[yobos4vr]

ok i've never reloaded before,i'm looking for a press that does it all, also i'd like one that doesn't cost as much as my m&p. i only shoot 40s&w right now but would like to be able to reload 45acp also. can anyone recommend a reloading system??

 

[Mousekiller]

well

Dillon square B..



Must have, calipers, powder scale also.

Nice to have but not absolutely needed.. brass tumbler, bullet puller, case gage, finished bullet boxes.



Square b comes with dies for specific caliber but is "only" good for that caliber. I'd really recomend the Dillon 550b..



I'm not familiar with other brands but there are some decent machines out there.



Good luck.



Jeff.

 

[G56]

The Dillon RL550 is the best way to go, Square Deal would be a good second choice if you only wanted to reload pistol calibers, RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme Kit for a lower priced reloader, the RCBS will do anything you want to do, but it's slow, pistols eat a lot of ammo!

 

[MrApathy]

Lee Classic Turret can get a nice kit at cabelas for $150 then just need dies,case tumbler,calipers,good scale,bullet puller,load data and last componets.



its a nice rigid press wont break the bank can use it slowly like a single stage or can use the autoindex and it will rotate to the next station for new operation.

 

[G56]

It's far cheaper to buy good quality equipment up front, rather than buying cheap stuff that breaks and then having to buy better equipment to replace it. A lot of people have had bad experiences with Lee equipment, including myself, I wasted my money on Lee's junk, then had to buy better quality equipment to replace it.

 

[MrApathy]

lots of rave reviews on the classic cast single stage and classic turret are much better from lee than the previous stuff.



wish I had the classic stuff I have a challenger single stage and 4 hole turret. neither of them have broke like that and they have had many thousands of rounds pass through them. hey did that break inside the 2 year warranty how many rounds did you load with that?



first pic dont even recognize the part connected to the toggle clamp halfs probably obsolete for that reason.

whole $8 worth of parts broke



just upgraded my 4 hole turret with safety prime and also bought a Hornady LNL AP for $320 shipped but that LNL AP deal is over.

 

[G56]

Those are recent photos posted on various message boards, I had noticed how many broken frames and broken parts get reported on Lee equipment, recently I started collecting photos of some of those broken parts. I wish I had some photos of broken frames that I have seen online, this is a phenomena that is almost exclusive to Lee products, in all the years of reloading and various message boards I have only heard on 1 broken frame on a product that wasn't a Lee.



I started reloading 40 years ago, I made the same mistake that many newbies into reloading make, I went cheap, and cheap means Lee, I messed with that junk for 6 months trying to make it work, the workmanship and materials were so shoddy I finally threw it away. I kept reading in the magazines about reloading so I knew that reloading must really work, so I tried again with better equipment, and guess what, it works! Over the years I have tried some more Lee products at other peoples recommendations, and they were still shoddy, built down to a price, the price was more important than the quality, of all the Lee products I bought over the years I only have one that I didn't throw out, I've got their universal decapping die, even Lee couldn't mess that up!



I've even seen photos of broken frames on their new Lee Classic Cast press, when I looked at their website the reason became clear, they are casting the frames from old railroad tracks, lots of contamination in that steel, but it's cheap, and that's the main thing they are interested in. Properly recycled steel is cleaned of the contamination, but they are just melting them down and casting frames out of that poor quality steel.



I am a former Lee user, there's lots of them around, some happy, some not, but they have a much larger percentage of X Lee users that weren't happy with their products that other brands.

 

[MrApathy]

where did you see pics of the new classic line with broken frames?

got a link cause not finding anything of the sort at thehighroad.org,thefiringline.com,glocktalk or many of the other forums I visit.

would think that would be all over the place spread by the reloading press fanatics that lean blue and green.

 

[Whitebb]

If you buy from Lee, buy their die sets. Their Carbide are awesome, and inexpensive. IMHO. As for a first time loader, Rock chuck setup is great to learn on. If you get interested in reloading, consider progressive down the road. The rock will always come in handy for custom loads, or precision rifle loads.

 

[G56]

Their carbide dies are crap, if you take a carbide die from Lee and a carbide die from another maker, RCBS, Lyman or whatever, it takes significantly more force to resize a case in the Lee dies compared the other brands, I don't know exactly what causes that, but a lot of people have noticed the difference, speculation runs between poor quality carbide inserts, or just that they aren't properly finished, whatever the cause, there is a big difference in the quality of their dies compared to the higher quality brands.



Also the cheap O ring thing for the lock rings, well...it's just cheap.