reloading equipment suggestions.

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  • reloading equipment suggestions.

    I 'm going to start working on my wife to sweet talk her into letting me buy more toys. I say talk her into "letting" me because it makes her feel better if she thinks that her permission is required, and saves me a head ache.
    I want to get started in reloading my spent brass and tinkering with my own loads. Any suggestions as to equipment brands or am I going to be fine sticking to any well known brand such as rcbs or hornady?
    Thanks,
    Matt S.
  • jwilson1985

    #2
    i got the lyman crusher 2 master deluxe expert kit it comes with everything you need besides dies to get started its cheaper online i got mine local for 399.99 well my wife got it for me for christmas heres a link from mid way http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct...tNumber=724116 its a single stage i kinda wish i would have got the t-mag version though still a single stage but you can put all your dies on it

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    • #3
      OK thank you.

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      • RangerRick

        #4
        Originally posted by buckbustn View Post
        I want to get started in reloading my spent brass and tinkering with my own loads. Any suggestions as to equipment brands or am I going to be fine sticking to any well known brand such as rcbs or hornady?
        Thanks,
        Matt S.
        Are you just going to reload Grendel and other rifle, or pistol too? If you do a lot of pistol, you may want to get a progressive press. What is your price range?

        For the Grendel I'd recommend the Redding Type S Bushing sizing die with .287, .288, and .289 bushings to start. There are a lot of good seating dies but you may get a set cheaper with the Redding seater.

        Rick

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        • #5
          Consider the RCBS Rockchucker Supreme single stage press. Redding and Forster are my two top choices for dies.

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          • #6
            I'll be reloading Grendel and .40sw for now.

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            • #7
              Get yourself an RCBS Rock Chucker Extreme Master Reloading Kit. It's really everything you need to get started. It's a single stage press and will load pretty much everything short of .50 BMG. Learn your basics and work at them until you are good at it before you jump into progressives and equipment that complete more than one step at a time with one pull of the handle. The more going on at one time, the easier it is to make a mistake. And, with reloading, you should really work on learning which mistakes are more critical than others. RCBS is good quality equipment, as is just about every other maker out there. I just prefer RCBS. Every other maker of reloading equipment also has some kind of start kit, so it doesn't really matter which one you go with.

              The first thing you need to buy are books. Read everything you can on the subject before you actually jump into it.

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              • #8
                OK great. Thanks for all the input guys

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                • #9
                  I started out with a Lee Anniversary single stage press kit and it served me well for 20+ years or so. I broke the handle coupling though and I then bought a Lee Classic Cast press. It was much more beefy but It started getting a little loose after several years and I replaced it with an RCBS Rock Chucker. Though I'm not crazy about the plastic primer catcher, so far it has proven to be quite a nice platform. I reload for 12 calibers and it is more than adequate for all of them. I still keep the Classic Cast press alongside to do crimps after seating in the bullet in calibers I crimp for and for depriming where resizing is not also being done. One of the more strenuous processes I dabble in is making my own bullets from annealed brass cases cut short that I pour molten lead into, then once cooled, forming the ogive and tip in the press. It takes a lot of pressure and was probably the cause of the Lee Classic Cast press loosening up a little before it's time. The Rock Chucker seems more than up for the task though. If it wasn't for that odd pursuit, I'm certain the Lee Classic Cast press would still be my only press.

                  Watch your sales and get Google involved in the hunt and you can find a new Rock Chucker for a very affordable price. Don't be afraid to pay a little more than rock bottom if the deal includes free shipping as they weigh quite a lot. I got my Rock Chucker on sale at of all places Cabelas, which I don't usually associate with affordable prices. What sealed the deal was having gotten a 10% off of a purchase over $100.00 card in the mail and when combined with the sale price, I believe it cost me something like $119.00. Similar deals can be found if you're a patient hunter. I wish I could tell you that's all it will cost, but reloading is like eating cashews.

                  I weigh each load as I'm a stickler for consistency and between the beam scale and trickler, I could not go as fast as I liked. So, two Christmas' ago, my wife actually bought me what I really wanted and that was a Lyman 1200 DPS-2 Dispensing Digital Powder Scale. That was and is the greatest thing since sliced bread for optimizing your time. It can be throwing and weighting a charge while you are seating the previous charge's bullet. You can get a good rhythm going and crank out quality loads in a proficient manner. I have since upgraded it to a -3 with a kit that was on sale at Midway. There are better (more expensive) digital charging and weighing rigs out there, but the DPS serves my needs just fine. Start out with the beam scale, manual charge thrower and a trickler. It builds character and makes you appreciate it more when you can get a digital scale or a dispensing digital scale. I do periodically check mine's accuracy against a Torbal Precision Analytical scale (1 milligram resolution) that I smuggle out of work for the weekend and it has been consistently accurate to the tenth of a grain or better since day one.

                  Good dies are equally important and everyone has their favorite(s). Don't spend a lot on a die with the degree of precision that your shooting style does not warrant. If you're unsure whether you may need that degree of precision in the future should you interest intensify, then by all means buy once for all. As for good bang for the buck, I have been very impressed with the precision and quality of Forster dies, assuming they make the ones for the calibers you need dies for. They're neither Top Shelf, nor Bargain Basement and that suits my needs just fine. Then again, I have some regular RCBS and Lee dies as well, depending upon what I use that particular caliber for. The Lee sets that include both the Full Length and Neck only sizing dies offer great flexibility, but some folks have had hit or miss luck with them in some calibers. I have one Lyman die set (.358 Winchester) and it works good also. It's taken me many years to build up my reloading bench to the level it is currently at. Don't try to "build Rome in a day". Life and domestic tranquility often mitigate our priorities, but you already know that.

                  Hoot

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                  • #10
                    Dillon 550

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                    • jwilson1985

                      #11
                      Do not learn to reload on a pergresive press!!!!!!

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                      • #12
                        i just started loading a few months ago. I went with the lyman t-mag II master press kit. everything works great and i can have more than one die loaded because of the turret. only thing i changed is the priming system. I went with the hand primer for more feel. i do load soem FC brass and wanted to have more feel so i could tell when the primer pockets were getting loose.

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                        • jwilson1985

                          #13
                          Originally posted by oxn316 View Post
                          i just started loading a few months ago. I went with the lyman t-mag II master press kit. everything works great and i can have more than one die loaded because of the turret. only thing i changed is the priming system. I went with the hand primer for more feel. i do load soem FC brass and wanted to have more feel so i could tell when the primer pockets were getting loose.
                          ya i did the same with the priming except the beowulf wont fit in the hand primer (damn) but its a heck of a kit like i said i wish i had thet-mag but i still like the crusher II fine its all the stuff they give you is awesome.....with that said im sure any master kit is good ..but i know thw lymans come with everything to get started

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by jwilson1985 View Post
                            Do not learn to reload on a pergresive press!!!!!!
                            You are right...my bad.

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                            • #15
                              I broke the rules......and bought a progressive to start with. I hate buying a piece of equipment and then outgrowing it and buying another piece.
                              Just because it is a progressive press doesn't mean that you have to have a cartridge at every station. You can still run a single cartridge all the way through each station and then start a new cartridge once you have completed the first one. doing so makes a progressive more like a turret press. Once you have all the nuances worked out, you can use the progressive the way it was designed to work and really pump out cartridges.

                              the other reason I went with a progressive is that I bought the Hornady lock-n-load AP, along with hornady dies. With the press, you send in a rebate form and get 500 bullet heads free! And you get another 100 bullet heads with each die set. Unfortunately, they don't offer any 6.5 bullets with that offer, but they offer all the usual pistol calibers in their XTP line, plus several other rifle calibers as part of the free offer. When you factory in all the cheap .45 ammo that I'll build, it makes the price of the LNL AP a super steal!

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