So I open up a Christmas gift from my wife and it is a Hornady Lock N Load AP press.........she thought it was "something you use for bullets right?" She said she got me one cause my dad has one and she figured I would like it. Well my dad loads shotshells for trap so she got that all messed up..........but thankfully in a good way. I can't get enough of this stuff man.........I am addicted big time. I have a VERY detail focused personality and this hobby is just friggin bacon wrapped crack for a guy like me. I'll never chamber another factory round in my life. The beauty of reloading is it doesn't HAVE to be ultra complex...........but you can take it all the way past brain surgery if you want to. I've been reading and reading and watching and watching during my spare time and this week I finally dug in and cooked up a bunch of ammo for the range. Can't wait for the weather to break so I can head out and fine tune these loads. I have 6 rifles of my own and my brothers and dad are already bugging me to start making them some shells. Should keep me busy...............and I haven't even thought about all the handgun rounds yet LOL. Anyways........here is where I have been playing around the last few days because it's too cold to move the bench I made out into the garage. Damn, winter is dragging this year. The whole setup. The Hornady Lock N Load AP Hornady Power Case Prep Center Powders Bullets Primers of all kinds Lyman Turbo Tumbler Dillon Digital Scale Digital Headspace Gauge Hornady Concentricity Tool Hornady Case Length Gauge for Bolt and Lever Plenty of Brass and other Gadgets Some of My First Work 150+ Rounds of Various Components Ready for the Range. Something to do in the winter time anyways
Outstanding! I've been looking at something like that myself. Debating between the Dillon and Hornady brands. May wind up going Hornady if I can get things to work out right.
Atlas .. you just threw out my next dream purchase ...... I am jealous, dude!!! That is awesome right there....and VERY expensive stuff!! Congrats, and........ I HATE you! :D
Dillon makes nice stuff that's for sure. Seem a little more geared towards the HIGH volume loader but awesome quality without question. Just so you know...........Hornady has promotions going where you get 500 free bullets for buying some items and 100 for others. I have gotten 1,000 free bullets from them already (about $300 value). It really is a good deal......their dies are 20 some bucks and you get $30 worth of free bullets back. All the Hornady gear I have is top notch........they are also very helpful on the phone. All their reloading equipment comes with a lifetime warranty.........it ever breaks they send you a new one. Customer service/support has been outstanding to this point. I have had guys from Hornady give me load information to try that is not even in the latest edition of their manual. They are constantly tweaking this stuff all day in their "lab". What an awesome place to work that must be.
Wow that is an incredible setup. Spared no expense. And your organization & layout is excellent. Reloading can be very addicting. Enjoy!
Seriously Tony..........look at Lee products. Dude is a pioneer and a genius. They offer reloading products at EXCELLENT pricing.........stuff is not junk either. Their classic cast press is made in USA by melting down old hunks of train tracks. Beast of a press that will load anything on the planet for $100. One of my favorites is the lee loader...........I ordered one of these the other day just because I am amazed that they work. I have talked to guys who have loaded this way for decades and swear you can produce ammo as good as any $1,000 press on the tail gate of your truck LOL Love everything about Lee from what I have seen so far. Check out this old dude finishing a cartridge in 40 seconds.........with a kit that costs $20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeEl9wZyabc&feature=player_detailpage
HOly cow, you got all that at once??? Thats crazy and awesome. I have been reloading for over 2 decades, almost 3 and slowly collected stuff. And I barely got you beat. Seems like good stuff. If I can make one suggestion. Don't load up a ton of stuff. Load 15-20, shoot and try out, and then come back. Believe me, when I first started reloading, I about wore out a kinetic hammer removing loads. You even cont a concentricity guage, I didn't get one for 10 years after. Still don't have the nice prep station. I myself only use balance beam. Little jealous. I have an old RCBS rock chucker, and really would like to upgrade to a t7 turret or rcbs sepreme.
Only thing that lee makes thats worth a hoot is a lee collet die. Rest are junk IMO. I have a lee1000 I swear if it wasn't bolted down, I would have thrown it many times before. I have RCBS for many many years. Best there is for single stage.
I have a hard time "kind of" doing stuff that interests me........I either don't care about something or I jump in and look for the deep end. I am happy with all the stuff I have so far, but honestly I have nothing to compare it to as I have never used anything else. I have worked up 3 cartridges in various powder, brass, primer, and bullet combos and ran up in 0.5 grain increments staying a full grain below any max loads. I plan on taking these to the range and seeing what the guns like. Once I have a "favorite" load combo I plan to try and replicate it over a whole batch of say 20-30 rounds and take that back to the range and see if my accuracy is consistant. That thing is sweeeeet!!! I am going to experiment with accuracy effects of just this tool when the weather clears up. I am very interested to see how much bullet run out can effect accuracy. RCBS makes great stuff from what I see.........lots of rock chuckers out there.
What I don't understand about their collet dies are they are just a neck sizing die but they state they should not be used for hunting rounds because the die does not crimp the case when it seats the bullet..........so what? I don't know of many people that recommend crimping any rounds for bolt action rifles...........just for lever or semi auto. My hunting bullets have no cannelure in them anyways so I surely wouldn't crimp the case. I have a set of his RGB dies in 30 '06 ($14) that work beautifully........maybe better then my Hornady dies in fact (expander wise). That sucks about your 1000, I actually have heard a few gripes about that press. Lots of good feedback out there on RCBS and Lee's classic cast for single stage. I just don't think anyone could go wrong with Lee products if they are on a budget.............where else can you load quality ammo for those prices? You can get a Load-All 2 right now at Midway for under $50 and load all the shotshells you want for trap or hunting. Even if the thing fell apart after one year you got your money's worth. I'm sure there are better products out there but for an average joe who doesn't want or simply can't throw a couple grand away but still wants to reload I would say they are a damn fine option. I only have a couple Lee products so I am certainly no expert (talk to me in a year and I may say something totally different) but the few Lee things I do own do a fine job so far.
Collet is just neck sizing but with a supported case. Great design. Mandrel sucks, made of cheap metal, and nickel cases beat it up. What I find is concentricity problems with RGB dies. Bullet runout. You got a top notch meter, see how it works out. Thats a heck of a setup for starting.
They start sticking about 3-4 times you reload the brass. So you could be hunting, fire, and have trouble extracting. Espeically with hot loads. Or you could have trouble chambering. When you shoot, brass immediately expands to the chamber, but springs back some. Each time you fire, it comforms more and more with less and less spring back. But I don't hesitate to hunt with neck sized loads. Right now, I have a screamer load for 300win mag. I have collet sized the neck 3 times, and now I have very heavy bolt lift and rough extraction. So, after 3 fires, I go back and Full Length size. Keep track of how many times the brass has been fired. Keep an organized notebook. I use freezer bags to separate and note what brass goes to what. With over 35 guns, it gets painful, so you got to be very organized.
reloading is prob one of the coolest hobbies out there! seems like a person could just get lost in it and have a great time. pops used to do it back in the day but as he got older, he shot less and less and eventually stopped doing it. let us know if there is any difference at the range, i often wonder if accuracy is effected at all. i would think not much at all if you did it correctly. pretty neat!
Many reloaders that I know claim to have better accuracy with their loads. Much more precise and can be tailored to what they are going to do with the round. For myself, I'm looking into it as I will be going through a lot of rounds as I plan to shoot IDPA and skeet.
