What's the best reloading package deal?

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Sorrowbcboy

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What's the best reloading package deal? The Lee's 50 anniversary has kinda caught my eye. I'm going to be reloading 9mm. Also what books to buy?
 
I have no complaints about my Lee 50th it's loaded a few thousand rifle rounds without issue. I upgraded to a gempro 250 but the scale that came with it was just fine if you have time for it. I have never used the powder measure so I can't comment on that.
 
I'm still using some of my 50th anniversary kit. They are a great value. One thing to make sure of for any press is to make sure the press is mounted to a surface that has NO flex. For loading pistol rounds, I'd look at a turret press at the minimum. If your loading any kind of volume at all, you'll want to look a some kind of progressive press.
 
If you want to load quantity for a entry level progressive I went with a Lee Loadmaster. A bit of a challenge getting it set up and fine tuned but once you do you will be very happy. Probably loaded roughly 5000K of .40 and .45 and it's still going strong
 
When I looked at You Tube videos of the Loadmaster I saw LOTS of tricks, workarounds and fixes to deal with this issue of difficult and confusing setup for the loadmaster. On the other hand the next price point up is the Hornady Lock N' Load progressive press. Looking at a similar number of sample videos for setting up showed no such need for tricks and fixes.

The old question is do you go single stage, turret or all the way to progressive. That depends on how much ammo you need per month. If it's just a few hundred a month you can reload that much easily in an evening or two on a single stage with a modest setup. But if you need from 400 and up or you don't have the opportunity to sit at the press often enough then a progressive begins to look a lot nicer.

Folks will suggest a turret press as a middle option. And yes you do save a little setup time. But really a turret press is just a slightly faster single stage since you still need to pull the lever 3 or 4 times for every piece of ammo produced. With a progressive its always one pull, one round.

With a single stage and a little practice you can reload around 120 rounds per hour. With a turret press avoiding the need to set up the dies repeatedly you up that to around 150 to 170 rounds per hour. The jump to a basic hand fed progressive sees this rise to 350 to 400 rounds per hour. Moving up to the big money and presses set up with case and bullet feeders and you're looking at 600+ rounds per hour.
 
I recommend the Lee Clasic Turret Press Kit to start with for handgun ammo.
It comes with almost evrything you ned to get started reloading for handgun.

A single stage will make you nuts in 15 minutes. It's too slow.
Check out some Youtube videos.

Regards, Henry
 
Take it from the expert. The Lee Classic Cast Turret Kit is a very good starter kit. All you need is to buy a set of dies for your required caliber, a caliper, a better scale and you are good to go. A Single Stage is very tedious and requires a more detailed attention to avoid under-charge, double-charge, or no charge at all. I have loaded under 10K rds in my Classic Cast Turret and still going strong. Set-up and maintenance is a breeze and make sure you pull the lever to maximum stroke (no cheating) to avoid charging or loading inconsistencies. You will never miss a beat. Maybe not as fast as a progressive, but reliable and safe enough for my need. Then, your next move is an upgrade to progressive. With mixed reviews, Lee Loadmaster is the best bang for your buck. While Dillon seems to be very highly regarded, Hornady and RCBS also makes Progressive Press. Once-fired brass is available from dealers. Some already cleaned and de-primed. Some needs major work. For 9mm, Bullseye, Titegroup, N320, W231, HP38, Clays are the popular powders available. Primers: Winchester SPP, Federal SPP, CCI SPP are very common. Books: Lee Classic Cast Kit comes with a reloading book: 2nd ed Modern Reloading. I did not use this book for there are better information online. GOOGLE is your best friend. Regarding powder charge for your 9mm, follow the minimum and maximum suggested by the powder manufacturers. NOT everything you see online is SAFE and will suit your need. You will see a 9mm MAJOR load which might not be good for your gun. Undercharging might not cycle your gun for the next load. Overcharging might create excessive pressure and will damage your gun. ALWAYS FOLLOW the manufacturers suggested minimum and maximum charge.

If you are not sure of what you will be doing, ask the opinion of those who are doing it or has done it. Stay Safe!

Henry Nierychlo said:
I recommend the Lee Clasic Turret Press Kit to start with for handgun ammo.
It comes with almost evrything you ned to get started reloading for handgun.

A single stage will make you nuts in 15 minutes. It's too slow.
Check out some Youtube videos.

Regards, Henry
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I still use my Lee 50th Anniversary kit as well. I did eventually buy a Hornady LNL progressive but any decapping or precision reloads I do on my single stage.

If you don't shoot a whole lot, like under 300rnds per range visit, if you do your reloads in stages ie spend 30min a day to size a bunch of brass one day, 30min to flare and prime another day to just build up a stash of ready-to-go brass, when you do reload, you'd be surprised how much you can crank out in an hour's sitting.
 
Sorrowbcboy said:
Thanks for the feedback. Is it wise to order from Amazon or eBay?
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You can. And certainly those options are proven. But since you're in BC I'd suggest you look at a few of the local options. First off there's the CGN site sponsors that are excellent dealers. Namely Budget Shooter's Supply and Custom Reloading. Budget handles Lee and Custom handles Dillon. For Hornady there's Reliable in Vancouver. Or if you're not far from the border then there's Cabelas in Washington. You can't bring back any reloading components but reloading EQUIPMENT is fine.

I see from Henry's post above that Budget is now handling ALL of the big names. ATTABOY! ! ! ! Henry has already seen some of my money and will certainly be seeing more of it. Budget is a pleasure to deal with and I always appreciate the extra attention the gnomes give to my orders..... :D
 
Honestly, I'm about as cheap as any one, and I reloaded a few thousand 45 acp and .357 mag rounds on a single stage press before I bought a Dillon rl550. I also don't mind a bit of fiddling to make things work, but I'm glad I spent a bit extra and got the Dillon instead of a cheaper progressive. Setup was simple and didn't take any longer than setting up my single stage. I loaded about 3000 rounds of 45 acp on it the first week I had it, that's how much I enjoyed using it over the single stage. I don't know how many thousands of rounds I've loaded on it, and it hasn't skipped a beat yet. What pushed me over the edge on the Dillon vs. a Lee was that I read about lots of people that were happy with the Lee after they got it running and figured out the periodic adjustments to keep it running, lot's of people that had the Dillon and it ran fine out of the box, lots of people that switched from a Lee to a Dillon and were happier with the Dillon, but none that switched from a Dillon to a Lee. If I'm staying with the same primer size on the Dillon, caliber changes are literally 5 minutes without any adjusting required. Good luck on your search for the perfect press for you.
Kristian
 
I would not buy a lee turret or progressive... even a Dillon or hornady progressive could require a little tweak or two, I hate the idea of a press that will need tweaks for sure.

Frankly, I wouldn't buy any turret. If you're not sure about jumping in buy a single stage, figure out if reloading is your thing, and if so then buy a decent progressive.
 
Is the classic turret good tho? I hear mixed reviews. I go to the range a few times a month for the day so I could easily shoot 500 rounds in a trip maybe two trips. I was looking at the classic turret kit, but also the Dillion 550. I'm a budget kind guy and try to spend as little as possibly so the wife doesn't notice. I'd be loading 9mm and other rifle and pistol cartridges in the future. Also just disable the auto index on the lee turret and bam it's a single stage.
 
The Dillon 550 will do everything you're looking to do. I still have my Rockchucker for doing rifle stuff, but the Dillon 550 will do rifle cartridges up to 338 Lapua. If you're shooting 1000-2000 rounds a month of 9mm, you'll want a progressive real quick. I wanted to do it cheap too, but I ended up buying the progressive press anyways.
Kristian
 
If 'twere me...

Are you only planning to reload 9mm? If so, the very best press out there would be a Dillon Square Deal. The Square Deal comes with its own dies, and it's reasonably priced (for a Dillon... :( . Changing cartridges is pretty involved on a Square Deal, but if you'll be reloading only 9mm, you won't find better.
 
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