What equipment is needed to reload?

762mm

762mm

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Hello,

I've just signed up to a range and bought my first restricteds (2 revolvers and a semi-auto). After reading up on the subject in some of the threads (and checking out ammo prices in store), I am seriously considering to start making my own loads with my spent brass at the range.

Being a total noob when it comes to reloading, I would like to know what I'll need in order to go ahead with it. If possible, the approximate prices for each part/piece of machinery would be nice too. I don't mind used equipment, but I want to get a feel of how much it would all add up to first.

P.S. I want to reload .357 and 9mm most of all, with more stuff to come in the future I am sure (I have rifles too, so reloading anything 7.62mm would be very practical). Thanks in advance for any info! :)
 
Go buy a copy of The ABC's of Reloading. Your local gun shop or Amazon. It's a basic how-to book.
Then, look into an RCBS Beginner's Kit. Runs around $500. Gives you everything you'll need less dies and shellholder(you'll need dies and a shell for each of the three cartridges you want to load. Buy carbide for the handguns, with a taper crimp die for the 9mm, and a full length sizer die set for the rifle.). Comes with a Speer manual, but buy a Lyman book too. It's far more versatile than any bullet or powder maker's book. They only give data for their products. Not that there's anything wrong with those manuals. The Lyman book has more loads with more bullet weights and powders than any manufacturer's book.
Plus you get the legendary RCBS customer service. Have any problems with RCBS kit and they'll fix it with a phone call, even if you do buy used or you caused the problem.
Nothing wrong with buying used kit either. It takes a great deal of abuse to damage.
Lee makes a less expensive kit, but their warrantee isn't as good.
Reloading isn't rocket science, but there are some things that are required according to what cartridge you're loading. The full length resizing for semi-auto rifles and taper crimping a pistol cartridge, for example.
 
Most handgunners that shoot any volume of ammo, usually start off using Dillion equipment. They have 2 models, a 550 and a 650 both of which are progressive presses and you can make a pile of handgun ammo in no time at all. Now these presses are a lot more money than some of the more basic units mentioned above. But if you are shooting a lot of handgun and your time is of some value to you, its the only way to go.You may have a friend or two that you can share costs with.
For powder there is only one place in Canada that offers any kind of real discount for volume and that is Higginsons in Ontario. He usually has a good supply of primers as well, for a better price than most places. FS
 
Fassteel said:
Most handgunners that shoot any volume of ammo, usually start off using Dillion equipment. They have 2 models, a 550 and a 650 both of which are progressive presses and you can make a pile of handgun ammo in no time at all. Now these presses are a lot more money than some of the more basic units mentioned above. But if you are shooting a lot of handgun and your time is of some value to you, its the only way to go.You may have a friend or two that you can share costs with.
For powder there is only one place in Canada that offers any kind of real discount for volume and that is Higginsons in Ontario. He usually has a good supply of primers as well, for a better price than most places. FS
Click to expand...

Wow, were you talking about me?

I just joined the the ranks of reloaders. The Dillon 650XL is on it's way from the states. Picked up a Lyman Tumbler with built-in media separator, electronic scale & bullet puller only just yesterday. And I'm heading off to Higginson's to pick up an order of 4000+ assorted pistol bullets (including hollowpoints), primers and media. All in all, I'm in for around $2600

I just can't wait to blow myself up....er, I mean reload :p
 
Well, if you wanna spend, you can pay as much as you want...

I'd recommend getting at least a couple of books, watch Youtube for free, buy primers and bullets, consult your reloading manuals and decide on powder, make sure you store powder and primers according to Explosives Act...
Now, you have to decide if you wanna go with a progressive press or not. I'd say - go for it. Lee Pro 1000 is veeeery cheap thou isn't as good as Dillon or Hornady. Many ppl like and bought Dillon, I got me Hornady and saved a few bucks; very happy with it too.
You'll need scale, caliper, shell plates, bullet puller etc.

Start with the books and buying primers and bullets as you can always use them and the prices only go up...

Good luck and have fun :)
 
Thanks for the answers guys... it seems like there's a lot more decisions to be made than I first thought. I basically need something basic and have time to reload bullets one by one - I'm not looking into starting a factory here, lol!

I guess I'll start off by watching/reading up on the topic first. Last thing I'd want to cause is a kaboom inside one of my newly acquired handguns. :rolleyes:

By he way, who sells a good basic press for fairly cheap in Canada (either new or used)? I've been to a couple of gun shows around Montreal way back in the day, but never really saw any for sale. Local stores (such as Le Baron) don't seem to have them either (didn't ask, but never saw any in store)...
 
I got started loading with a lee loader for my Mosin Nagant for 24 dollars plus shipping and tax about a year and a half ago. It comes with a powder scoop that you can use with a number of common powders as indicated in the instructions that will charge safely with that level scoop.

I sit and watch t.v. with the GF, and deprime my old cases, and resize, and priming. I only really pay attention when charging with powder and seating the bullets. I listen to the IPOD then.

I can do about 100-150 in an evening now that I'm in a groove and can hustle along with that setup, but I loaded less than a thousand before I bought the powder measure.

The second thing I bought was a powder measure kit from lee for about 12 bucks + s&h so that I could use whatever powder I wanted, and give finer tuning for accuracy and velocity.

Then I bought a lee auto primer, so I can primer faster and without using a hammer to tap the primer into place. It was cheap, I can't remember how cheap.

Then I got a lee safety scale off the EE for like $30 bucks shipped so I could REALLY fine tune my loads for best accuracy.

I guess I loaded about 2000 rounds in the first summer for less than 100 bucks in equipment costs.

I'm slower than the older guys in reloading, but I'm a university student, and I like the time I get to take on a less mentally taxing task, and I sure don't have thousands of dollars in disposable income to throw around.
 
I did allot of research on this and ended up going with a Dillon RL550B. I am set up to load .45ACP and .44Magnum with all the nessessary accesories for about $1100. PM me and could give you a list of what I have.
 
I bought a Lee Master loader 5 stage Progressive Press for $210 us. You don't need to spend $500-$1,000 or this to get started.

Ditto on the ABC of Reloading, get it. I just picked it up and there is a lot of great info in it.
 
Allright, thanks again guys... A basic Lee loading press (with whatever is required to actually load a 9mm/357 round) is what I'd like to buy...

I still have one small problem though: what starter kit should I buy and, most of all, where?

(P.S. I want the a powder measure and the auto primer thing too... whatever makes the job easier for a noob. Sorry if I sound a bit retarded here, but I have no idea [yet] of what all this equipment does - or even what it's called). Thanks for your help, guys!
 
i know you just settled on Lee
but since it seems like you want to go progressive, have you checked the hornady LnL? theres a 1000 free bullets promotion for Hornady Lock n Load automatic presses bought in 2009!
I had a quote from cabelas.com, they can ship it to canada and its listed 379,99USD, IIRC they quoted me with 60$ shipping

to redeem the 1000 bullets it'll cost ya a 21USD money order(not bad!)
 
A reloading book, very important
Thumbler with media and media additive
A media separator (optional) personnaly I use a kitchen strainer and pick my brass 1 by 1 so I can inspect them better.
Some bins and shell cases to stay organised
A label machine or Sharpie pencil to id my stuff properly
A scale
A reloading press and dies
Then you'll need to stock up on bullets, primers and powder.

I started with a Dillon SDB. It's a nice little progessive press easy to operate and very reliable. The trick is not too pump as much brass as possible but to stay consistent. Each time your press fail, you need to stop and you lose your concentration and momemtum. That's when mistakes happend.
 
Fassteel said:
Most handgunners that shoot any volume of ammo, usually start off using Dillion equipment.
Click to expand...


:D not true... volume shooter here I dont own one piece of dillon equipment

P.S. you will need some sort of dealer to redeem your 1000 free bullets as they can not be shipped directly to you in canada... unless you have done the proper permits and its all been aproved but last time I check hornady wont bother getting paperwork aproved for this deal...
 
762mm said:
Allright, thanks again guys... A basic Lee loading press (with whatever is required to actually load a 9mm/357 round) is what I'd like to buy...

I still have one small problem though: what starter kit should I buy and, most of all, where?

(P.S. I want the a powder measure and the auto primer thing too... whatever makes the job easier for a noob. Sorry if I sound a bit retarded here, but I have no idea [yet] of what all this equipment does - or even what it's called). Thanks for your help, guys!
Click to expand...

Has anyone suggested a Lee turret press yet?? Once you get your dies set and everything figured out, they work well(I've only reloaded pistol so far).
 
saskgunowner101 said:
Has anyone suggested a Lee turret press yet?? Once you get your dies set and everything figured out, they work well(I've only reloaded pistol so far).
Click to expand...

10-4. That's what I ended up getting. Nice press for the money. I do rifle with it as well. I'm a beginner and it definitely can load much faster than me and I can do quite a bit without any problems!:ar15:
 
Fassteel said:
Most handgunners that shoot any volume of ammo, usually start off using Dillion equipment. They have 2 models, a 550 and a 650 both of which are progressive presses and you can make a pile of handgun ammo in no time at all. Now these presses are a lot more money than some of the more basic units mentioned above. But if you are shooting a lot of handgun and your time is of some value to you, its the only way to go.You may have a friend or two that you can share costs with.
For powder there is only one place in Canada that offers any kind of real discount for volume and that is Higginsons in Ontario. He usually has a good supply of primers as well, for a better price than most places. FS
Click to expand...

note- the 550 is not a TRUE progressive- it doesn't AUTO INDEX- something which even the cheap lee turret does- the ONLY reason i have a 550 is to do RIFLE ROUNDS and it was the only "progressive" press capable of doing that at the time- i shoot 9mm, 45, 223, 308, 338 and 44 mag- each one has its own DEDICATED LEE 1000 except for the 44 mag which has a LOADMASTER- you NEED AT LEAST 4 STATIONS for a revolver if you want to use the factory crimp die- it's not needed for an auto- the 308 is on a dillon 550, and the 338 i load on an old turret machine with the auto index removed- mostly because it only takes about 100 rounds to go through a pound of powder, and 100 bullets and powder is a lot of money when you do 338
 
Ok.. so if I understand correctly, each of my calibers needs a dedicated press? I thought that I could simply buy parts for each caliber and use the same press to reload multiple calibers... am I getting something wrong here?

By the way, after I buy the press, what are the parts required in order to start reloading... let's say... .357 / 38 spl and 9mm?

How about this one... does it have everything I need to get started?
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=0&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1

or this one?
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=0&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1

Thanks everyone for your help... I'm learning more and more about this stuff by the post, lol! ;)
 
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-No you don't need to have a press for each calibers! You can change calibers on a press, it just takes some time on a progressive because you have the powder drop to adjust, the shellplate, dies, primer feeding (if gonig from pistol to rifle and visa versa) everything you'll learn as you get your press, but you only need one to start, people have multiple presses cause they are lazy (two presses would be okay if one of them is for reloading shotshell!)

-You will need the press, the dies, the shell plate, a reloading manual, a scale, then maybe a tumbler (there are other ways to clean brass if cost is at stake), also very important you will need a very stable table to mount the press on
you don't want the table to move as you roll ammo cuz you won't feel it if there is a problem (if something goes wrong you will feel it in the handle with practice)
(others things I forgot, the manual will remind you of)
-have you checked sponsors? CRAFM and P&D Ent have Dillon presses, CRAFM is in montreal, you'd save on shipping but they have just highered their prices on Dillon +25%

Get in touch with them
 
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