New again to reloading

[Averageman]

I often worked with a neighbor in the 70's relaoding ammo on his bench.
20 + years in the military, a career with travel and here I am ready to reload again.
How do I get back in to reloading after 30 years?
I am looking for the ability to relaod both rifle and pistol in the following calibers.
.45 acp
9mm
.308
I have the space and a buddy to cut the cost in half for me, whats the best deal?
Thanks'
A/M

 

[mbopp]

How many rounds / week are you planning on shooting?

 

[gamestalker]

If your not concerned about pumping out thousands of rounds per day, a single stage will do just fine, and is not nearly as expensive as going with a progressive.

I've been loading on a single stage forever and althoug it isn't as fast, by any means, as progressive presses I can still do about 100 rounds of pistol in an hour or so, and probably half that of bottle neck in a couple hours or so.

Your general purpose for reloading will be a major determining factor in which set up needed. For someone who is going to be burning through 1000 rounds per shooting session, a progressive is the ticket.

 

[dickttx]

After about a 40 year hiatus I found my single stage much too slow for loading handgun. Not requiring the output of a progressive, I settled on a Lee Classic Turret with Pro Auto Disk and the Safety Primer, necessary to use it in the auto-indexing mode.
It was economical (about the same price as a good single stage) and easily takes care of my needs for about four trips a week to the range. I used it single stage at the start but it did not take very long to get the procedures down and start using the auto-index feature.

 

[Cherokee]

Depends on how much you shoot and how much time you want to spend reloading. I'll say that for the 308 I would suggest a single stage press, but the handgun rounds could go either way, again depending on volume and time. I loaded everything on single stage and CH 444 4 station presses for 45 years before adding my Dillon 650 for high volume loading. You can turn out a lot of 45 and 9 ammo on a progressive.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Consider a turret press

On a Turret press, you have dies installed in a removable turret which relieves you of having to readjust dies each time you change dies or calibers. You can also produce a bit or a lot faster, depending if you continue batch processing (single-stage style) or continuous processing (progressive style).

The Lee Turret presses are equally adept at batch and at continuous processing, but the other makers' turrets can do both, too. Lee makes the only turrets that do auto-advance, a big advantage.

What eventual rate of output do you aspire to achieve? Let us have some parameters and we can provide more targeted advice.

To answer your specific question about "the best deal", I recommend Kempf's kit. They build a kit around the Lee Classic Turret (far superior to the Deluxe Turret) for $200, including their best dies (the Deluxe set) and the only "extras" are a half-dozen ammo boxes. The only thing lacking is a scale. You can pick up other small accessories as you find the need for them.

But the BEST deal would be to assemble your own kit.

Aside from eye protection and manuals, you only need three things (physically) to load good ammo.

Press because fingers are not strong enough to form metal
Dies because fingers are not accurate enough to form metal to SAAMI specs
Scale (or calibrated dippers) because eyeballs are not accurate enough to measure out gunpowder

Start out with those bare minimum pieces of equipment, but of the highest quality and add high-quality accessories as you find the money and the need.

Lost Sheep

 

[esheato]

I've put two buddies on Lee Pro 1000s in the last few months and they've absolutely dove in with both feet and excelled. The one guy is on 11,000 bullets already. For the $140 or whatever, it's hard to go wrong...and they're cheap enough to buy multiple presses.

 

[beatledog7]

With my single stage Hornady LNL, once the cases are prepped and primed and all the dies are properly set up, I can crank out pistol or revolver rounds at the rate of about 50 per half hour, including charging. That grows to maybe 35 minutes if I'm crimping in a separate step. For my shooting volume of 50-100 rounds/week on average, that's more than fast enough.

Could go faster, but then it would start to feel like a chore.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Welcome back. Here's some light reading for you

Let me share with you some posts and threads I think you will enjoy. So get a large mug of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, whatever you keep on hand when you read and think and read through these.

The "sticky" thread at the top of TheFiringLine's reloading forum is good, entitled, "For the New Reloader: Equipment Basics -- READ THIS FIRST "
thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230171

The "sticky" thread at the top of TheHighRoad.com's reloading forum is good, entitled, "For the New Reloader: Thinking about Reloading; Equipment Basics -- READ THIS FIRST"
thehighroad.org//showthread.php?t=238214

The first draft of my "10 Advices..." is on page 2 of this thread, about halfway down.
rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13543

rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=22344

"Budget Beginning bench you will never outgrow for the novice handloader" was informed by my recent (July 2010) repopulation of my loading bench. It is what I would have done 35 years ago if I had known then what I know now.
rugerforum.net/reloading/29385-budget-beginning-bench-you-will-never-outgrow-novice-handloader.html

I have a thread "To Kit or Not to Kit?" that describes different philosophies of buying or assembling a kit one piece at a time.
rugerforum.net/reloading/33660-kit-not-kit.html

rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13543

Minimalist minimal (the seventh post down)
rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=107332

Thread entitled "Newby needs help."
thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=430391
My post 11 is entitled "Here's my reloading setup, which I think you might want to model" November 21, 2010)
My post 13 is "10 Advices for the novice handloader" November 21, 2010)

Thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=439810

thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=448410


Good luck, welcome back and thanks for asking our advice.

 

[BYJO4]

I suggest you look at the Hornady LNL AP. It's a great progressive press and is reasonably priced. Also works well as a single stage if needed.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Chore?

With my single stage Hornady LNL, once the cases are prepped and primed and all the dies are properly set up, I can crank out pistol or revolver rounds at the rate of about 50 per half hour, including charging. That grows to maybe 35 minutes if I'm crimping in a separate step. For my shooting volume of 50-100 rounds/week on average, that's more than fast enough.

Could go faster, but then it would start to feel like a chore.

Beatledog,

I can do 140 rounds per hour on my Lee Classic Turret (freshly shot brass, wiped down or taken from the tumbler all the way to boxed ammo ready to shoot, including keeping the primer feeder and powder hopper filled) . It does not seem like a chore at all.

Once I get "into the zone" it is very relaxing, Almost like performing Tai Chi Kata. I get a relaxed concentration and focus.

Then I get to go out the the range and empty'em. The circle of life. Brass life, that is.

Lost Sheep

 

[glenns]

Agree with Lost Sheep.

I do single stage/batch processing. I can double check all my powder and confident that I have not double loaded. The Lee Turrent Press has been great.

 

[RandyP]

I am a big fan of Lee products (OK their beam scale is a PIA, but it IS accurate-lol)

Single Stage for me = 50-75 rounds per hour

CLASSIC 4-hole turret for me = 150-175 rounds per hour at a very relaxed pace. This output makes the Lee turret a perfect fit to MY realistic ammo needs.

If you and your buddy will be shooting hundreds and hundreds of pistol rounds per week? You will want the output of a progressive. Lee has a very good (Loadmaster) equipped with carbide dies, Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure and a case feeder for $220 at Factory Sales:

https://fsreloading.com/html/xcart/catalog/ldmas.html

For an EXCELLENT Dillon progressive set up for one caliber you can easily triple that investrment in a superb product. Other makers have VERY good progressive presses starting at about twice the Lee price. You could easily achieve 400-500 rounds per hour with any of them, including the Lee Loadmaster.