ElkHntinMd.....
To start out, you might try to get your hands on as many reloading manuals you an afford....Speer, Hornady,Hodgdon,Barnes,Lyman,Nosler,Sierra hall have good data. Powder companies like Du Pont(IMR, Alliant, Accurate have pamplets with there own data using their powders. With the internet you are only a few clicks away from all the above which makes it easier than 30 years ago
My father started me with
RCBS reloading equipment and it's still my favorite today. They make good quality stuff(lifetime warranty) and have a very good service deptpartment should you have any problems. Other quality gear is made my
Redding,Dillion and
Lyman I would steer away from
Lee as it somewhat light duty compared to others.
After some good manuals and a press the next thing you will need is a good scale,I started with a balance beam and have been using an electronic since 1990 and really like it. For weighing cases they are much quicker than a balance type. But to start out there is nothing wrong with a balance beam scale. Just make sure that the scale is calibrated properly. On the same line a powder measure isnt really needed to get started but it sure speeds up the process. I would recomend either the
RCBS Uniflow or the
Redding M3BR. There are also powder measures that hook up the an electronic scale but I have no hands on with them.
Some other items that are nice but are not needed are a deburring tool(these chamfer the inside and outside of the neck),a powder trickler,case blocks(never can have to many of these), a bullet puller( you might not ever need one but no one is perfect and soon or later you are going to want to pull some loads down), a good pair of calipers/micrometer(Starret,Brown and Sharp), primer trays, a hand operated priming tool such as the
Lee Auto-Prime or the
RCBS APS priming tool, a primer pocket brush(large and small), case lube/pad or some dry lube such as
Hornady's One Shot, a case trimmer: I use
RCBSand
Forster
I am sure I have missed somethings but these are a start. The above will get you a pretty good start for general reloading. For precission loads there are other companies like
Sinclair that make/sell highly precission gadgets for extreme accuracy such as neck turners,primer pocket gauges,priming tools,specialty dies etc etc...
Just some thoughts........AA
PS... after re-reading this I can already see that I left out some small powder funnels and you will need something sturdy to mount your press on, the more solid the better. Oh, and some of them see through plastic cartridge boxes come in handy to put all your new reloads in! Lets see now, what did I forget ??? ahhhhhh shell holders, I know I bad mouthed
LEE earlier but do like their shell holder set, you get all you'll need in one box for around $14 which is cheaper than buying them one at a time.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 02-24-2003 20:24: Message edited by: AA ]</font>
