Reloading

[JLS]

Ditto, except my was bought in 1982.

Old fart.

 

[Don Fischer]

Don't buy a kit. That was the advice I was given when I first started. That was the best reloading advice that I've gotten, so far.

Either you knew more about it than most beginner's or that was the worst advice you ever had. Problem being you can have some bad stuff pawned off on you without knowing it. The stuff in kit's is usually new stuff. Couple thing I never see mentioned in kit's is a caliper for measuring case's and a trimmer to trim them. Lee is certainly a good way to go. Most nay sayer's have never used a Lee product but pass on negative stuff the heard. Don't reload with the idea of saving money. Although you can You will shoot more because you can. And depending on the tools you buy, it's possible you'll never come close to paying for all the tools. I started off with used tools but when I started there were no kit's that I was aware of! New guy today? I believe a kit is the way to go. Is the Lee kit worth it, yep. Any tool you don't like you can up grade at any time. I don't like Lee's powder scale and would upgrade the powder measure. Got my son a Lee kit to start with and the scale drove me nut's, other people liked it. The powder measure is great for MTYing but my son's leaked and powder was all over! But bot is MTYing that funnel nice!

 

[Don Fischer]

Must be getting very confusing at this point. Guy hasn't done it before and lot of opinion's that conflict with each other. Beam scale/digital scale being one! The difference between beam and digital are not really that great. They both seem to come guaranteed to 1/10th gr accuracy! Bean is totally manual, not battery's to go dead and no electrical part's to fail. I have read that if the battery's start going down to much on a digital, you'll get bad weight's! If that's true or not I couldn't tell but reading about it make's me cautious! Of course that fact is I've been using beam scales for close to 50 yrs now, I'm very comfortable with them! A lot of thing's being talked about here relate to speed. Speed shmeed! Forget that. Slow down and be sure you get it right! I read of guy's sitting down and loading 200= rounds in a session. Don't doubt it but unless you are high volume user, just isn't necessary. Watched part of the video's at Nosler. Went through there plant years ago on a tour. Got to their indoor testing range and the press's they had set up were not RCBS, they were Dillion. With them speed just might matter. It seem's to me that a progressive press may work best only with ball or flake powder's. Don't have a clue how they can throw consistent weight's of powder with stick type

The best course of action in my view is to slow down and learn as you go. Lot of trick's used to tweek ammo and some actually work but if your simply a hunter, they aren't necessary!

 

[old man]

Unless you want to reload as a hobby or really want to play around with different loads, I would just buy a good premium factory load if its only for 1 caliber. I load for 4 calibers and have had good luck reloading but its tuff to beat the quality in today's factory loads. But if you have the time and shoot a lot, it can be a fun hobby. I have the basic RCBS kit that goes for somewhere around $300.

Premium ammo sucks, i have tried Sako, browning , and federal premium ammo in my Sako 300WM and none of them shot better than 3 inc groups.

 

[Gunner46]

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I bought my Lee 2000 back in 1982 as well. I know I bought it before I got married and that was in '83. Point being, if you take care, it will last longer than you will.

 

[Don Fischer]

If you buy a caliper and measure to the bullet tip, you don't need extra tools! Been doing it close to 50 yrs now and never needed a comparator. People get those because there's an MTY spot on their bench and it drive's them crazy!

 

[Don Fischer]

Maybe there something wrong with mine then because when I compared it to my digital there was a definite discrepancy, hence my replacing it.

Ah shucks! Which one was wrong?