Thread: So if I start reloading

Will add if you are going to buy a kit try and stretch a bit further than the lee.
The most important and expensive part of any kit is the press and the cast alloy lee one is a bit weak.
Second hand steel/iron presses come up from time to time.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

You need a full lenght sizing die.

Yes, but...
If you’re using the same rifle you can probably get away with neck sizing for 4-5 reloads.
After that the shoulder of the case will likely need a bump.
All depending of course, on how hot your loads are.

Originally Posted by Remmodel7

Thank you all for the responses. Im looking forward to the new challenge. Hopefully I can't scape together enough bits and pieces to start loading.
My aim is to produce hunting ammo capable of moa or better at this stage capable of equaling it being factory ammo.
I think I will probably end up with one of the lee kits initially as they seem like a good place to start and should do everything I need. I will keep an eye out for second hand gear or buy better gear if I seen necessary in the future.
I like the idea of a mentor and hopefully can stumble across someone and will definitely be picking people's brains on here and reading a lot

You are welcone to shoot across to Te Puke for a look mate. What cal are you loading for? Might have dies here already to get you started

I had one of the Lee Aniversary sets and have replaced nearly all of it with RCBS items as I wasn’t happy with the consistency I was getting with the Lee setup. If you can’t afford the RCBS kit, spend some time on here and the yellow site, as you can get some good deals on single items.

I know it is a big investment to go for the likes of rcbs but once you catch the bug you won’t regret the purchase. I’ve almost paid mine off in ammo produced in less than 6 months.

Borrowing less used items, things like headspace gauges and comparators will save you money.

Annealing looks like a total pain in the.. so good luck with that.

Lee are good for small cheap items like trimming tools which are easily replaced if they fail on you

And on a final note, a mate to tell you when to quit and be happy with your load development will save you a fortune.

It all depends on what you want to do, you can certainly bankrupt yourself on gear.
Im now 44 years old i think, started reloading when I was 11 or 12. To this day Ive never annealed a cased, polished a case, used more than a press for priming, never used a bullet comparator, never used an electronic powder scale or measurer, no longer use neck sizers. And so on.
I can still knock out a half inch group if the rifle wants to play the game.

AMEN to that......and some of us swear by LEE equipment......

It's interesting to see Lee say you can reload without using a set of calipers. A top Mitutoyo set will cost about the same as the entire Lee kit. I use them all the time to check cartridge headspace (base to 0.400" datum on the shoulder) case length, case base to ogive and cartridge overall length (to tip). Presumably the Lee kit uses standard minimum SAAMI dimensions for every load ? That might be why people are talking about only getting 4 or 5 loads per case.

Originally Posted by Seventy Six

It all depends on what you want to do, you can certainly bankrupt yourself on gear.
Im now 44 years old i think, started reloading when I was 11 or 12. To this day Ive never annealed a cased, polished a case, used more than a press for priming, never used a bullet comparator, never used an electronic powder scale or measurer, no longer use neck sizers. And so on.
I can still knock out a half inch group if the rifle wants to play the game.

Perfectly put, you can overthink anything and make it way more complicated than it need be. All the fancy stuff will turnout pretty very very consistent ammunition but 99% of the time you will never notice the difference it makes as the biggest influences on accuracy will always be atmospheric and human.

Originally Posted by Bagheera

It's interesting to see Lee say you can reload without using a set of calipers. A top Mitutoyo set will cost about the same as the entire Lee kit. I use them all the time to check cartridge headspace (base to 0.400" datum on the shoulder) case length, case base to ogive and cartridge overall length (to tip). Presumably the Lee kit uses standard minimum SAAMI dimensions for every load ? That might be why people are talking about only getting 4 or 5 loads per case.

that would ONLY be the case if you full length resized right down hard....IF HOWEVER you partial length resized it would not be so.......well thats what 30 years of reloading for loose chambered rifle with hot loads taught me.
learnt it out of nosler manual so its good enough for this K1W1.

Make sure you have a tidy reloading bench with everything in its place....





Sent from my SM-G986B using Tapatalk

I have two benches for my stuff it has taken 50 + years to gather all the gear and still
need more it is never ending be warned

Originally Posted by Gibo

You are welcone to shoot across to Te Puke for a look mate. What cal are you loading for? Might have dies here already to get you started

Cheers @Gibo will take you up on that at some point. Initial want to reload for 6.5 Grendel but will also reload for 708 at some point too.

Imo

You need Medium-good quality tools from the get go
Some lee tools are fine however most of what you get in the “everything you need” kits is shit and you will spend more money buying replacement stuff

My suggestion is to buy a rcbs or hornady kit
On top of this
Dies. lee is fine and get the job done pretty well actually but hornady or rcbs would be my pick for Budget dies redding is my favourite but expensive and not required for loading up plinking or basic hunting ammo with a good standard of accuracy

Callipers you have to be able to accurately mesure stuff.... I would add the comparator kit as cbto is alot more accurate measurement than coal that’s Optional though

All good mate.