Thanks for all the information guys, I really appreciate all of it. I have to admit that some of what was said was a bit over my current reloading knowledge level. I'm just getting started, so my intent is to develop fundamentally sound loads that will allow me to get the most out of my rifles that John put together for me. I'm not ready to try and make some of the fine tuned loads that you guys are capable of producing, changing neck tension, and shoulders and using the offset shell holder sets I've seen. But I do want to buy the best quality dies I can, so that when I do get some notches on my belt I can start getting into the finer points. I posted here because I'm really only interested in advice from guys who know what the grass smells like at Perry, and have been irritated by a cease fire because some clown drove his boat into the impact area.
My need to start reloading comes from necessity, I shot a local rifle match the other weekend and although I took 2nd place (out of 6 total shooters!), my group for the 200yd prone slow fire was somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 inches. I'm new to reloading, but I'm not new to shooting. I started shooting bulls-eye pistol with my dad in my early to mid teens and made my first trip to Perry at 18. I did pretty good and even won a few matches. Came close to even picking up distinguished points as a teenager. I joined the Marines at 24 (old, I know) and got my first taste of service rifle there, and earned a secondary MOS as a marksmanship instructor. Now I've been out a few years but really wanted to shoot service rifle some more. So when I shot that 5 inch group I knew I needed to hand load (I shot 69 gr PRVI Partisan "match" loads for the local match). I normally wouldn't be so quick to blame the ammo, but I KNOW it aint' the rifle, and all my fundamentals felt better than any time I can remember, trigger control was almost perfect (I load a "dummy" round in each of my mags for the slow fire to spot check my trigger control), my NPA was really good, I had a 24 power scope on top of that WOA match rifle so not only could I see the bulls-eye quartered, but I had zero bounce from my heartbeat. And like Jon pointed out, wind isn't really a big concern at 200, and the group was relatively round, not left to right oval; on top of that, wind was about a 5 mph zero value and it was overcast. Besides that, I'm too cheap to spend a buck a round for real match ammo.
So now after I've rambled off my life story, I think the standard FL sizing die (for now), competition seating die from either Redding or Forster and a roll crimping die will get me started. I've acquired 2,000 rounds of once fired WCC and LC NATO headstamp once fired brass for 80 bucks, and somebody gave me 3000 pieces of once fired PRVI 5.56 brass. I bought a thousand SMK's (69 or 75 gr., can't remember) and some reloader 15 and 7 1/2 primers. Hopefully hat will get me going and I'll tighten up those groups to under 2 inches at that 200 yard line. Sound good?