Wood in the Woods
Member
Well, FedEx stopped by the house a few times this past week with boxes not addressed to my lovely wife and not from the Mart of Wal for a change. Nope, these boxes were addressed to me and they had MAN-STUFF inside! It made me think back to when I got my first baseball, bat, and glove. I realized although I was not yet a player, I finally had the equipment to at least be in the game. Now comes the learning curve. Where do I start? I'm working on moving a 12' x 20' storage building/shed to the house so I can set up a dedicated space where pink tool bags, Christmas dishes, and boxes of seasonal decorations are forbidden. I can build the workbench, shelves, run electricity for lights, outlets, conditioned air, and generally get things set up. It's from there that I will need the advice of knowledgeable folks like y'all to help me get up and running. I figure I will start with pistol cartridges. My dad gave me a few older RCBS sets including one set for .45 ACP. I'm not sure if it's a carbide set or not. From what I understand, carbide is the way to go. I was able to buy a NIB set of Dillon carbide 9mm dies that the gentleman was happy to sell me albeit at a price that I thought was a little uuuhhh...high. A set of .380 ACP dies would be good to have as that would round out what I regularly use as far as pistol rounds go. Since the Dillon dies are apparently made out of unobtanium, I can actually get the RCBS or Redding dies in .380 at what I consider a not unreasonable price. I don't mind buying an item but I only want to buy it once. I don't want to save a dollar now only to regret it later and have to spend the extra 20 that I should've spent the first time to get the better item. I've read through some threads here and it seems pretty much a toss-up twixt Redding and RCBS dies. Some say it boils down to preference. Unfortunately, I am ignorant to any preference due to lack of any experience. Also, I would really appreciate any powder recommendations for the above mentioned pistol calibers. I would like to stay with one kind across the board for those 3 calibers if I can. From what I've read, Winchester 231 seems to be a popular choice for 9mm and .45 ACP. Although the information I read doesn't really mention a .380 ACP specifically, since it is a 9mm as well, I I figured it would be ok for that one, too. Please correct me if my reasoning is incorrect. How about CCI large and small primers? I hope this is not too broad for a single post. Of so, kindly correct me so I will know how to better direct or ask the next time around. Any help on any point above would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.