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Posted: 11/1/2011 11:12:58 AM EDT
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I started reloading in college on a turret press I bought off the EE here. Was a stupid kid and tried to learn by doing. Figured it out eventually with some crappy ammo along the way. The press is a less than stellar piece of engineering. Head flex, tolerances are loose, etc. I eventually Smashed the bearing down and use it as a single stage. Doing anything in bulk absolutely sucks. So I finally quit all but my precision rifle rounds and buy bulk factory stuff.
Well, I'm back into shooting pistols heavily again. Looking @ 1-200 rounds a week depending on the weather (much slower over the winter). I have been going back and forth on grabbing a LnL AP. I have a progressive shotshell loader that I've used for almost a decade now. Love it. My problem is dropping $1,000 to get reloading again (press, shellplates, case feeder, case feeder plates, bushings, etc). That's 5,000 9mm bulk 9mm rounds. On the other hand, I already have the reloading accessories, brass prep, trimmers, tumbler, dies,primers, powder, etc. Hate to see them sitting unused. So I suppose my question is: Is it worth it to delve back in for $1,000? Or has the market slipped back to the point where buying in factory bulk is still the way to go? |
| You can reload 9mm for around $100, that's around $5.00 for a box of 50. You can't buy 9mm that cheap anywhere. The "Is it worth it?" question depends on how much you shoot. 10,000 rounds of 9mm would be your break even point. The question really is, are you willing to give up the time to reload. If you are busy and don't have much interest in reloading as a hobby, that money you save might not be worth it. |
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What set up are you looking at that cost $1000.00?
what ells are you going to do when the weather is crap? this + dies + shell plate = under $450.00 |
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I'm going to shoot when it's crappy, darnit! Having shot competitively in shotgun sports, I've learned that when you only practice on the nice sunny days, tournaments almos always come on the windy, rainy, variable cloud cover days.
That said, I find myself too busy to reload on a single stage, but I know I can sit down and crank out 2-300 shotshells on my progressive no problem. I'm at the point of progressive or bust. $1000 setup is: LnL - $370 +/- Case Feeder: $275 +/- Case Feeder plates $90 Shell plates for 9mm, .45, .38 spl, .223 $120 20 bushings $78 Comes to $933 + $50 shipping. That's not even being setup to run my .44mag and non bulk-rifle, which I suppose I can still do on the single stage. ETA: I suppose some could argue that the shell holder is unnecessary. Seems like it only makes sense to me to get it from the get-go. |
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So I suppose my question is: Is it worth it to delve back in for $1,000? Or has the market slipped back to the point where buying in factory bulk is still the way to go?
Buying factory ammo is never the way to go. Spend the money shoot the ammo and you are left with empty cases. Spend the money on reloading tools and you can reload many, many rounds. This being the Reloading Forum, you didn't think I would tell you to buy factory ammo did you? 
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I suppose not. I already have 2,000 9mm cases laying around, 2,000 .308's, 1,000 .45's, several thousand .223's, etc. Basically everything but a good press and pistol projos.
As for the Lee....eh. I started with a few sets of Lee dies that are fine, but not sure I'd want a complex progressive press from them. Think I'll stick to Hndy/Dillon for the press and I think I've made my decision there. The ease of Hndy bushing system has sold me. Almost tempted to get a Hndy single-stage press that uses the bushings too for precision rifle rounds. Setting dies is the WORST part of switching calibers. If I can avoid that, awesome. I finally ran out of my 9mm stash, hence the questions. Looks like 10+ days and $60 to get it all shipped from Midway. Maybe I'll order a couple hundred rounds of WWB to tide me over... How is the LnL for precision rifle stuff? I'm not talking bench rest, but practical 3-500 yard accuracy. Biggest concern being runout I suppose. |
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Don't do it unless you want a hobby that will rob you of hundreds or even thousands of hours that you might otherwise spent sitting in front of the Boob Tube, turning into a vegetable and letting your muscles turn to jello.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know there's that feeling of satisfaction you might get from assembling high quality ammo that can't be matched by anything from the factory. what a waist of time! Who wants to shoot accurate ammo anyways. Its all just a waist of time! Pick up a bottle of J.B. or 151 and have a belt or two or three, pop some cheese curls into your maw, and listen to the kids fight and the wife rattle on about the mindless day to day tasks that she'll readily repeat over and over till you go mad or deaf if you're lucky! Handloading is it really worth it? |
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Quoted:
Don't do it unless you want a hobby that will rob you of hundreds or even thousands of hours that you might otherwise spent sitting in front of the Boob Tube, turning into a vegetable and letting your muscles turn to jello. Yeah yeah yeah, I know there's that feeling of satisfaction you might get from assembling high quality ammo that can't be matched by anything from the factory. what a waist of time! Who wants to shoot accurate ammo anyways. Its all just a waist of time! Pick up a bottle of J.B. or 151 and have a belt or two or three, pop some cheese curls into your maw, and listen to the kids fight and the wife rattle on about the mindless day to day tasks that she'll readily repeat over and over till go mad or deaf if you're lucky! Handloading is it really worth it? This is great and so true. |
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Not trying to hijack
Can you do precision reloading on a progressive press? I want to get a progressive later but if i can do it up front i would. Just a guess.. i would hand load the powder on my 308 rounds(which im going to do either way). but the seating and crimping is the same just different stages... |
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Whether you load with hand press or the most expensive blue tool from Smurfville, Arizona. Cost of equipment is the cost of the hobby. There isn't a bad press made, just different levels of frustration is all and there's only a few that haven't aggravated the hell out of me. Few being single stage. I'm a Lee guy, Hornady guy and a Dillon guy.
If there was one set up, only one. It would be the LnL. Cost to benefit ratio is high. Bushings switch from Classic to AP making interchange between two a breeze. Cost of producing ammunition is cost of components. Cost of equipment is the price of your hobby. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Thought much about a 550? You can buy toolheads for $21 and have all your dies setup. All you have to do is transfer the powder measure and pull 2 pins to swap toolheads.
They're in the same price range (actually cheaper since the casefeeder isn't recommended) and you'd be able to load your 100-200 pistol rounds a week in half an hour at a very relaxed pace. 550 with one calber conversion- $429 3 additional conversion kits- $135 (might not be completely needed if some of the rounds share shellplates or locator buttons) 4 toolheads- $85 (you'll want a case prep toolhead for the rifle calibers) If not,the LNL is a great press as well, so you're not short-changing yourself, by any means. Looks like right at $650 for the Dillon and all you'd have to do is add powder, primers, and bullets. As far as cost savings goes, I reload 9mm with components sourced from Cabela's ($90/k bullets, $18/lb Titegroup, and $30/k primers) for a little less than $120/k and free range brass because some people think reloading 9mm doesn't pay. If you go into Walmart and look at WWB 115gr FMJ, it's on the shelf for roughly $25 per 100rds. That's $250 per 1,000rds. Actually, it's $267 and change after tax. Reloading just 9mm saves me $150/k over buying at walmart....and I'm buying at a place that's not considered cheap. If you plan to actually shoot 5,000-10,000rds in a year, and buy your components at decent prices (or hell, even at Cabela's prices) you could pay for your $1,000 Hornady setup in less than 7,000rds of 9mm. The Dillon setup I listed above would be "paid for" in just over 4,000rds. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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My Dillon 550 cost about $350 back in the day. It was a sound investment as far as I'm concerned. I used it for high production of pistol ammo and plinking/practice rifle. I also still have my original single stage RCBS RS-3 press and a Redding Big Boss.for my lower volume precision reloads.
About the only thing I might do different is have my presses be a Dillon 650 and Forster CoAx. I'm not sure on that though, there are pros and cons. I'm pretty happy with what I can do with my equipment. Through the years I've added more tooling; case trimmers, wet tumbling rock tumbler, neck turning equipment, hornady gages for checking shoulder locations, sinclair chamber length indicators, etc. I reckon I have thousands of dollars in this hobby's tooling. No regrets. Honestly with arfcom and sniper's hide reloading forums my techniques have gotten more sophisticated. We got some experienced loaders here and I have grown as a handloader. |
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For me it's usually 2am before a big shooting trip and I'm in the gun room furiously pushing rounds through my crappy press. Ok, crap, Midway here I come. No C&R, no real interest in relic type firearms. The reason he suggested the CnR is it's only $35 and you get a FFL discount at most retailers, even if you never buy a CnR gun. I had one for 3 years jsut for the discount 
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