Reloading

Get the book the ABC's of Reloading. It is fantastic then get a reloading manual it will all make lots of sense after you read the two. The reloading manual is more or less load data. There are instructions in them and very good ones at that but the ABC's of Reloading is a great how to and what to look for when it comes to pressure, case, and other issues you can run into.

 

I have the lee kit that was mentioned. To start you really cant go wrong with it. It has everything you need except dies, a good caliper and case length gauges. Right now I am waiting on a little cash so I can get a good digital scale. But for 400 you can get just about everything you need including 100 hornady bullets they were on sale at cabelas and a pound of powder. On thing you may want to consider later is getting a tumbler because cleaning brass by hand sucks balls. I have the cableas kit that came with the media and it does a nice job. I am still figuring all of the reloading out as im still fairly green but so far I know a few people with the lee kits and they are very happy especially for the price. I've been using the lee deluxe dies as well which are nice for my big guns since it comes with a neck sizing die for rounds that I have already shoot out of my rifle.

 

I am only neck sizing my 6mm. It has had alot of rounds through it and has a some excessive headspace. The 222 Rem, 300 Savage and 8mm Mauser are all full length sized. I have not gotten picky enough to weighing brass, but I do sort by manufacturer.

 

Hornady Lock-N-Load classic is a good start as well. It's expandable and if you buy it before December, you can get 500 free bullets of your choice of caliber

 

I deprimed and cleaned 300 pieces of 38 Spl last night, and then sized, expanded and primed them all tonight. Tomorrow night I'll drop powder, seat a bullet and then final-size them in batches. About 2 hours invested in this batch, with another hour or so tomorrow. 100 rounds/hr would cost me $30 to buy but $12 to reload, so my time is apparently worth about $18/hour.

I need a progressive press.

 

Polymer - it all depends if you enjoy doing it then its doesnt matter what your time is worth. Then again I reload large rifle cases.

But if it makes you feel any better I am still relativley new to the area where I live and spent all night driving around looking for components but every shop I went to closed at 5 yesterday. I couldnt buy a break. I just needed some more primers and powder.

 

Loaded up another 95 rounds of 223 today (all the brass I had clean) and then deprimed 200 or so and threw them in the tumbler. Beautiful day to be hanging out in the garage.

 

I just picked up a barely used case tumbler with the screen bucket and 15 lbs of corncob media and a Lee Pro 4 lead melting pot, with 2 double cavity .429 molds and a sizing die for $50. AND when I got home I had my 500 free Hornady bullets waiting for me on the porch. 500 44 cal 180gr XTP's to play with. Loaded 50 44 mag rounds with 30 gr of H110, not max, but holy muzzle blast!

 

Can't wait to get started. Brother in law sent me home with a little starter kit for reloading. He's moved considerably upscale. When I saw him this last weekend he was reloading for his 1000 yard competition. He had this $1000 scale among other things and once he got close, he would measure individual grains until he got within 4 thousandths of a GN. Anyhow, it should give me a nice savings on .338 Win and .223. If I add a progressive loader to the mix and a handful of dies, I'm ready to get started. There is no way factory load can beat hand load ammo for accuracy if you have decent reloading equipment. Hand loading gives you countless more options to tune the load to your specific rifle.