NFOA MEMBERS FORUM
Ammunition & Hand Loading => Cartridge and Shotshell reloading => Topic started by: BigRed on January 19, 2016, 10:16:36 PM
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I am thinking about getting a reloading set up. What do you all think of the Hornady classic kit? Any good for some light reloading? I would say 4 to 500 rounds a month. Looking for info please.
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Should work just fine, although I think it's made of aluminum. A cast iron one like the RCBS Rock Chucker might be a little more solid. Heavy is good.
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I agree, try to stay away from a aluminum press, cast iron is the best, ive worn out 2 rockchuckers in the last 40 years. both were replaced by RCBS, If your going to do rifle, make sure its a compound like the rockchucker, also, as you start buying die sets, try to stay with one brand, that way small parts will interchange,
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I have share a hornady LNL with my dad. It is a nice press but in my eyes hornady leaves some to be desired when it comes to consistency. Quality is very nice but I fell that they have a l lot of variablitiy when it comes to parts. I can have two of the same parts and when I switch them out I have to reset the press. Just something to consider. If I could find a used rcbs I would be all over it. My dad got out of reloading a a number of years ago and sold his rcbs and more we both wish he had it back.
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RCBS makes good, solid reloading equipment.
Which is about what you'd expect for a company that started out making bullet swagers as their core product.
However, the RCBS hand priming tool is clumsy. (Even though it uses the same shell holder for both the RCBS hand priming tool and the RCBS single-stage reloading press, which is a rarity among reloading equipment.)
You might do much better with a Lee Auto Prime Ergo Prime Hand Priming Tool ($40) and a Lee Shell Holder Kit ($25).
Some Lee genius finally figgered out that the round hand primer hopper and the square new primer box were somewhat of a mismatch.
Kinda the same situation where the Polish scientist invented the indoor toilet seat... And then a German engineer came along a few decades later and cut a hole in the center of the seat.
It can take a while for innovation to kick in.
sfg
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I have a Lee classic cast iron with the breech lock system. You buy separate collars for each die (not too expensive) and a die can be set and installed in a repeatable manner with only a sixth of a turn. Make switching operations easy or jumping around with your loading needs. The Lee carbide deluxe die sets are pretty nice. Similar to the Hornady lock-n-load concept.
Aluminum is plenty strong for a press. The issue comes from wear at the press mandrel that holds the shell holder (and your reloading efforts). Dirt from pressing out primers, bits of metal and other trash collects around the that mandrel and can cause the aluminum to wear or gaul quickly. Iron frame presses seem to be a lot more tolerant of this dirt and frequent cleaning and occasional oil makes the press last forever.
I have an RCBS hand primer (one that uses shell holders)....AND IT SUCKS!!! It loads rifle primers OK. But pistol primers (which are thinner than rifle primers) often get flattened slightly. The primers fired OK on a few I loaded that way...but watching primers getting distorted and squished in your hand is a little unnerving.
I have the primer system that mounts on the Lee press and it works very well. Again, the Lee stuff is low price, but delivers a better than decent quality for the price.
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I also have a Lee classic cast press (non-breech lock). I'm very happy with it for the price. It's big, heavy, and solid.
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I had a Lee aluminum cheepie-weepie starter single-stage C-config press that someone gave me. Used it for a long time, finally gave it to unfy to show him some love.
Anyhow, comparably, it was flimsy, cheap looking, and didn't have a good, solid smooth press feel. Didn't even have a steel-steel bushing in it. BUT.......it always worked pretty much OK. Did the job. Loaded lotsa rounds on it. My thinking is that if you have to use a lotta force on your reloading press, better check out the setup and materials very, very carefully. See wot's up.
That press was the kinda press that a new reloader could start with, and then later--after getting a Really Good Press--mount it down at the other end of the reloading bench for those Little Odd Jobs that come along from time to time.
One nice thing about reloading: Over time, you get to accumulate LOTS OF STUFF.
sfg
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I hear ya...I'm running out of bench space between two presses, a couple of scales, and a powder measure, along with all the other miscellaneous stuff.
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funny how this post reads like ford verses chevy everyone has there love of cars or in this case reload presses lol.. hornady must be ford RCBS must be chevy and the lee must be dodge lol ..
as a non-re-loader.... my take on this is any non aluminum heavy duty press will do ya right . stay away from the cheap shat or you will just spend more money buying a better press later. and if you switch brands the dies will most likely not work across brands so not only will you be buying a new press but all the bells and extras to go whit it
my advise would be to get together with some one who has a press or even more then one and buy a pizza and a 6 pack and sit and watch how it works, do you have big hands ? can you work the press , ask why one works better then the other or is easier to set up and work with , IE dies slide in at this angle in this press is ezer to work with. me i would look at witch is more dummy proof lol. and then go watch another brand and decide what you like better. it's hard to choose looking at a catalog pic...or on a shelf in a store. IMO better to see it working. here is a video posted on reloading made by some of the nfoa guys it may be of some help? http://nebraskafirearms.org/forum/index.php/topic,15003.msg107410.html#msg107410 (http://nebraskafirearms.org/forum/index.php/topic,15003.msg107410.html#msg107410) . that is if you have not all rdy seen it . if i remember from the video stay away from plastic power cups the static in plastic will not dump clean and power will stay.
oh and before ya buy make sure the press your looking at will reload ALL the calibers you shoot if your going to be reloading more then just standard handgun / rifle brass it may be a factor in can you buy the dies you need if you shoot a odd-ball caliber. X brand may not have your die's just some thing to think about. as a non re-loader these are my thoughts.
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BigRed I forgot to ask what you are reloading? 4 or 500 rounds a month is a lot of time sitting at the reloading bench. How much time do you want to spend reloading each month?
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I'm a weirdo. I have one Dillon and one Lee press. I try to hit both ends of the spectrum. :)
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tstewart34, I will reload mostly 9mm. I will also use the press for .223-5.56, 22-250, 30-30, 44 mag and 45-70.
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I'm a weirdo. I have one Dillon and one Lee press. I try to hit both ends of the spectrum. :)
Me too...I have Dillon, Hornady, Lee presses and use Redding dies and just added a Giraud triway trimmer
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as a non-re-loader.... my take on this is any non aluminum heavy duty press will do ya right . stay away from the cheap shat or you will just spend more money buying a better press later. and if you switch brands the dies will most likely not work across brands so not only will you be buying a new press but all the bells and extras to go whit it
For the point of education: Aluminum is strong enough...but not worth the few bucks saved over a better/heavier press. Since the press is the main tool....no use in going too cheap...you get the money back in reloading savings. Dies are generally the same size thread (with few exceptions) and can interchange between presses if you do your homework. 7/8"-14 thread are pretty common. However the die sets can vary in what they do, so a little planning can be involved.
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For a lot us, reloading is just fun. New presses and tools are like new guns. Being lower priced the tools don't break the bank so fast. Then, there is all the possibilities for the ammo you can make and adjust to your particular firearms.
I have had a blast lately chopping up .233 and making .300BLK loads. Casting .45acp and making sure the 9mm has various ball, JHP and weights to try out.
I am really sure I need a new blue press...
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I've used a Lee turret (aluminum :o) since starting reloading. I load about 5000 rounds of 9mm a year. Usually do 100 in an hour. Is it perfect? No, but it is quite enough for my current needs: not running out of ammo :laugh:
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tstewart34, I will reload mostly 9mm. I will also use the press for .223-5.56, 22-250, 30-30, 44 mag and 45-70.
4 or 500 hundred is a fair amount of time at the bench for 9mm. You are talking a minimum of 3x in and out of the press per round. You might want to consider some type of indexing press. Unless you want to spend time at the bench.
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I've used a Lee turret (aluminum :o) since starting reloading. I load about 5000 rounds of 9mm a year. Usually do 100 in an hour. Is it perfect? No, but it is quite enough for my current needs: not running out of ammo :laugh:
I used a Lee turret press for many years to load handgun rounds before I bought a Dillon. They work just fine - a little clunky but they're a lot faster than a single stage. Not really what you'd want for precision rifle reloading but they're good for pistol.
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Me too...I have Dillon, Hornady, Lee presses and use Redding dies and just added a Giraud triway trimmer
:o
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:o
It's not the $500 dollar machine.
Giraud has a new trimmer that mounts in a drill that cuts all 3 angles at once
http://www.giraudtool.com/Tri%20Way%20Trimmer.htm (http://www.giraudtool.com/Tri%20Way%20Trimmer.htm)
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If shooters weren't such hard-core individualists, seems like a good, solid argument could be made for pooling their money and buying something like a Dillon 650 for a small, compatible(?) group of USPSA/IDPA shooters. Get out of slo-mo single-stage presses forever.
Sharing the Dillon. Setting it up for 9mm, .40S&W, maybe .45ACP reloading. Even revolver stuff: .38SPCL/.357Mag..........
And then reloading about two hunnert-thousand rounds on it per year. (jthhapkido must shoot about 40,000 rounds/year all by himself. Not to mention what DCJulie shoots.)
Guys could come over. Shoot the breeze, take turns reloading their stuff. Drink coffee. (At the perimeter of the room, of course. No food/drink in reloading area.) Have Guy fun. Their women would know where they were, instead of some hangout honkeytonk bar.
Or......maybe rent some space: Like a secure garage, w/combo locks. And 220v power. Upgrade to a Dillon Super 1050. Or we could use that excellent space at Handyman Joe's which is now being underutilized as a training area.
Maybe put in a pool table for the other guys to use when not reloading. And a large screen TV with big, comfy chairs from Goodwill. Maybe a couple of 8-foot tables for a mini gun-show trading area.
And then get an FFL 06, start manufacturing ammo. Make it. Box it. Sell it under the NFOA Forum name. 9mm/115gr to start. Then work up to 124gr and self-defense.
Aw......Never Mind. I was just day-dreaming out loud.
If Shooters Weren't Such Hard Core Individualists: "Dammit, it was set up for 9mm when I left. So who's the .45ACP nut-case around here???"
Just sayin'.........
sfg
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the press is the main tool....no use in going too cheap
I'm brand new to reloading, but absolutely believe in this statement.
I started collecting equipment for my bench Black Friday week, watching for sales through X-mas. I picked up RCBS carbide 3-die sets in a couple of handgun calibers for $28 per set. Also from RCBS, I got an APS bench priming tool and loader for the APS strips, both dirt-cheap. Amazon had loading blocks, tumblers, media sifters, etc. on sale.
i had expected at some point, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, 12 days of Christmas, sometime, Dillon might put a press on sale. Lee, Hornady, RCBS, everyone else had presses on sale. It wasn't to be. I finally paid full price for my Dillon 550, and would gladly do it again.
@BigRed, you've already mentioned 6 calibers. It would sure be nice to set each of those up once in their own tool-head, then change the press from one caliber to another in two-minute's time. (hint: there is a price break if you buy 3 or more tool-heads at a time)
$0.02 worth, from a newly minted blue-press snob.
Ultimately, you can get the job done on a wide range of presses. Invest as your budget allows and enjoy the reloading process.
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As we were all touting the cast iron single stage presses...it did occur to me that the coveted blue presses are aluminum frames.
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the coveted blue presses are aluminum
...like the engine block from a '72 Vega ;)
(you'll likely get more mileage out of the press)
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And then reloading about two hunnert-thousand rounds on it per year. (jthhapkido must shoot about 40,000 rounds/year all by himself. Not to mention what DCJulie shoots.)
Hey! I only shoot about 20,000 to 25,000 per year! Ish.
And luckily for me, Julie has her own press and reloads her own. :) (She uses my old Dillon 550, which she really likes.)
Have to admit, for any type of large-scale reloading, it is RIDICULOUS how much easier/faster it is to load on a Dillon 650 or 1050. Julie got me a bullet feeder for the 1050 awhile back---next step, a motor.
...and then I'll just sit back and watch the machine do everything. :)
I'll note that I started on an RCBS Rockchucker, which I still have. Solid, great press. Glad I learned the basics of reloading on it. REALLY love reloading on a progressive press now.
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...watch the machine do everything.....
Do everything.
I hear Dillon has a new model coming out, hydraulically operated.
The 1900A version shoots all your USPSA series for you.
The 1900B shoots your IDPA strings. (But only works indoors.....)
Buy different attachments, get better scores.
Be sure to get the DQ blocker.
sfg
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Thanks for all of the info on presses. I would sure like a Dillon 550b but it is not in the budget. What I found for my uses and price was a Hornady Classic kit. It has alot of goods that are included and 500 free bullets for $14 shipping. So much for free. I know it is not fancy but it will work for me. I loaded some 44 Mag in it already and it all worked out. It was slow but I would check the powder throw every 5th round. I would also check every cartridge for OAL. It worked nice. What do you all think about the sonic Cleaners that are available, or should I stick with the tried but true media tumbler?
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Here is my cleaning set up.(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160202/17bd941a5821764a4f86aa28d0b46363.jpg)(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160202/11a4dba4e60452096aaf7a705d5ee27c.jpg)
Wet stainless steel tumbling. My vibrating tumbler is being used as a brass sorter now.
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tstuart34:
Nice setup you've got there.
Seems there are many ways to clean cartridge cases. All of them pretty good:
Vibrating and/or rotary tumbling (media: walnut, corncobs, steel pins)
Ultrasonic cleaning (liquids: Simple Green, special formulas, etc.)
Acid washes (phosphoric, muriatic, etc.)
General choice is kind of between Real Shiny and Real Clean. Tumbling of either method in stainless steel pin media seems to make them shiniest. Ultrasonic seems to make them cleanest: inside, outside, and primer pocket.
I've got a Hornady Magnum Ultrasonic and it gets 'em pretty darn clean. But then you've got a bucket full of wet cartridges. In winter, gotta wait until wifey goes shopping, then use her hair drier. And then deny it when she gets back. (That part doesn't work.) Summertime, just sprawl 'em out on an old towel on the deck in the sunshine.
Bottom Line: I've just defaulted back to vibrator tumbling w/walnut media and THWI.
After all, shooting them just makes them dirty all over again.
FWIW,
sfg
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Bottom Line:I've just defaulted back to vibrator tumbling w/walnut media and THWI.
Yup.
I don't worry that much about gleaming, shiny, ultra-clean brass---but that is because I reload a fairly low pressure pistol round, for standard accuracy levels. For my needs, spending the time and effort cleaning the brass to a higher standard (my "brass cleaning" is that I tumble in dry media for about an hour, and that's it, noting that I use random range brass also for my reloads) creates such a negligible difference in performance that it isn't worth it. Literally, the difference that it could make relative to my needs is effectively zero.
If I was reloading precision rifle rounds for distance or group, that would be different. But....I'm not.
.....so how you clean brass (and to what extent) really is going to depend on what you plan on doing with it.
(I've actually got a sonic cleaner, which I find highly annoying to use to clean brass. Works for small gun parts, though.)
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Depending on which way you go, your tumbling media presents another opportunity to save a few dollars. It is not necessary to spend $15 on seven pounds of corn cob media. I believe the thirty-five pound bag I picked up at the local Feed-and-Grain cost $13. I add a dab of brass polish to each load I run through the tumbler.
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Depending on which way you go, your tumbling media presents another opportunity to save a few dollars. It is not necessary to spend $15 on seven pounds of corn cob media. I believe the thirty-five pound bag I picked up at the local Feed-and-Grain cost $13. I add a dab of brass polish to each load I run through the tumbler.
...note that mine do NOT come out of the tumbler looking like @tstuart34's. That is some sexy brass right there!
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...note that mine do NOT come out of the tumbler looking like @tstuart34's. That is some sexy brass right there!
My mix is ss pins 1 9mm case of lemonshine, a big squirt of dawn dish soap and hot water to fill the drum. Takes about 2-3 hours for about 1k of 9mm to be cleaned. I need more ss. Primer pockets are normally spotless no media in the flash holes ect.
Like SFG said summer time is great for drying brass. Winter is harder. I think I'm going to start dehydrating my brass. Other wise I have a small fan that gets set up and blows across them after being spun around in a couple of towels.
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My mix is ss pins 1 9mm case of lemonshine, a big squirt of dawn dish soap and hot water to fill the drum. Takes about 2-3 hours for about 1k of 9mm to be cleaned. I need more ss. Primer pockets are normally spotless no media in the flash holes ect.
That is WAY more work than I want to do.
And what, people actually deprime their old cases before they clean them? Pshaw!
:)
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That is WAY more work than I want to do.
And what, people actually deprime their old cases before they clean them? Pshaw!
:)
The SS media really shines when your working up precision rifle loads. I plan to switch to it when my sonic cleaner dies.
It helps insure that no soot is inside the cases, which reduces case volume, which also could affect velocities. It also insure that the primers are sitting at the same depth in the case every time and that the soot isnt affecting ignition.
Not necessary on pistol ammo.
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Being a brass whore's brass whore, I'm always rooting around in the mud, looking for a prize, hoping to save 0.27. Some of the brass my dirt caked fingers find is filled with mud and God-only-knows-what.
Vibratory tumbling don't cut it.
I went to wet tumbling and haven't looked back. I have found that if I roll 'em for more than 45 minutes in the classic brew of Lemi-shine and Dawn, the interior of the cases actually get so clean that the cases stick to the Dillon powder funnel, which slows down my amazing reloading rate. (Guinness World Record Holder 18 years running.)
So 40-45 minutes is all that is needed IMHO.
The other big advantage of wet tumbling is reduced dust. Nasty stuff in them there cases.
And yes, I deprime the cases before dumping them in the soup because that's what real reloaders do. (Plus I have been told sometimes the SS pins will stick two at a time in the flash hole.)
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the interior of the cases actually get so clean that the cases stick to the Dillon powder funnel,
I've heard some say that can be an issue with new brass too (which says something for just how clean your brass is getting with the ss pins). They went on to say that they tumble new brass in corn cob media for a few minutes to prevent the cases from sticking.
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I've heard some say that can be an issue with new brass too (which says something for just how clean your brass is getting with the ss pins). They went on to say that they tumble new brass in corn cob media for a few minutes to prevent the cases from sticking.
Indeed. I believe after a good 2 hour tumble, brass comes out of the tub virtually indistinguishable from new. I just want it clean, inside and out, to reduce the amount of bad stuff going down the barrel.
The fix, according to the pros, is to add some all in one car wash/wax product to the water. Supposed to keep the brass from tarnishing as well. I haven't had a problem with tarnish though and since 40 minutes gets me where I want to go, I'll stick with my present arrangement.
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Indeed. I believe after a good 2 hour tumble, brass comes out of the tub virtually indistinguishable from new. I just want it clean, inside and out, to reduce the amount of bad stuff going down the barrel.
The fix, according to the pros, is to add some all in one car wash/wax product to the water. Supposed to keep the brass from tarnishing as well. I haven't had a problem with tarnish though and since 40 minutes gets me where I want to go, I'll stick with my present arrangement.
I haven't tried car wash yet. But I have done some reading kn it. I will have to give it a try in the next batch and see if I notice any difference
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