shoot-off rifle rounds a lot slower than a .45 will chow-down on a box of pistol rounds. I think I'll put my money into blue-chip railroad stocks, sooner than pick me up a mall zombie gun...
 
Books . . . read everything for what you intend to load for. Start with one (handgun, rifle or shotgun).
Mentor . . . someone who can explain the ins and outs. He should explain what he is going to do, show you how to do it, allow you to do it, and finally he should test you to see what you learned.
Money . . . lots if you have no limits. If on a budget you might get started for $300 - 400.
Space . . . I started on a 3' x 3' three legged table under the stairs with one side bucked off to access storage. That was 1969 and I still have it in a shortened version in a crawl space.
Time . . . you won't learn overnight. There are trials and errors. Ready access to your mentor. It is never ending once you get started.
Records . . . don't keep making the same mistake expecting different results.
Check and re-check . . . just one "no powder" can slow your progress. One double charge of the wrong powder can spoil a day, a week or forever. Learn by trial and not by error.
Questions . . . if you have ten questions write them down as they occur . . . the one you miss might have been the most important.

Walk before you run; listen before you talk; read before you write; research before you buy; don't believe everything you read and even less of what you hear or thought you heard; be cautious. Reloading is a new world for you but it can open a whole new world for you too.
 
Efall said:
i would load for my mil-surp rifles mainly like 762x54r and 8mm mauser. maybe 762x25 someday
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- Then a single-stage press is just fine for you; don't bother with a progressive until you start loading for pistol, the $hundreds you save will be your own. :)

My "Boxer vs Berdan primers" thing goes double for European mil-surplus; they're ~all Berdan primed. You can get boxer-primed cases for them, but they're all going to be big-name American hunting ammo, and priced accordingly - I doubt you'll find any mil-surp cases you can reload. Go out on the interwebz looking for reloadable cases; lots of 'em out there, but they'll be expensive (still a lot cheaper reloading, than buying new).
 
I started with a progressive, but treated it like single stage, for the sake of brass prep when I load rifle.

I put only the resize and decap die in station one. I tumble the brass in a tumbler to clean it. Lube the rifle brass, and decap resize. Then they get a wipe off, and then trimmed. After trimming, deburr them. Once the brass is all ready, I use the progressive to set the powder measure, testing several in a row to ensure the powder is dropping the same each and every time. Once I am confident my powder drop is consistent, I do the remaining stages 'progressively'. Prime, powder, powder cop,seat and crimp.

Brass prep is by far the most time consuming portion of the process. You need patience. And you need to remain focused through the whole process.

Hornady makes great products. Lee dies have broken on me. For .223 I went through 2 sets of dies before settling into the above process.

What others have said about bolt action is true - once fire formed you can just resize the neck and decap. Its a bit a process figuring out how it goes, but once you set things up, you lock the dies into the bushings, and to change calibers is as fast a quarter turn of the bushing.

But for pistol a progressive is a massive time saver. And all the pistol I reload on the progressive goes so smooth, and the rounds look amazing, and fire just as well as one could hope.

There is so much to be said for reloading, and I find it just as rewarding to make my own as I do when I get a group in bullseye. It's even better when the ammo was mine too :)

Best of luck on your new journey!
 
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