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Brian in Montana

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I'm interested in reloading for my hunting rifles. I don't really care to mass produce, so as to have a lot of cheap ammo to burn out an AR-15 or a 9mil, or that sort of thing. I'm primarily interested in producing very accurate loads for my .308, .300WM, and my wife's .270. I've looked a couple of times at those package deals that Hornady puts together, but would that have everything I'd need? Should I just start picking up components one at a time?

I think a trickler is probably important for somebody whose interest is rifle accuracy. What do yous recommend?
 
I purchased a Lee Anniversary kit a couple of years ago. It has worked well for me and not to big of investment. The accuracy capabilities with a low priced kit will still exceed factory ammunition. Reloading your own ammunition is very satisfying, kind of like tying your own flies for fishing. The ability to tune and customize your loads for each rifle will drive the increased accuracy over factory ammo. Keep a data log as you develop your loads and be consistent with your loading steps.

And yes a powder trickler goes along way to fine tune powder charges.

Good luck and have fun. Reloading can be addicting.
 
A lot of people over look Lee products, mainly because they are't expensive enough, I guess. I've had my Lee press for over 30 yrs and it's still working slickety-clickety Thank You. Granted, as you, I've only done smaller batches for my hunting rifles and never tried to mass produce .

I know there are tons who favor an electronic scale, but I've never once thought about abandoning my RCBS bean scale. It's 50 yrs old and I can weigh my charges down to the single granule of powder ! Compulsive ? Yeah, probably, but I'm in no hurry either, so why not?

One item I would invest in is a really good dial caliper. In the overall picture you'll probably get the best accuracy out of your loads by being able to accurately adjust the seating depth.

Warning: once you start hand loading you'll get hooked Fast ! No better feeling than seeing 3 shots you can cover with a dime at the range, or pulling out your knife to cut out those little 'date triangles' on your tag and knowing 'You' made the ammo.

Good luck.

P.S. Shooters Pro Shop is your friend !! Buy Big when find your bullet for sale ! It may take some time for them to be posted, and may take a longer time to do so again.
 
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The only Lee press, I'd ever heard of before this morning was Lee Press-on Nails (got a wife, daughters, and a sister ok?). I just did a google search for Lee reloading supplies and had a quick look at pricing. That stuff is quite a bit less than Hornady or RCBS. Interestng.

I think I actually have a dial caliper somewhere that belonged to my father-in-law.

And, I think one of the things that has made me want to start reloading is that I've been a fly-tier for a long time. I wouldn't be caught dead w/ Bob Ward's flys in my box. I love the feeling of catching a big brown on a patern I tied. I could see that being the same w/ reloading. A big reason I've never gotten started is the start up costs seem to be pretty high.
 
I started with Lee and made some decent ammo. I had troubles with their scale and tossed that inaccurate thing in the trash. Eventually their press mechanism failed (I upgraded to Hornady Lock-n-Load progressive press). I still use Lee dies and cast bullet products with a lot of success...my 6.5 creedmoor shoots dime groups using their dies.

I'd go with the kit as they tend to have what you need. You'll need to purchase dies and I'd go with Lee. You'll need a case trimmer but Lee does make those for specific cartridges but it can be slow. A trickler is necessary to get those last few grains into the scale but often is included in the kits. If you use the right powder and spend time getting your powder dropper setup you can get away with "throwing" charges for plinking rounds and be within 0.1 grains or less.

MidwayUSA has a bunch of reloading kits on sale right now putting the Hornady and RCBS kits within $100 of the Lee kit. For the cost of replacing the Lee scale and potential rebates they are basically the same price.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/749997/hornady-lock-n-load-classic-single-stage-press-kit

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/937051/rcbs-rock-chucker-supreme-master-single-stage-press-kit


I'll echo that reloading, like fly tying, will consume a lot of time and money. I bulk process a lot of .223 and pistol ammo...by bulk I mean over 1K in a session. I started casting bullets a year or so ago and have dumped a bunch of $ into that too.
 
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Just to toss in, about 'Rebates'. I'll never get caught up in that market scheme ever again ! It takes months to get the rebate, if ever. Somehow, someway you always didn't adhere to the exact, insanely specific requirements to get within their promotional trap.

"Buy me now at my Full Price, and I'll send you back some of your money, at some unspecified date, if you do A, B, C...X, Y, Z".

Spend your hard earned $$ on an up front transaction.
 
I've never had an issue with rebates from Hornady or RCBS...pretty simple send UPC, receipt, and rebate form. The Hornady "rebate" is for bullets so it really isn't that good unless you want those specific bullets. Sure it takes 2 months but I'm fine with that.
I play the rebate game all the time and so far Remington was the only one to try to play the game of A,B,C...X,Y,Z. They honored the rebate after I made a 2 minute phone call in which they realized they missed a series of serial numbers from the previous year's limited edition rifles.
 
When getting started, the Lee anniversary kit is a good one to buy initially. I second the part about the scale being junk, I bought a basic digital scale to replace it.
One area not to skimp on is your reloading dies, I use RCBS. I have heard good things about the Hornady dies as well.
Since you are in Butte, Keeping an eye on craigslist ,classifieds or at pawn shops for presses and other equipment is a good way to save some money, and often times I prefer the older stuff anyway as it seems to be built better. hope that helps a bit.
 
I started with a Lee kit over thirty two years ago.
After a couple weeks I got the Lee turret press and still use it now.
Many clam the turret doesn't load accurately ,but if you pull the lever down till it stops ( as anyone should) it loads as consistent as most any single stage presses can. The turrets make it faster and easier to switch back and forth between sizing and seating dies, and different calibers.
The four hole turret press isn't much more expensive than the single stage presses. The extra turrets aren't expensive and the four hole design will allow two standard rifle die sets to be installed per turret. The crimp die isn't practical to use on medium calibers.
You may want a digital scale as a bonus purchase also.
But, once you get the hang of using the balance scale, they are very accurate, but sensitive to air currents and uneven surfaces.
I love mine and have many other types and brands of presses that cost me dramatically more. I use the old turret press the most.
You can get a standard kit with the turret press also. Or buy the single stage press kit and buy a used turret press online for around 30.00 usually.
Reloading is a great hobby and can sure help squeeze the best accuracy out of a rifle or handgun.
 
...I think one of the things that has made me want to start reloading is that I've been a fly-tier for a long time....I love the feeling of catching a big brown on a patern I tied...I could see that being the same w/ reloading....

Yeah what Brian said... it's a great extension of the hobby that extends the gratification and the season when there is no season. Reloading for browns and steelhead is a great way to reflect on the past future and present dealings of your passion....
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I went with a small Harbor Freight rock tumbler. Then bought a single pack of stainless steel pins for tumble media. It works well for the small run quantities I reload at a time. Usually about 50 cases.
 
I have a Lee press, but use a Lyman digital scale. I have a thumlers tumbler for cleaning brass. It works pretty good. One of the most important things I think I've done is keeping accurate logs of loads I've created. Don't rely on your memory!
 
I got my son a Lee for his first reload setup. Didn't have a caliper in it or a case trimmer. I didn't like the scale either but he did so that's what he used. Caliper and case trimmer are important. I think Lee has individual case trimmers for each cartridge, I'd certainly try them. Could eliminate the need for a caliper going in. I think they also have an aluminum and a cast iron press, I'd do the cast iron but if all I could get was the aluminum one, I'd take it. Your not out a bunch if you wer need.ant to upgrade later. You don't need a tumbler to get going. I reloaded a lot of years without one before I did finally get one. You can use a barrel brush, 0000 steel wool and an electric drill to get case's cleaner than you'll ever need. Older reloader's have a habit of buying a lot of stuff they really don't need! At the same time they will tell the new guy he needs it. Keep in mind the idea of reloading is to replace the fired part's of a round of ammo. One of those old Lee handloader's that you had to use a hammer with was my first and I got ammo that shot more than well enough for hunting! They were slow but the did work. I recall one time finding a 250 souper die used in a gun shop. Got it and hadn't a clue what a 250 Souper was and not a clue what part of a die set it was. hndloader's donstupid thing's like that. You don't need a 250 souper die! :)

With the basic kit from anyone, including Lee, you can put together more accurate ammo than you'll ever need. Reloading is about what you do with what you have. One of my most accurate rifle's ever I had early on with used tool's and just basic's. mod 788 in 222 Rem kept shot's under 1/2" all day long. More and better tools would not have done much more. My first really cool tool was a plastic caliper, it replaced the plastic tool you could measure a whole list of cartridge's with. If the cartridge didn't fit where it was supposed to, you trimmed. With the caliper I was light years ahead but couldn't read the thousand's scale so figured everything out in MM's and used that part of it. Point is we all have a lot more than necessary, it's what reloader's do! You can get along fine with the Lee kit and if you really want to you can upgrade? down the road!
 
I really like the Lee trimmer. It uses a cutter and an arbor that slides into the casing and it acts as a guide stop to trim cases to length without having to measure.
It does require you purchase an arbor for each caliber you want to load. But they are extremely inexpensive and very easy to use. It easily Chuck's into a drill to speed up the process too.
A tumbler isn't a must have item. Steel wool will shine brass up easily when used with the drill and trimmer base that Lee makes. But tarnish on your brass would need to be pretty bad to cause trouble.
I like to keep my brass good and clean though, so a tumbler isn't a bad thing to have eventually.
I also recommend a hand primming tool like the type Lee offers instead of using the press to reprime the brass. It is so much easier to prime with a tool made to do just that and I find it less likely for me to drop primers all over the place.
I also use a deprimming tool now and love it. It just helps avoid the worry of broken deprimming shafts on the dies.
Obviously not a need though.
A good set of calipers are absolutely a must for checking tolerances and I would never load without having a way to measure accuracy of the resizing process when setting up the dies.
 
Checking tolerances of what? Overall loaded length? I did that for years getting bullet's just off the lands and had good ammo! How far off? Not a clue in fact even today I don't know and it doesn't seem to matter. Personally I like having calipers, measure all case's before trimming and after trimming to see the correct trim length. That old plastic tool RCBS had did the same thing but didn't give length f the case. The case either fit where it was supposed to go or didn't. ammo still shot fine!
 
I started with the rcbs rock chucker set. Added a trickler, base for the powder measure, and a good set of calipers. I like the lee case trimmer also. I like the hornady locking rings better than rcbs and lee for the dies.
 
What kind of table or work bench do you need for the press? Would a standard computer desk work as long as its pretty stable?
 
Might have to reinforce where you bolt the press too, as mentioned above, but it should work. Heck, I started reloading on a shelf that I made with a piece of 2X10 and to L-brackets from Home Depot. It was bolted to the wall next to the computer desk in our first apartment.
 
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