What's a good press for 9mm, .40S&W, .38sp/.357mag, .44sp/.44mag, .45ACP and .223?

41 Colt

41 Colt

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What's a good press for 9mm, .40S&W, .38sp/.357mag, .44sp/.44mag, .45ACP and .223?

As well as 7.62x39 & .41 Long Colt?

The reason I am looking into reloading is I want to get an antique class handgun or two in odd ball calibers, one probably being .41 Long Colt. I'll need to reload my own ammo for the antiques.

After watching a series of videos on youtube I don't know why I didn't get into reloading earlier. The press I watched being used was a progressive, I think. Looks like a really interesting process. I shoot quite often when I have lots of ammo on hand (200 rounds a week at least), so I think something progressive would be better suited to me?
 
MATT;
Go Dillon, you can't beat the quality and service....
I have a 13 year old 1050, I can't even guess how many rounds it has loaded....
and a 650 (6 years old) for calibers I shoot a little less, .41 mag, .44 mag, .45LC etc.....

Never an issue, I don't think you can wear them out
John
 
Matt
I would skip all the rest and go with a Dillon XL650.
Happy 650 owner!
My learning curve consists of 5 presses, till I bought the Dillon XL650, now the others collect dust.
 
Go Dillon. I have a 550B and I really love it. The 650 is also a beauty but it is a little bit more money.
Dillon has a removable tool head so you can quickly swap calibers.
 
+1 on the 550B.

The only issue with a progressive may be that since it's intended for volume loading you don't want to interrupt the process too often or treat it like a single stage--try to do your quality control after a run. There are too many things happening every time you pull the handle to be fiddling all the time--eventually you'll miss something (double charge, no charge, no bullet, no primer, upside down primer, etc.) although that may be more of a problem for us old farts :) . If your procedures are good you won't be pulling 100 cartridges apart too often.
 
If you reload lots of different calibers then the Hornady LNL AP might be the best way to go since it's dead easy and very quick to change calibers. When you change the dies, they stay in their special holders, and you don't have to reset them each time you put a different caliber in the press. You also get 1000 free bullets.
 
I think it's between the Dillon XL 650 and the Hornady LNL AP. The presses themselves are pretty close in price, but the case feed assemblies differ in price greatly. $200 for the Dillon and more than DOUBLE that for the Hornady's.
 
Try them... I found the LNL AP to be a lot smoother than the XL650.

If you add up all of the costs (including caliber conversions), they aren't that different.

If you're switching calibers that often though... you may want to look at the RL550. The caliber conversions are cheaper and its a lot quicker to change over. If you're only doing 200 rds. per week of each caliber, it'll be quicker on the RL550 if you factor in the conversion time.

I wouldn't bother with either of the two presses you mentioned unless I was going to do 1000+ rounds of each caliber per sitting.
 
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