I started reloading a couple of months ago because of the high cost of bullets. I also thought is was pretty cut and dry, but there's all sorts of "little" things I found out the hard way.
I started out by buying the Hornady single stage kit that came with a hand primer tray, powder dispenser, one set of dies (.308), and a balance scale, and a can of One-Shot case lube.
The first thing I ran into was getting a number of stuck cases, six of them. I found out that you DON'T spray the case then put it in the press. Let it dry first. It'll save you a lot of time.
I pressed 14 "dummy" bullets because I forgot to buy a bullet puller. After doing some reading on THR I found the cheapest way to pull bullets and still be able to re-use them was the impact hammer. It works great, you don't have to beat the crap out of hammer, and it pulled even my live rounds that I screwed up.
All my bullets had a canelure so I needed to crimp them. I was way to aggressive on setting the crimp and really didn't look at the brass case during the crimping. The result was I compressed the neck at shoulder of the case. I did about 20 of them before I saw a prefectly round lip on the shoulder of each case. The moral is if you crimp watch the case and adjust the die every carefully. It's very easy to over do it.
I also bought an electronic scale because I wasn't convinced the balance beam scale was accurate. It is, just don't let scale move around when you set your powder on it.
I started out by buying the Hornady single stage kit that came with a hand primer tray, powder dispenser, one set of dies (.308), and a balance scale, and a can of One-Shot case lube.
The first thing I ran into was getting a number of stuck cases, six of them. I found out that you DON'T spray the case then put it in the press. Let it dry first. It'll save you a lot of time.
I pressed 14 "dummy" bullets because I forgot to buy a bullet puller. After doing some reading on THR I found the cheapest way to pull bullets and still be able to re-use them was the impact hammer. It works great, you don't have to beat the crap out of hammer, and it pulled even my live rounds that I screwed up.
All my bullets had a canelure so I needed to crimp them. I was way to aggressive on setting the crimp and really didn't look at the brass case during the crimping. The result was I compressed the neck at shoulder of the case. I did about 20 of them before I saw a prefectly round lip on the shoulder of each case. The moral is if you crimp watch the case and adjust the die every carefully. It's very easy to over do it.
I also bought an electronic scale because I wasn't convinced the balance beam scale was accurate. It is, just don't let scale move around when you set your powder on it.