Soon To Be New Reloader

foghorn918

Consistently Inconsistent
Joined
Jan 16, 2011
Messages
2,762
Location
USA
Decided it’s time to try my hand at reloading. Went to Hastings by my house for reloading manuals and there wasn’t one in the place. A gentleman there commented that their gun section is only 1/4th of what it used to be. So I have ordered 3 books on reloading and spent hours and hours reading through all of the posts in the reloading forum trying to glean all knowledge I can. I have watched several videos on Youtube from equipment manufacturers and other folks about setting up the press and the reload process. At least now I understand many of the terms and abbreviations that you guys talk about.

Went to Harbor Freight for the workbench that many of you have and they are out at both metro locations, so I will just make my own.

From forum posts seeing what everyone is using and reading through “which reloader for you” on the BENOS site, I decided to get the Dillon 550. One reason was that since going to matches and meeting many of you I know that I will have local resources of knowledge to beg or bribe from to help me if I run into problems since many of you use this press too.

When the books arrive I will be reading and studying them. I have placed an order for the 550 on benos setup for .40 S&W, dies, scale, and their "as it should be" upgrade. I’ve got calipers, primer tray, and cartridge check gauge on the way too.

Ran out of money for now so I still need to get something for brass cleaning, media, separator, and as was suggested a chronograph. I also plan to get the parts to load 9mm as money permits.

From the reloading threads this is what it sounds like many of you like:
Bullets were Bayou, Xtreme, and Montana Gold
Powder for working in both .40 & 9mm seems to favor WST
Primer Brands favored are CCI and Federal small pistol primers (small rifle primers can work too)

.40 will be run through my new G24 (thanks MakeReadyProShop.com), hoping to be able to get it to Accurate-Iron for some upgrades……..Mike can we talk?

Been checking out the Reloading Bench pics thread too. I'll post pics of me getting to that point as well.

Need to get some brass, are there any sources for already cleaned brass since I’ll have to wait a bit to get something to clean brass with?

Picked up some WST powder today at H&H and while looking at primers I only saw CCI Magnum small pistol primers, are they just for calibers like .357 magnum?

Feel free to comment and suggest insight as I get into this and please tell me if I am off base on anything I took note of in my post readings.

I know it’s probably a bad time to be looking for reloading components, but I have to strike while the wife is onboard with me spending the money on the equipment.

thanks
 
Register to hide this ad
Steve, I'm getting started with reloading as well and look forward to the comments here and sharing our experiences. Thanks - Paul
 
Good choice on the equipment a 550 is a work horse. You have a good plan starting with .40 and moving on to 9mm later. I would however not recommend WST if you intend to use it for major PF loads, even with a 180g bullet your pushing it pretty hard. I would suggest WSF instead. Bullets check out Precision Delta they still have FMJs in stock, buy 2K for the free shipping. FMJ is alot easier to get started in reloading, more error proof. There are several sellers on arf.com that sell range fodder brass already tumbled. I would look over there. When your ready to get a tumbler the Cabelas branded kit is good economical choice. Primers scouer your LGS or look every day on the online retailers for stock updates. Chrono, I can not more highly recommend the CE Pro Chrono, $99 on sale at Midway regularly.
 
Zekernst (probably spelled wrong) should be able to tell you what's going on at h&h with their reloading classes.
 
Matt Rigsby said:
Zekernst (probably spelled wrong) should be able to tell you what's going on at h&h with their reloading classes.
^^^^^ this
Sounds like you are on the right track
 
Thanks for the referral guys. We are doing regular classes at H&H. We do a basic pistol, then a basic rifle, then advanced (to be taken in that order) There seems to be a huge demand due to a huge number of new shooters. The classes are 50$ per person and usually run about three hours. We load on a single stage press for each class, giving each student the ability to learn to set dies in a press and adjust them as necessary. We go over all the steps with lots of hands on experience, then we go out and shoot the rounds we loaded. We cap the classes at four students so there is great face to face time for everybody. I really wish I had a class to go to when I started, probably would have saved alot of match foul ups due to poorly loaded ammo.
 
I got my Dillon 550B from Zeke today at H&H. He has a few dates for reloading class for the rest of this month and in February. I signed up for January 21st. I think this is worth attending especially for me since I'm new to reloading.
 
ive got several classes coming up, just give me a holler and i'll get ya squared away. 301-0096, or swing by and i'll grab the schedule and we can work it out.
 
Back
Top