thomas15
Member
I'd just hate to see those with less money read this & get discouraged.
If they are that easily discouraged then they are not going to participate in this hobby anyway. I think I have probably said this about 1200 times, my Dad handloaded and I literally grew up casting bullets, prepping brass and assembling the components. But then the time came when I had to open up my wallet for myself. I probably stewed over the cost of things for 10 years before I made the move. Looking back it's easy to say that I always knew I would do it, but, until I could make the $$$ commitment the hobby eluded me.
Again, everyone on this forum with experience knows how to buy the absolute bare minimum and make it work but a newb may not even know exactly what they really want out of reloading. I know I didn't have it exactly defined and this is the reason why I think many newbs try to replicate factory ammo in the beginning. They simply haven't determined what they are looking for in their ammo. If I had taken the advice of some and was using a Lee PPM, safety scale and that dumb breach lock ss aluminum press I would be pissed with myself these days. So I'm not going to forbid my friends from buying at the low end but I'm going to try my best to steer then in the direction of quality even if it means they have to save up the money or I have to loan them something of mine until they are ready. I have given friends brand new media separaters, electronic scales (nice ones), die sets and I've loaned out uniflow powder measures and rock chuckers. I don't want my friends pissed at me because I didn't warn then that you get what you pay for.
I want to buy a red dot for my S&W 929 revolver. I can pick one up for less than $100.00 Anyone can. People use sub $100.00 red dots all the time. But I don't want one that cheap so I'm saving up for the $390.00+ red dot I really want. I'm not going to settle for an inexpensive one and it might be 6 months before I'm ready to move forward. I've almost always settled for the entry level and for some they don't care but at this point in my life I'm getting good stuff or none at all. Different attitudes I guess but even a cheap gun costs hundreds of dollars, all of the accessories add up, ammo isn't free and unless you live in the country and have 5 acres you need a place to shoot which probably costs a few bux.
All of the stories about how someone started with a Lee mole wacker that they found on the ground during their 5 mile walk to school up hill and with no shoes really don't impress me like they used to. Cranky I guess.
A list of basic questions the prospective Reloader needs to answer before expecting a lot of feedback, like what is your budget, how many calibers to load, purpose of said ammo, quantity of ammo per week/month/year to load, previous experience reloading or a mentor available, time available to dedicate to loading, space available, and a few others.
So a guy wants to start handloading. He owns firearms in 4 calibers so he wants to load all four. Two are handguns and 2 are rifles.
So the guy has no money but wants to feed 4 guns in 4 calibers. No, sorry. Pick one gun, the one that he shoots the most and learn to handload that caliber. Start easy. By the time the guy knows what he's doing on 1 caliber he is hooked and if he didn't spend all his budget on entry level tooling for 4 calibers he had many months to save up to properly equip himself for the remaining 3 calibers. Take the money that might have been spent on 3 sets of dies, several calibers worth of bullets, primers, powders and brass prep tools and spend it on good solid stuff for 1 caliber.
Last edited: