Saving up to get started, and need advice.

I've decided I should start saving up to reload, and I'm looking for advice on getting started. I don't know anyone near me who is a serious re-loader, so I'm on my own.

I am starting to slowly save up money to get the necessary equipment, but want to have a solid plan, so that months down the road I'll know what I need to buy, and how to set up for success. I have just started to collect once fired 9mm brass, so by the time I'm ready to get going hopefully I'll have a large supply ready to go.

I'm looking at loading 200-400 rounds per month, and probably double that, once I'm "semi-retired" in a few years, and able to shoot more. I will only be loading 9mm, with a very slight possibility of loading .357/.38 Special if I ever get back into revolvers. However, I have no idea where to get started, but I like to research thoroughly, and have a good plan, before I invest a lot of money. Especially on things that involve the possibility of injury if done wrong.

I'd like to get a setup that I can grow into, rather than starting with a "starter" setup, and then having buy a whole new setup later. So I am looking for something that will be fast/practical for the 800+ rounds a month I hope to be shooting in a few years, but will also allow me start off slow until I get the hang of everything. Also, I'm doing this for practical reasons, not because I will get any great enjoyment in the reloading itself.

I just purchased the "Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading" (10th Edition), hoping that the "Basics of Reloading," and "Tips and Techniques" sections will give me an idea of the basic concepts. Any other suggestions on what to read?

So I can figure out what to budget for, and hopefully jump on any good deals (new or used), what systems should I be considering? What will I really need to get started?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Without knowing your mechanical ability, and considering your desire to have a system to grow into, I would suggesting a turret press. You won't be producing pallets of ammo, but it will give you a good foundation and production ability. A very squared away shooter and master mechanic, just picked up a Hornady LN auto progressive. He was slightly overwhelmed, and intimidated with setup, which I found odd. So even one's ability doesn't translate to confidence.

I’ll be following this thread. I’m in the same boat, but I do have people around that can probably help me. I know almost nothing about reloading or what to buy. Thanks for starting this.

I believe we are missing two pieces of information: your budget, and how much time you intend to spend reloading. In order to determine what equipment you should be using, you need to know the value of your money, and the value of your time. More money and less time means more expensive gear. Lots of time and very little money means going less-expensive.

Budget is easy--I would suggest a Lee turret at the low end, and a Dillon 550 at the high. Lee does make a very affordable progressive press--the Auto Breechlock Pro. I have one, and while it does produce well for its price, it is not something I would inflict on a first-time reloader. I'm going over to a Dillon 750 for my higher-volume cartridges. The Lee turret, on the other hand, is simple to set up and easy to operate. I've produced as much as 200 rounds in an hour on one, although that was a very atypical, high-effort session. Expect 125-150/hr being more likely, depending on how well you get the priming system to work.

The other part of the equation is time. How long do you intend to spend reloading every month? How committed are you to loading on a schedule? An hour a week will produce a fair amount of ammunition, if you can stick to it.

Given your intended volume, I would recommend trying to stretch for the 550. And truly, I would just as soon get the 750. Later on, you can add in case- and bullet-feeding.

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Also, I'm doing this for practical reasons, not because I will get any great enjoyment in the reloading itself.

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I would honestly just buy ammo in bulk then. It'll probably be more expensive in the long run, but reloading rapidly gets out of hand. The one exception I would make is if you're in a state that makes online ordering hard.

On the other hand, if you wanted to expand into more expensive, niche calibers--.38/.357, .44 Magnum, etc--the economics start tilting in favor of reloading very quickly. Which is a really good reason to reload by itself. I have a whole slew of guns that I just wouldn't have bought and couldn't afford to shoot without reloading.

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As far as basic equipment list, besides the press and dies--

--Inexpensive digital scale, one of the little flip-open ones will do fine so long as it comes with a check weight
--Chamber checker for 9mm is a must-have, I like the EGW 8-hole
--Vibratory tumbler, crushed walnut media (Harbor Freight walnut blasting media works fine)
--Get an RCBS media separator, thank me later
--Ammo storage boxes
--Notebook to track loads
--Calipers, you don't need expensive ones for what you're doing
--I would recommend the EGW/Lee Undersized sizing die if you have a tight-chambered 9mm; CZs and 9mm 1911s are notorious for this
--A decent, solid bench with good lighting and no distractions (no TV over the bench, I have a stroke every time I see that)

The ABCs of Reloading is another good book that explains the reloading process well.

As far as a press goes, I would vote for a Dillon 550. It’s manually indexed. You can use it like a single stage or turret press. Since you are staying at one primer size (small pistol), changing over from to 38/357 is fairly easy. With an extra tool head you can have dies for 38/357 set up. The 550 will allow you to produce the ammo quantities you mentioned (and more) in a reasonable time without being too much press.

Lee makes good dies. The Lee factory crimp die is a great crimp die. I would stick with Lee pistol dies until you have a reason not to like frequently changing bullet weigh or type (favoring a micrometer seating die or something with changeable stems) or other reasons. Stick with four die systems; seating and crimping are best done in separate processes.

Get a good scale. I like digital, but they are not created equal. A bad scale is either dangerous or an exercise in frustration. I am relatively happy with RCBS. Beam scales work and can be very accurate. They are also slow.

We have a bunch of threads about calipers here. Get decent ones. Don’t drop them. Case gauges are useful. Your clean barrel will work for you too.

Clean your brass. I still dry tumble, but I would like to try wet tumbling. Dry tumblers are cheap, loud, and they work until they die which, they will.

If you go with a single stage or turret press, you will also want a powder measure and some method for priming. Priming may be integrated into the press or done with a hand or bench priming tool.

If you truly believe you will eventually be loading 800+ rounds a month, get a Dillon progressive with a casfeeder. You will end up with about a $1,000+ in it but you will be able to load 600 rounds in 1.5 hours easy, and I think to pay off the press you would need to load around 16,000-17,000 rounds.

I am bias though, I hate reloading, it is just a means to cheap ammo (that is actually better than most bulk garbage if you get good loads worked up). I value my time.

Already good stuff. In my case I learn more quickly from video, and the one on Dillon's site that pitches the 550 is helpful for several reasons. I think it shows the actions involved in taking a fired case back to a cartridge in a very basic form, and the process really is pretty basic. No matter what tools you use you have to:
Sizing - Squeeze it back down to original shape, typically punching the primer out at the same time
Priming - Pushing in a new primer
Flaring - Opening the case to accept a new bullet
Charging - Dumping in the new powder
Seating - Pushing the new bullet in to the proper depth
Crimping - putting that flare back against the bullet, really important to 9mm

With a progressive tool several of these steps take place at the same station (for example, the first station is size, deprime, prime), the 550 video shows this in a simple manner:
https://youtu.be/k0__OViMcaA
And I like this guy, and he goes into more detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACs8WW0Y2dU

Once you understand the basics of the 550 it might make it easier to evaluate all of the other options, and boy, are there a buttload of options. The volumes you talk about are manageable, so there are a variety of approaches, and you potentially face a confusing decision. It is always easy to shoot from the hip and tell a guy to get a 550, because few people that buy them do not like them. But they are not so cheap, and there are lots of other options. They are also very straightforward and easy to understand, And you can load one at a time until you are comfortable. Maybe a good exercise would be to cost out a 550 and see if that hits your budget window. At a minimum you would need:
The 550
Dies - I also like Lee
Scale - I also recommend a simple beam, the digitals are handy but gravity is more reliable

I do not mean this as a specific recommendation, more of a baseline that will help you make your own determinations both from a cost and a mechanics standpoint. Though it could be a recommendation, what you describe is pretty much the 550 sweet spot. Since it doesn't index automatically it makes it easier to learn with, but it can still crank out some decent volume. I ended up with two 650s, but that was after over thirty years with a 550. As mentioned, a 550 is very easy to change out to alternative cartridges, especially if they are both small primers. Perhaps buying more guns should factor into the budget... :cool:

You should probably have a caliper, but you can seat to the same depth as a comparable factory round. A case gage is handy but you can test by pulling the barrel from your pistol and verifying the first few examples drop right in (people say "plunk test") without getting into the rifling. With round nose ammo if a 9mm will fit into the magazine it will probably function in your gun.

You are going to want some kind of cleaner, and wet and dry have their separate issues, dust for the dry and moisture (duh... :D ) for the wet. I am currently using the wet, it is faster in the machine and no dust. Dry also requires a separator, and that is another bulky piece of dirty kit you end up moving around, and the dust produced is nasty. With the wet the cases are obviously wet, you can use a dehydrator, but I lay them out flat for a few days and they dry. There are threads here about using wet tumbler without the pins (F.A.R.T.).

One wildcard consideration might be the Lee APP. You could use it like a single station press while you learn, and then set it up for sizing with the case feeder later on. This would be more batch processing but they are blazing fast and only cost $100. This process could look like:
Size/Deprime - With their simple little case feeder this is really fast
Wet Tumble - With the primers out they would dry fast
Flare - Just as fast as the sizing step
Prime - This can be done on the APP but it is clunky, you would probably want the Lee Bench Prime
Charge - This would take place with a simple powder measure off of the press
Seat - This would be using the APP like a single stage
Crimp - Another single stage process, but you might get by without for practice ammo
I got an APP primarily because my 9mm brass got polluted with a bunch of crimped cases and I want to use the primer pocket swaging capability, but since I was using it to knock the primers out I decided to size them at the same time, and since I was going to tumble them after I used lube like a rifle case and that has really made it easy later.

Anyway, there are so many options that choosing can be a challenge.

I'm personally not a fan of the Dillon 550 from a conceptual standpoint. It's basically the same price as the Hornady LNL AP, but it doesn't auto-index (easier to screw up/double charge a case), has only four stations (five stations is a significant advantage, as it allows for using a bullet feeder *and* a powder check die, which, especially as I was getting used to loading on a progressive, I found comforting.

For me, the choice is really between the LNL AP and the Dillon 650 (if you can find one - it's discontinued) or Dillon 750 (new version of the 650). Either will serve you well long-term (the Dillon will be more expensive, but some people think they're better - YMMV on that), and going with a non-progressive press for 9mm is just miserable, speaking as someone who learned to reload on his father in law's single stage. Yes, it'll take a while to pay off the "investment" in a 5-station auto-indexing progressive, but it's likely where you'd end up in the end anyway. Buy once, cry once.

As far as other equipment goes, others have basically covered that already, but here's a quick mental inventory of what I have:

Dies - I have RCBS dies, and they work fine, but looking back, I kind of wish I'd bought the Hornady dies, simply because I like the design of their lock rings better. The RCBS use a set screw which turns into the threads of the dies, whereas the Hornady uses a clamping action. Not having the potential to deform the die body's threads would be preferable in my mind.

Mini Mr. Bulletfeeder. (Good budget bullet feeder option, smooths out the loading process in a big way - not needed initially, but a "nice to have" for sure.)

Calipers - I've got the cheap Hornady dial calipers, and for reloading purposes, it does a fine job.

Lee beam scale - cheap but reliable option. Max capacity of a little over 100 grains, so if you ever want to load really big rifle cartridges or validate the weight of bullets, you need something better, but for weighing charges of any "normal" cartridge, this will do fine.

Vibratory tumbler + media separator. These are basically all the same as far as I understand. Mine is from Midsouth shooters, because that's where I ordered my press (and basically everything else) from way back when. Be aware that used media is full of lead-rich dust and act accordingly.

Chronograph - lots of options here from budget to expensive, but you can 100% get by with the budget options. IIRC I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $125-150, including purchasing a tripod for it.

Case lube - for 9mm, I highly recommend having a can of the Hornady One Shot case lube around. Spray fairly liberally into whatever container your brass is in, shake it around, and load. You can definitely load 9mm without case lube, but One Shot significantly reduces the effort when sizing cases, and leads to more smoothness and more consistency in results.

Case gauge - I'm going to go against the grain here and say it's not necessary. Just figure out which of your pistols has the tightest chamber and run the "plunk test" on finished rounds using that barrel.

Lots of small tools, too. A chamfer/deburr tool is cheap and nice to have, as is a primer pocket reamer for when you run into military 9mm brass with crimped primers.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what comes to mind off the top of my head.

A single-stage press is where to start.
The Dillion 550 can be used in this way and the Lee turret as well.

Making consistently safe, functional rounds is the goal. Progressive presses with all of the moving parts and steps being done at the same time is a recipe for problems without knowing the fundamentals of reloading. I went from a Lee single stage to a Lee Pro 1000 I think it was in a very short time and had a lot of problems from squib loads to crushed primers. I ended up pulling a lot of bullets.

I went back to a few single-stage presses and then a turret press. Doing the job in batches with 2 single-stage presses allowed me to get a good understanding of what's going on at each step. Then when I went back to a progressive I had very few problems.

I still use a Lee turret. It's pretty easy to load 150-ish rounds an hour once everything is set up, assuming you're using a powder thrower and not measuring every drop. It's simple, it gives you a lot of control over the process, and it's very inexpensive. I'd recommend getting a plate for every set of dies so once they are set you never have to mess with them again. I'm on my second one in about 20 years because a small part broke on my old one that was no longer made, but at the price...who cares.