Help. Getting into reloading.

[Brian Dick]

Redding, RCBS and Dillon are the places to source your reloading kit. All are great companies and make excellent products.

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[CINDERS]

Money plays an important part rather than piece meal they have an opportunity to get a good toe hold in a single purchase and then move on. I use Redding and Forster now but started with LEE Dies
I use a Hornady L & L progressive, and have a Lee press with the 3 stage head for my hunting rifles, I once had the digital scales and what a tedious hunk of a way to do stuff even with a powder thrower set .2 grains less no the DPM - 3 is the way of things whilst the Lee scales balance beam is settling the next charge is going in the pan whilst your seating a projectile, I do not use my powder dropper on the lock and load as I cannot afford a third of a grain variation in the loads not for F class anyway.
The tedious part of my sessions is getting the Hornady concentricity piece and dial gauge out and getting the runnout to .001 ~ .000 as .003 is not cutting it.

Sorry you had a bad experience with LEE dies BAR all mine were good they are still there as a back up as I have been known to junk a 308 Forster FLS die 6 months ago it was for my wifes rifle oooops now we cannot get one from Brownells well thats what my LGS says as I have had it ordered for that long my wife also reminds me quite often when she uses the Redding FLS, they never forget might buy her some flowers....

Bar I think I said that before in the thread you mentioned if you do not set the lees up the progie will just drop straight into the case I know cause it happened to me, they are good in as much you can adjust the neck tension without having to go to bushing dies. Mind you if you start neck trimming then you do need bushing dies.

[browningautorifle]

WE went through this whole thing about a year ago or not quite. Almost exactly the same things were said... WE had a thread here that had a member not able to get his cartridges to size correctly, when he went to RCBS the problem stopped...

Buy what you can afford, later you can always buy it again. I guess that's what I should have said at first.

[browningautorifle]

Tell her you bought it so you two would have matching rifles.

[AradoAR234]

Just getting back into where I left off many years ago, so I stuck with what I knew. I picked up a super simplex turret press, with a spare 6 hole head, for a great price, and a number of sets of simplex dies as well. This press is relatively unknown outside of Australia, but the company is still in production, and can supply every single little item needed. No throw a way Chinese mentality here!!! With my interest in 303 wildcats, I have years of experimenting still ahead of me. I also picked a set of Ohaus beam scales of 70's vintage as well, for the vast sum of $35.00. This reloading gear is at least 40 years old, but built to last a lifetime. I also had a lee handloader that produced decent reloads as well. RCBS and other quality brands are fine, the cheap stuff is just that, and with handloading, the more consistent the better.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Shooters in Oz should take another look at the "rejuvenated" Simplex line.

The old Simplex 5/8", 3 and 6 hole "turret" presses are handy for neck-sizing bottle-necked rifle cases, for processing small pistol-sized rounds, or, as "filling" machines, but are hopeless for full-length sizing a "proper" rifle cartridge.

Their "Master" press is a rugged "O" frame job.

Their dies are as good as anybody else's.

One thing that KILLS presses is lack of regular cleaning of the ram and compound leverage. The "guilty party" is the gritty residue from ejected primers. This stuff is like valve-grinding paste to a press. OK, it might take you ten thousand rounds before the ram alignment becomes too sloppy to accurately align straight-sided cases like .357 Mag or .45-70. If you only ever load bottle-necked cases, it may never even be noticeable.

If you get heavily into rolling your own and then emptying them in weekly competition, the press AND the dies WILL wear. It is just one of those things. I am on my third full-length sizing die for .308 and my second for .223. Bear in mind, that covers forty years of steady use, not just by me, but by other shooters "learning the game". My 1977-vintage Simplex master was retired from "serious" work about 6 years ago and replaced with a slightly larger and very much "tighter" RCBS Rockchucker.

Keep EVERYTHING, especially the fired cases, CLEAN and as grit-free as possible and your loading gear will last a VERY long time.

As for dies, ya' pays ya' money and takes ya' chances. I have RCBS, Simplex, CH, Lyman, Redding and Lee on the shelf. Lee dies have never let me down and, in "slightly off-beat" cartridges, like 7.5 Swiss, are often considerably cheaper than other brands that sell anything "non-mainstream" as a "special", with an appropriately "special" price.

Loading gear is like any suite of tools. Buy those appropriate for the application, don't abuse them, keep them clean and appropriately oiled / preserved and they will give good service for a long time.

[CINDERS]

My Simplex press is long gone but I still have my Ohaus scales.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

And another thing:

Thoroughly CLEAN all fired cases of the fine dust etc that clings after a day at the range. That dust will gather on the lube pad and transfer from case to case, cheerfully grinding away at your nice dies.

WASH your lube pad when it starts to discolour. Black, however beautiful elsewhere, is NOT the "natural" colour of lube pads.

Once a chunk of grit is driven into the steel of a die, it is almost impossible to remove. Lodged there, it will leave nasty scratches on every case that follows for a VERY long time. These scratches are not just unsightly, they can form "stress risers" that rapidly turn into splits as the brass is worked in the die and then fired in a chamber. This is especially a problem with thin-walled, straight-sided pistol cases like .357 Mag.

[Aussie48]

I must be anal, I use a LEE universal decapper on all my brass as soon as I get back from the Range or shooting. Then it gets a sonic clean before it goes anywhere near my dies (which are all LEE except for the Simplex 310 Cadet)

[CINDERS]

Tried sonic its okay if you want sparkly brass inside and out but can be fiddly and I use demineralised water as suggested probably sonic every third firing, I agree with Bruce you have to wipe the dust off them I have gone away from pads and am now using Hornady one shot spray can job works well I coat up to 50-60 rounds at a time roll em around on the tin lid where I spray them and away you go the expander ball does not gall either just be judicious how much you get into the necks.