Reloading Equipment

[josh.alberson]

Looking for some advice. I have been shooting since I was old enough to hold a gun however I have never done any reloading other than helping a few buddies. My question is if you had the following calibers and were starting new reloading with the objective of being able to reload the following rounds at a reasonable speed (ie wife isn't going to let me spend an entire weekend day reloading) once experienced what equipment would you buy? I don't shoot competively, my objective is more reloading for reasonable distance (less than 400 yards max) at reasonable speed for hunting and range rounds. Not looking to spend a fortune but assume money is not a serious limitation.

Rifle
50 BMG
338 LM
458 SOCOM
308
270
223

Pistol
10 mm
45 Auto
357 SIG
9 mm
38 Special

Pistol collection will never expand beyond this. Rifle wise I may end up with 30-06, 25-06, 300 Blackout, 300WM.

 

[Deleted member 115654]

A Lee Classic turret will do all but the big 50. Lee makes a special press for that too.
Join the Lee forum on Facebook, excellent info there.
The Lee manual is comprehensive and very good.
You can buy everything on Amazon.
You can produce ammo as good as factory premium which is all 99% of us need.
Lee press, Lee dies, Lee powder measure. 6.5 Creedmore Ruger American 100 yards.

 

[GLTaylor]

RCBS also makes a starter kit that is a good beginning point. You can grow from there. My Rockchucker press is nearing 50 yrs old and going strong!

 

[Kmccord]

The 50 BMG is going to be a problem, shell casing is long and may be hard to fit in a turret style press, you will need a large opening. I had the same problems with my .45-120 sharps casing, had to order a Lyman single stage press that had large enough opening that would accept the case. If I was starting out, and I only wanted one press to do it all, I would go with a Forster CO-AX, changing dies would not be an issue with the plug and play setup they have. However, since you have the big 50, I would contact them first to verify if it would work for that length and size of a case.

 

[Dmagna]

You need a special press for the 50, also might want a progressive for the pistols, a a single for the other rifles. Will probably need 3 presses

 

[Roninco]

You will not want to load very much pistol ammo on a single stage press. It takes too long versus the amount of ammo you shoot. A Dillon 550 progressive press will do a great job on the pistol and AR platform guns using ball powder. It can also be used for the bolt guns with some accessories. 50 BMG will require it's own press. Currently components can be hard to find so patience will be needed.

 

[BoomFlop]

Reloading is not a rush type of thing. Reloading for most is a hobby to satisfy our OCD as well as constantly trying to get more accuracy.

The initial expense of reloading is far greater than most people think and remember. I'm pretty new to it and am currently only loading for 3 cartridges and I have north of $3,000 invested. You have the initial equipment, and then you have components for each. If you do not buy components in bulk, you will be constantly verifying safety and accuracy vs shooting.

If your wife controls your time, reloading is probably not worth the investment.

Just my opinion.

Steve

 

[Hespco]

No matter what, buy quality to begin with . It will pay off over time. Stay away from anything with aluminum. So, in 1967 I bought a new RCBS Rock Chucker press.,first year of production. After loading literally ten's of thousands of rounds, bullet & case forming, this press still works perfectly. Yes it is a single stage, but unless you need to load very large amounts of ammo at any one time it works perfectly.

 

[Dosh]

Josh, getting into reloading presently is going to be very frustrating. The availability of components (powder, primers, bullets and brass) is presently very difficult at best. This may or may not be compounded as a result of the November election.

 

[LVJ76]

RCBS also makes a starter kit that is a good beginning point. You can grow from there. My Rockchucker press is nearing 50 yrs old and going strong!

Same here, my RCBS was my dad's, over 50 years old now and works like new.

You can also get some equipment here in this forum. Dies are often on sale and bullets as well.

Go on some websites and get on the "Notify Me When In Stock" lists for primers. You can buy some ammo when avaiable and use that brass for reloading, that's if you dont have some already.

Powder is available every few weeks and you can also get on the Notify Me lists. Little by little you can get your set up going.

Stay safe

 

[Stammster]

As others have said....Finding the press, dies, scale, etc is the easy part - but good luck finding primers and powder, and to a lesser extent bullets.

 

[Axl]

You can load them all on the RCBS Ammomaster 2. It will not be ideal for the short cartridges, but it will load 50 BMG

RCBS AmmoMaster 2 Single Stage Press

RCBS has the perfect press for the reloader looking to reload the massive 50 BMG. The AmmoMaster 2 is built like a tank and makes reloading the 50 BMG...

www.midwayusa.com

 

[hunter0528]

You will not want to load very much pistol ammo on a single stage press. It takes too long versus the amount of ammo you shoot. A Dillon 550 progressive press will do a great job on the pistol and AR platform guns using ball powder. It can also be used for the bolt guns with some accessories. 50 BMG will require it's own press. Currently components can be hard to find so patience will be needed.

I would go with the Dillon 750, (1330.00 for 1 caliber, but will do all rifle and pistol easly). You might want to consider the Dillon 50 setup (1,500)

 

[bullet man]

rock chucker will load everything u want 50 cal primers are all u can find right now, I can load up a thousand rounds a day of pistol ammo if I want to, yes it would take longer than a dillon but its therapy for me and I like to have control of each step.