Newbie reloading questions

[AB]

I agree with you winter soldier,I had one of the blue beasts 20yrs ago,do not plan on owning another one.I let some other guy own the blue bastard.Hated it.

That's a total 180 degrees from my experience! I absolutely love mine.

[WinterSoldier]

That's a total 180 degrees from my experience! I absolutely love mine.

◄ Ecclesiastes 3 ►

1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

In many ways the difference between the highest blue Dillon down through the green and orange and any other colors to the lowest Lee red, is all about time, and PURPOSE.

The complex and expensive models are good for making lots and lots of rounds identical in most or all respects, very fast... I would call that "bulk" hand loading.

The models in between have niches for lesser production with more changes between one session and the next, changes in caliber or changes in bullet weight or powder amount, crimp, or other details... They are less speedy and generally more adept at producing greater variety at a slower pace. When you get down to the simplest presses you may have either the slowest and cheapest way to make lots of identical rounds, or one of the easiest ways of making just a few rounds of something or another of all kinds... OR a way to make ammo that just CANNOT be made on the speedy, more complicated presses. Try loading a .577/.45 Martini Henry, a 12.7x44R (roughly .51 caliber) Swedish Rolling Block, or even a more common .45-70 Government cartridge on yer fancy-schmancey rocket reloader. Another specialty item is .50 BMG, because of its extreme OAL (OVERALL LENGTH)! More likely than not your typical progressive press of ANY price will absolutely REFUSE to even accept the dies for such calibers, because they are far larger than the 5/8" so-called "standard" die size. There is in fact, more than one "standard". It works the other way, too. What good is a progressive press for reloading .25 ACP? (Don't bother asking "what kind of idiot?"... that sort of question just won't get you anywhere you want to go, at all.) The "one size loads all" hand primers don't even work with either the extremely small or extremely large cases... and I prefer to prime that way because I can FEEL the primer being properly seated. Ever see a primer smashed to oblivion sideways across a primer pocket? If you haven't, you haven't been looking... that USELESS load was most likely run through a progressive press... and I've even seen that situation in "factory" ammo. I load a plethora of calibers, usually not so many rounds of the same kind at the same time... and they can vary from .25 to .577 in case head diameter. If you do have a progressive, and you ever want to load some of the less-usual large calibers, you will probably have to drop down to a simple D press. An even less expensive C press is handier for tiny or middle sized calibers though a non-progressive turrent press will also handle most of those calibers faster. Lee has an extremely inexpensive hand press that needs no bench to mount a press on. It also puts a lot of stress on the user's hand so I wouldn't recommend it for any but very low production purposes... but it is a good option to take to a range with components and other necessary light equipment and adjust charges in real time, loading a few test loads at a time, at some shady place off of the firing line. I have a Lee C press that is mounted to one of those Frankford Arsenal portable plastic reloading stands that I have taken to the range for that sort of purpose. It's bulkier, but plenty light and portable, extremely inexpensive, and doesn't strain the hand.

Hand loading presses are NOT either/or, are NOT "one size fits all", and NO press no matter how expensive fullfills every possible purpose. If you do all kinds of things with them you will need all kinds of presses and other gadgets too. If you never do anything but the boring and predictable task of putting the same charge and the same bullet in the same COMMON caliber of cartridge, for only a few calibers... that's Dillon Territory. I live mostly in RCBS Territory with some Lee add-ons, but I've recently found that sometimes the "cheap" Lee stuff works better and faster on turret jobs than with a RCBS turret... not to mention that the Lee turret heads have a better number of available die mounting holes, are lighter and more easily storable with the dies attached, and cost cents on the dollar to what RCBS turret heads cost.

It is only possible to get "ideological" about brands or even types of presses for hand loading, if the ideologue has a VERY NARROW mental frame of reference.