Ronald W Schaefer
Well-Known Member
Victoria, great photos! Congratulations! Thanks for being a hunter and encourage more women to join you. Women are the future of our sport and a vanguard for protecting the 2 amendment. We need you!
To the subject at hand--I'd suggest go online to Midway or visit Cabela's to price the starter kits. All the brands are good but I think RCBS has the most user friendly hardware and great customer support. Go with the RCBS supreme startup kit and it will have nearly everything you need to start at a good savings over purchasing the individual items separately. I'd avoid the multi-stage presses at this point until you get a handle on process and technique. Of course get a couple of manuals, I like Nosler, Sierra, Barnes, Berger, Hornady to compare. I 've been loving the Aliant RL series powder lately so I got a copy of their manual as well. In that 6.5 bore I like that RL powder for the heavy bullets. Also you might get a reloading software program, they are fun--I have Blackwell's "Load from a Disk" and Quickload". RCBS has a great video on the basics from A-Z called "Precisioneered Reloading" and its very well done. If you're serious about reloading and working loads for custom rifles, you'll need a chronograph--I use the Caldwell Precision G2 version that Bluetooths to my iPhone and does all the calculations for me and saves the data...very handy. One last tip that will save you a ton of headaches, get new Lapua brass, Nosler Custom or Hornady Custom and that will save all the case prep you need to do with fired brass. You'll get about three loads from the new brass before you need to do the trimming, chamfer, deburr, flash hole cleaning primer pocket cleaning etc. After 40 years of reloading, I finally splashed out for the RCBS mechanical case prep center and the digital powder throw--I wish I'd have done that a long time ago. We can chat for days about stuff and process, but get the kit, read the manuals and review the videos, use the process in the books and you'll be fine. Good luck with the 6.5 SAUM...send pix when it comes in.
To the subject at hand--I'd suggest go online to Midway or visit Cabela's to price the starter kits. All the brands are good but I think RCBS has the most user friendly hardware and great customer support. Go with the RCBS supreme startup kit and it will have nearly everything you need to start at a good savings over purchasing the individual items separately. I'd avoid the multi-stage presses at this point until you get a handle on process and technique. Of course get a couple of manuals, I like Nosler, Sierra, Barnes, Berger, Hornady to compare. I 've been loving the Aliant RL series powder lately so I got a copy of their manual as well. In that 6.5 bore I like that RL powder for the heavy bullets. Also you might get a reloading software program, they are fun--I have Blackwell's "Load from a Disk" and Quickload". RCBS has a great video on the basics from A-Z called "Precisioneered Reloading" and its very well done. If you're serious about reloading and working loads for custom rifles, you'll need a chronograph--I use the Caldwell Precision G2 version that Bluetooths to my iPhone and does all the calculations for me and saves the data...very handy. One last tip that will save you a ton of headaches, get new Lapua brass, Nosler Custom or Hornady Custom and that will save all the case prep you need to do with fired brass. You'll get about three loads from the new brass before you need to do the trimming, chamfer, deburr, flash hole cleaning primer pocket cleaning etc. After 40 years of reloading, I finally splashed out for the RCBS mechanical case prep center and the digital powder throw--I wish I'd have done that a long time ago. We can chat for days about stuff and process, but get the kit, read the manuals and review the videos, use the process in the books and you'll be fine. Good luck with the 6.5 SAUM...send pix when it comes in.
