Looks like you should be good:
https://leeprecision.com/classic-turret-press/
Late to the party. Based on my experience on those of my first shooting mentor:
Dillon Progressive Press-Guaranteed for life, great CS and Tech Support. Forever, he had 4 Square D Bs (38/357-9mm-45 ACP-44 spl/44 mag.) He ultimately went to two 650's-one for small primers and one for large.
I started with a Square Deal B for 9mm. 124 plated bullet/4.3-4.4 of Win 231 or Hodg. HP-38 (it is the same functionally). When I was competing, w a G34, it just made the power factor. I would use my recoil springs that had been in my G35 in which I only shoot 165/180 Gold Dot and corresponding Lawman FMJ.
I shot 100% on multiple quals to include those with Rangemaster using this load. Reliable, accurate, soft shooting.
Reload in 100 round batches. take a break. Never more than 300 per day. That is about an 1.5 hours of actual reloading. No TV/No radio. 100% focus. If you even have to ask the question, you did it wrong, pull the batch and start over tomorrow.
In normal times, many stopped reloading for 9mm plinking ammo when it could be had for sub 200@1k all day long to the door or even at Walmart.
In the end, you probably do not save money reloading plinking ammo for pistols as you will ultimately shoot more plus the 1K buy in by the time you get everything to make your 1st 1k rounds.
The Lee Auto DISK powder measure can be a pain in the ass to get precise powder loads. The current hotness for a Lee Turrett is Titan Reloading's Auto DRUM. I think Lee is actually selling these with their kits now too. The Auto DRUM is about $35 or so and is a must have upgrade in my opinion. So you may be better off buying new.
Yeah, this is probably a worthy warning, but not a discouragement. In reality you will not end up with a stack of bills, you will end up with a bigger pile of empty brass for the same amount of money.
The actually big savings is if you load for something other than 9mm, like the 300 AAC you mentioned. But you would probably just shoot more of that too!
It might be good to consider how you buy might become different. Instead of buying 1k rounds for $180 and start shooting it until you are out again, one day you might spend $140 on 8# of powder (enough for maybe 15k 9mm) and another day you get 5k of primers for about $160, and then you just order in bullets as you need them. You will not need to do this to get started, but might want to eventually. It also makes this a little easier during a frenzy, you will probably not be out of everything at the same time.
As far as the up front investment, the way I look at it I can save at least $50 loading 9mm. This is ASSuming you have brass or can get it for free, and can retain it when you shoot. Many of my friends quit loading it and let me take home all of the brass, at this point I have plenty. Even if you have to buy it that will make the savings on your first thousand minimal, but after that you can start saving $50, maybe right now more like $60-$90, per thousand. But if it is $50 then you need to do 20k to get your money back. As long as you do not quit shooting you will get your money back. Though it can be like that adage about "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will need a 150hp boat with a GPS fish finder and twelve rod and reel rigs and three cases of beer."
Communication issues aside, I use both powder measures. While the new measure is better, the old one wasn't useless or bad. If you use the chambered disks, you may not be able to hit a specific charge weight, but for plinking ammo, and in lucky circumstances, more precision-oriented stuff, you'll get what you need. After getting the new drum measure, I haven't dumped my auto-disk measures, I just use them where "almost" is good enough. I use the drum measure where the auto-disk isn't as good (light charges of flaky powder) or where I need more precision.
Chris
I use the old Lee chamber disc style powder drops on my Dillon 550s for pistol and use the Dillon powder drops for rifle loads
So I’m having a tough time deciding which Dillon I should get. I have never reloaded and I shoot very frequently, about 1,000rds a month and have a lot of free time. As much as I’d like to get the high speed stuff, I don’t want to annoy my family with a casefeeder constantly churning in the garage. I’ve been looking at the 750 because of its safer priming system and because it’s a progressive but it seems like it’s intended to be used with a casefeeder, is this correct?
I think a Square Deal B or a 550 although slower is what I’ll be getting but I need some suggestions I’m also thinking of getting a Primer Pro from DAA in order to ‘cut down’ on what seems to be a time intensive process, does this make sense to do?
A little bit down the road, I’d like to start loading for 30-06 once I get an M1 but I feel as if I shouldn’t complicate matters and get a Rock Chucker for it or something.
Last edited by Olim9; 04-12-2020 at 12:07 AM.