What's the best deal you ever got in reloading gear?

[Josh45]

So about a week ago ( or maybe two) I had gotten a early Christmas present. Father calls me to tell me he got something for me but won't mention what it is. Im a bit excited and very curious as to what it could be.

I get home and tells me to check the basement for it if I want my gift now.
So that is what I did because the kid in me just couldn't take the suspense.
What do I find?

A Rockchucker Master Supreme reloading kit.
I was thrillled to say the least because I been wanting a green press for some time now. Came with quite a few goodies. As for the press, MAN! That thing is going to last forever! It's very sturdy and heavy.

So I had to ask my father how much he spent for it.
And he tells me that he got it for $100 OTD from a pawn shop.

So Im pretty happy with it and to be honest feels much more better than the Lee stuff. I still use my Lee stuff but I'm turning green...

So what was your best reloading deal?
( please excuse typos as IPhones suck at spelling...)

 

[shaggy430]

I got a RCBS Rock Chucker kit off Ebay about 7 years ago for $60 shipped. It had the press, scale, loading block, funnel, a Speer manual, case lube, and lube pad. I added a powder thrower, a trimmer, and a hand primer. It's been all I've ever needed (aside from various dies).

 

[jcwit]

Complete reloading set by Bair as a salesmens sample way back in the early 60's.

Other than that a wagon full brought to my front door by my neighbor, presses, dies, powder 6/8 lbs, boxes and boxes of primers, lead ingots, and a couple shoe boxes of misc. stuff.

 

[evan price]

Lee 44 mag dies. 500 lead bullets. Pound of powder. Thousand winchester large primers. Couple hundred 44 mag cases. Mtm case gard 100 round case. Traded a new 195.65.14 tire on a Nissan mag wheel from a car I junked.

 

[MaterDei]

Right here on THR. snuffy commented in one of his posts that he didn't like his Vibra-prime. I'm sent him a PM offering to buy it since he didn't like it. He was kind enough to ship it to me totally free.

Great guy

Dillon xl 650 10 toolheads 3 powder measures case feeder dillon super swage and lots of components. Ripped my shirt on the window frame after I busted the window with a rock so call it twenty bucks.

LOL

 

[KansasSasquatch]

Being fairly new to reloading, I have not received too many great deals. But Hornady's free bullet promotion is pretty nice. I got 1000 Hornady bullets for the price of shipping (about $30) just for buying a press and dies that I would have bought anyways. I paid about $20 under normal price for the press, $30 for bullet shipping, and received about $250 worth of bullets.

 

[WNC Seabee]

Dillon 550 set up with all the add-ons and tool heads, dies and powder measures for 3 calibers - .45ACP, .44Mag and .357 - as a Christmas bonus a few years ago. It's nice to have a boss that shoots.


Please excuse my typos...posting from iPad

 

[rondog]

I was eating in a little town in Kansas, reading the Pennysaver paper. This guy had a gun advertised, so I called him. Gun was sold, but he had some "reloading stuff" if I was interested. For $100, I got everything he had that even smelled like .44 magnum. Some guy bought his pistol, but didn't want anything else. He had cans full of old brass, bags full of brand-new brass, a complete die set, a bunch of loaded rounds, several hundred new bullets of several types (GOOD bullets, not some no-name cheapos), a couple new jugs of H110, a whole sackful of plastic ammo boxes, lots of primers, I can't even remember what all I got. But it was a helluva haul for $100, I'll tell ya that! And I made a third of it back by selling the dies, since I already had a set.

 

[grubbylabs]

last year I got 3,000 primers for $30.00. I even told the guy they were worth 33 per thousand

 

[Magnum Shooter]

$10 for a Lyman 55 powder measure.

 

[ranger335v]

What's the best deal you ever got in reloading gear?

Someone gave me two Lyman 4 cavity bullet molds a few years ago; free is as good as it gets!

 

[JEB]

oh, i can play this game...

i have been coaxing my BIL to get into reloading for a while now and he gives me a call one day that he is going to look at some stuff and wanted me to go along to tell him if the stuff was any good. turns out an elderly feller had passed away and his kids were not the shooting type, so the guy's wife was selling off all his shooting stuff. they had already sold several of his guns and all that was left was a basement full of reloading stuff. the lady didnt want to mess with it anymore so she told my BIL that the deal was, if he wanted it, he had to take it all (twist my arm, right). so we load all the stuff up in my BIL's truck and off we go. we meet up again a couple days later to sort through all the stuff he got, and he said since i was his "guide" of sorts, he would let me have some of the stuff he couldn't use (YAY!!!).

My BIL is not much of a recreational shooter, but hunts with a 7mm RemMag. the guy we got all this stuff from had been a BIG time garand shooter so he was heavy into the 30-06, how convienient for me that my wife had just baught me one not one month before all this. at the end of the day i walked away with:

- an RCBS uniflow
- 8 lbs of IMR 4895
- 1 lb of win 231
- a single stage lee press
- set of RCBS 30-06 dies
- a brand new up-lula mag loader
- one box of sierra 220 gr RNSP
- one box of sierra 178gr match bullets
- one box of sierra 165 gr SP
- one box of 150 gr nosler BTs
- 1,000 152 gr .30cal mil-surp bullets
- a couple hundred 30-06 AP bullets (i forget the weight)
- a lyman beam scale
- about 350-400 150 gr winchester PP bullets (.30 cal)
- 109 rounds of 45-70 and 100 300gr bullets (now i have to buy a 45-70)
- about 1,000 pieces of 30-06 lake city match brass
- about 200 pieces of 30-06 winchester brass
- 100 new winchester 9mm cases
- about 1500 9mm reloads
- 200 115 gr hornady FMJ (9mm)
- and about 200 30-06 reloads

i dont trust other people's relaods so i pulled all the loaded 30-06 rounds and have been working on the 9mm rounds. i had no need for the press or the lyman scale and i already had the 30-06 dies so i sold them to a buddy of mine for $60. so i got all that stuff and rather than spending a single penny, i made 60 bucks!

 

[kennedy]

Last year a friend of a friend gave up reloading and gave me about 30 die sets, bullets, primers and cases, this year he gave me a wash tub of stuff, shot gun wads, lyman single stage, calipers, bunch of 30-30 bullets and misc. stuff, all I need to do is clean it up and use it. I got into reloading a while back when my brother gave me his lee turret press when he bought his dillion 550.

 

[angus6]

this 1050 setup for $1000



or the $325 RL550



maybe the $450 XL650

 

[Clark]

20 years ago an engineer died. A second engineer bought the house and reloading gear from the dead guy's girl friend.
3 years ago the second engineer was moving, had never started reloading, and gave me 100 pounds of reloading stuff.
Two years ago I took out 1,000 primers and gave them to a friend of a friend.
A year ago tried hard to blow up the Bryco 380 that came with it, but it is tough.
A month ago I took out the Dillon 550B set up for 9mm and .223 and gave it to a friend.
A month ago I put the Dillon powder scale in my vehicle.

I already had hundreds of pounds of reloading stuff I don't use, and I did not need more stuff, but it was just too good to throw away.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Best deal? A few years back someone gave me a RCBS Rockchucker press FREE. Last year I bought a RCBS 5-0-5 scale for only $5 because a few parts were missing. Of course RCBS gave me the replacement parts free. (one heck of a great company they are!)

 

[Otto]

Dillon RL 550 with 3 conversions, 3 die sets and 3 powder measures....$100
(I sold one of the die sets and conversions for $70)

Hollywood Sr. press near mint....$60
Dillon tumbler...$20

 

[Joatmon]

This sounds like a gloat fest, but i'll play. It was probably one of those once in a lifetime deals (the kind that happen to someone else, not me). Friend calls me and says that he has a "bunch of reloading stuff" that he is selling for someone else. From his description on the phone I start to breathe heavy. When I finally get there to check it out I am gawking at the huge pile of stuff. I start pulling things out of the pile and making another pile. When the dust settles the list includes:
Star progressive press w/ Lifetyme dies, complete with extra primer pickup tubes
Ponsness Warren 375 Duomatic set up in 12 and 28 ga.
Pacific Super mag press (think Redding ultramag on steroids, has 3 rams)
Thumlers model B tumbler
RCBS 10-10 scale
Manuals for all of the above (miracle)
Small Pacific (little dandy type) powder measure
9 die sets including 2 RCBS competition die sets in the wood boxes
Two multi caliber case gauges, 6 wilson case gauges
Several sets of S&W wood grips, K frame, model 52, etc. Smith screwdrivers and cleaning rods
At least 200 match grade bullets, 270 caliber
6 boxes of new 270 winchester brass (at least 30 years old based on the boxes)
multiple aluminum Pacific powder funnels (no static!)
2 RCBS lube pads, lube, lots of bore brushes, screw drivers, small tools, patches
Bonanza graphite application boxes w/ brushes, graphite
10 lbs. of various Dupont powders, (mostly pitched and kept the old cans)
Multiple leather holsters, bullet bandoliers, other leather goods
I left behind a couple of caddies of red dot and unique (too old)
It was one of those "golden days". I think I spent about $350.

 

[Teachu2]

Back about 1979, my gf's step-dad gave me a Rockchucker press, RCBS scale, Redding powder measure, Wilson case trimmer, Lyman tumbler, and four milk crates full of brass, powder, dies (a dozen sets, IIRC), primers, bullets, and assorted little stuff. She'd told him I was a shooter, and he'd quit loading when he married her mother and moved in with them. He even spent some time helping me get set up and running when I built my first bench. That was my start in reloading, and three Dillons, a Hornady LNLAP, a bunch of gfs and two wives later, I still have those tools.

 

[Charlie1022]

Bought a Dillon RL550 with a roller handelle and Dillon 45 ACP dies for $200 a few years ago to have the second RL550. I sold the 45 ACP dies and tool head for $50 and sent the press back to Dillon to have it shecked out and they sent me a brand new press at no charge. I keep one set up for large primers and the other for small primers. I have been reloading since 1970 and have to say I have never regreted buying my first Dillon RL550 back in 1984.

 

[Steel185]

not sure if this fits, but i cast and was looking for lead in the usual places, tire stores and such. I put an add in craigslist and was contacted by another guy that casts. He had been hording lead for years and was one of the reasons i couldn't find any at tire stores, they were already giving it to him. He was moving and the company wasn't paying for it. So any extra weight he had to move cost him more. He sold me 1500lbs of lead for $80 and a set of used Lee SW40 dies i had. thats less than $.10 a pound. usually its $1.00 a pound. Not a bad deal.

 

[Josh45]

Man, and I thought I got a great deal!
A lot of us here have had some fantastic deals!

 

[Ex]

RL 500B, auto case feeder, 9mm and .40/10mm dies, 50-fifty round dillon blue boxes for 9mm and 40 for 10mm, and tumbler... $350

 

[rugerman]

In the 70's a friend of mine decided to quit reloading shotgun shells (moving to new house) so he told me that I could have all his stuff if I would reload half of the components for him and then I could keep the rest. I said sure and he brought it all over. There were roughly 12 bags of shot (various sizes) cases of Herters vandialla wads in various sizes in 12,20,16,and 410. Several thousand primers and lots of hulls in the above sizes and a reloader (can't remember but I think it was a lyman with dies to load 12,20,16,and 410. I ended loading up all the 20,16 and 410 and half the 12's and kept the rest (at the time I didn't have anything but a 12 gauge). I had enough shot and other components to load a couple of cases of 12 gauge for me with stuff left over, got tired of the press & bought a mec and sold the old press so I came out money ahead.

 

[FallAirFever]

Best deal!

I have a couple of friends, brothers who were given a bunch of reloading equipment by their uncle's and grandfather who dont reload any more. My friends found that reloading just in does not fit in their lives now. So I am the winner in this situation because they dont want to just see the equipment sitting around gathering dust and they know how much I enjoy reloading.





So after going through this stuff there is:

1500 primers, 8lbs of various powders, 1000 30cal bullets, 500 various other bullets
8 sets of RCBS dies
Lyman tumbler with media
an RCBS "kit" including RCII press, a powder thrower (think its a Uni-flow?) 5-0-5 powder scale, case trimmer, lube pad, funnel, loading block, case prep tools and primer tray...
2 Lee hand priming tools a new XR one and an older one!
Set of Lyman case prep tools
5 or 6 reloading manuals
a few books on reloading


When I went through it all I separated into 2 piles: suff I will use soon and stuff I will use later. My bench is on the small side but with some reorganizing I managed to fit it in nicely.

Now the problem I have is I just set up my bench to use my Lee stuff and I think I will need to change things a bit to have it set up for the RCBS equipment, oh well off to the reloading bench picture thread for ideas!