Anyone selling their reloading services?

[sobi1998]

http://www.cabelas.com/product/shoo...classic-turret-press-kit/1374275.uts?slotId=3
Is something like this worth it?


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[benenglish]

Is something like this worth it?

You'll find that Lee tools are a polarizing topic. Some people love 'em; some people hate 'em.

My feeling is that they make good dies, their cheapest single-stage press is useful for far more than people give it credit, and their powder measure is surprisingly good for stick powders that just won't throw worth crap from anything else. I could go on and on about other individual tools they make.

As to the press in the kit to which you linked, let me quote Glenn Zediker's Handloading for Competition:

....The Lee turret I spoke of earlier was not holding to suit my standards of presumed precision. Mine has to be continually re-indexed and re-built to stay in operation. I use it for case forming, only. ...loaded round quality matters, and then I sho don't use the Lee turret. There is too much slop potential in that press to assure consistent results. I know there's slop because the daggone parts wear out and the head won't stay put.

I've never owned one but based on using one for one project and examining them on multiple occasions, my thinking runs along the same lines.

Please, Lee lovers - I'm with you on most things. Most Lee equipment is great value for the money. I won't argue over this; I'm actually on your side.

Cue somebody who has won a bunch of trophies and loaded 100K rounds on a Lee turret with no problems in 3...2...1...

 

[TxStetson]

I just retired a Lee Pro 1000 for the same issues. Every time I cycled it, the tool head jumped up and wiggled. Of course I didn’t buy it new. There’s no telling how many thousands of rounds my buddy put through it before replacing it with a Dillon 550.

 

[sobi1998]

What about hornaday or MEC?


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[mantawolf]

What about hornaday or MEC?


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I am with Ben, like Lee dies and powder throw, but my press is a Hornady.

Hey Ben, wasn't critisizing your response btw, was just mentioning I knew someone if they wanted and were close enuff.

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[Younggun]

Cue somebody who has won a bunch of trophies and loaded 100K rounds on a Lee turret with no problems in 3...2...1...

Well, now that you have discredited any positive reviews before they could be made...


I value Bens opinion immensely. But I also know the type of Precision many competition shooters would strive for won't come from any of the box store brands you commonly see.


I have the Lee Classic Turret and I've loaded 100s of thousands of rounds and won't trophies. 100% true expect for the part about round count and trophies.


What I CAN say about it.

Yes, the die plate will move. It's not rock solid in its mount and maybe that's why I have a whopping discrepancy of .002" when measuring length to the Ogive. There are many out there who want more precision than that. In theory though, the angle changes ever so slightly and it could effect bullet alignment.

I have no idea how the auto indexing works because I don't use it. Never have. It may work great, maybe not. The issue it might have will be totally different than that of the pro 1000 though as it moves a different part. Like I said though, I don't use it.

I use it for 300BO, .308, .243, .357, .38, and .45 ACP from time to time.

The reason I have it is so I can have a die plate set up with all the dies preset for a caliber. Never have to swap them out. Just put in the plate for the caliber. I usually deprime and resize, clean/prep/etc, then one at a time I prime, charge, and seat bullet for .308 and .243.

300BO and .45 I usually prime all rounds then charge, then seat.

For my processes it works very well and my .308 rounds are getting nice groups. If I upgrade for more precision it will not be to an RCBS or Hornady but something truly built for precision rounds.


So whether it's good or not probably depends on how you want to use it. Running 800rounds of 9mm isn't something I'd want to do on any turret but if I were to do so it would probably be on a more refined press. For batches of rifle ammo and occasional small batches of pistol it works fine for me and offers enough precision for my needs. I can hang with my shooting buddies.

The Lee pro 1000, that's a different animal. I keep mine running. And for the price of an RCBS, Hornady, or ugly blue press I'm going to stick with it. For others the priorities are different.


My opinion on the Lee turret. Sorry I have not trophies to back it up.

 

[Younggun]

Cue somebody who has won a bunch of trophies and loaded 100K rounds on a Lee turret with no problems in 3...2...1...

Well, now that you have discredited any positive reviews before they could be made...


I value Bens opinion immensely. But I also know the type of Precision many competition shooters would strive for won't come from any of the box store brands you commonly see.


I have the Lee Classic Turret and I've loaded 100s of thousands of rounds and won't trophies. 100% true expect for the part about round count and trophies.


What I CAN say about it.

Yes, the die plate will move. It's not rock solid in its mount and maybe that's why I have a whopping discrepancy of .002" when measuring length to the Ogive. There are many out there who want more precision than that. In theory though, the angle changes ever so slightly and it could effect bullet alignment.

I have no idea how the auto indexing works because I don't use it. Never have. It may work great, maybe not. The issue it might have will be totally different than that of the pro 1000 though as it moves a different part. Like I said though, I don't use it.

I use it for 300BO, .308, .243, .357, .38, and .45 ACP from time to time.

The reason I have it is so I can have a die plate set up with all the dies preset for a caliber. Never have to swap them out. Just put in the plate for the caliber. I usually deprime and resize, clean/prep/etc, then one at a time I prime, charge, and seat bullet for .308 and .243.

300BO and .45 I usually prime all rounds then charge, then seat.

For my processes it works very well and my .308 rounds are getting nice groups. If I upgrade for more precision it will not be to an RCBS or Hornady but something truly built for precision rounds.


So whether it's good or not probably depends on how you want to use it. Running 800rounds of 9mm isn't something I'd want to do on any turret but if I were to do so it would probably be on a more refined press. For batches of rifle ammo and occasional small batches of pistol it works fine for me and offers enough precision for my needs. I can hang with my shooting buddies.

The Lee pro 1000, that's a different animal. I keep mine running. And for the price of an RCBS, Hornady, or ugly blue press I'm going to stick with it. For others the priorities are different.


My opinion on the Lee turret. Sorry I have not trophies to back it up.

 

[Vaquero]

I've got lots of LEE equipment that I'm plenty happy with.
I don't happen to have that particular turret press.
I really like their rifle dies though.

 

[benenglish]

Hey Ben, wasn't critisizing your response btw, ...

I didn't think you were, so no problem.

However, you were right to point out that I had ignored an entire segment of commercial reloaders that I should have commented on in my post that preceded yours. That was an oversight of mine and I appreciate the reminder that prompted me to correct it.

Frankly, I make enough mistakes that I'm very, very thankful for folks who point them out for me. I could never keep up with all of them by myself.

 

[benenglish]

In theory though, the angle changes ever so slightly and it could effect bullet alignment.

Have you measured the runout? I think that would be the number that matters most.

Zediker disses the press without providing runout numbers and I find that a bit irritating given the sort of "you gotta measure everything" attitude he promotes in most of his writing.

 

[Dawico]

http://www.cabelas.com/product/shoo...classic-turret-press-kit/1374275.uts?slotId=3
Is something like this worth it?


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What about hornaday or MEC?


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I don't own a turret press and don't see the need. They are a middle ground that fill a gap that I don't have.

I always recommend a full O frame single stage press as it will always be handy no matter where reloading takes you. Lee is fine but RCBS, Hornady, and others are a step up in overall quality. Lee has a weak handle design and lack in the fit and finish department.

MEC makes good shotgun reloading equipment but that isn't something I have no interest in.

Move up to a progressive once you really need to pump out the loaded rounds.

I generally love my Lee products and make great rifle ammo with their dies. Some of their products I have specifically avoided though as others seem to have issues with them.

 

[NavyVet1959]

I have a bunch of .223/5.56 , .30-06, .30-30 and 10 gauge shells. Is anyone close to the Houston or San Antonio area willing to sell their services to reload my brass for less than store equivalent?

As was previously mentioned, there are legal concerns with actually accepting money for doing this. Even if there wasn't, many would not do it just because of the time involved unless it was as a favor for a good friend and even then, they probably wouldn't be willing to do it for a large number of rounds.

Your best bet is to either buy yourself some reloading equipment and learn to do it yourself, of make friends with someone who reloads and will allow you to use their equipment at their place, but with your components. If you are the one doing the work, then there should be no legal concerns for them at least with respect to the ATF and the need for a manufacturing license. It might be possible to find someone who would rent you the use of their equipment. Personally, I wouldn't do that though. On the other hand, if someone was to bring over a 12-pack of *good* beer that we shared during the reloading instruction, that would be considered a nice gesture.

I suspect that 10-gauge will be a bit more difficult to find someone who is equipped to load it. 12-gauge is a lot more common.

Have you looked into the cost of reloading components to see what it would cost to reload the calibers in question? I've probably bought most of my powder and primers at PowerValleyInc.com. I've bought some pull-down bullets from places like Pat's Reloading or GiBrass.com. Unless you are planning on reloading thousands of rounds, the HAZMAT charge is such that you can probably buy cheaper locally. When I buy powder and primers, I try to get with a friend and we buy enough to max out the poundage on the HAZMAT charge. This means that we'll usually buy 50 lbs of powder at a time and perhaps 20-40K of primers. You'll probably want to create a spreadsheet to get an idea of what just the components will cost you for reloading.

For example, to reload for .308, I found the following prices:
$170 -- 1000pcs .308" 168 HPBT Match (Pat's Reloading)
$24 -- 1000pcs large primer rifle primers
$181 -- 8 lbs Hodgdon H4895

A middle load for a 168 gr bullet in .308 might be 42gr of Hodgdon H4895.

8 lbs of H4895 will load about 1333.3 rounds, a that works out to be $135.75 for 1000 rounds.

That brings it to $329.75 for 1000 rounds and it does not include shipping or HAZMAT.

It's also going to depend upon what sort of shooting you plan to be doing. If you are going to be doing high precision shooting, the time you spend on each round is going to be a lot more than if you are just reloading pistol ammo for relatively close distances. For example, high volume pistol ammo might be reloaded on a progressive press whereas a benchrest shooter might just use a single stage press and work on one round at a time.

Personally, I think it is usually best for a new reloader to start with a single-stage press before moving onto a turret or progressive press. It allows you to be concentrated on one thing happening at a time. And even if you eventually move onto a turret or progressive press, you'll still find uses for the single stage press, so you don't need to get rid of it. I use my single stage press for resizing bullets and pulling bullets from rounds that got seated too deeply or whatever.

 

[NavyVet1959]

I don't own a turret press and don't see the need. They are a middle ground that fill a gap that I don't have.

I tend to use a turret press on rifle rounds that are not high volume (e.g. .45-70). Or even on some handgun rounds that I'm not reloading enough of to justify configuring/reconfiguring my progressive press. Sometimes, I just don't want to change the configuration on my progressive and if it is for a short run, I'll run it on the turret press. Rounds that are hot enough that I might be weighing each and every powder charge will go on the turret press instead of the progressive one.

 

[acorneau]

If anyone is looking at buying RCBS stuff... #3798

 

[dpetrlak]

I don't know how it is for reloading instructors. I know that for pistol instructors, the NRA says that to hold onto your certification you must publish a class through the NRA Instructors Portal occasionally. They're a little loose on the details and while I could go into the details, that's not germane.

My point is that you're right. It's entirely possible that certified instructors are giving more classes than I can find. It would be nice if they would publish them through the NRA so that the general public could find them.

To offer an NRA Class you need to follow the NRA material and prescribed class duration. Really good stuff, covering a wide range of THE material. If you just need a part of that, it becomes a problem to Post on the NRA Training website.

 

[schmellba99]

I personally would never sell my reloads, and there is only one other person alive today that I'd shoot reloaded ammo from.

As mentioned, aside from the sheer idiocy of our BATFE laws regarding being an ammunition manufacturer, if you don't know the QC capabilities of the person doing the reloads - you are a bigger gambling man than I am. The one assurance you get with a Class 6 license (and the subsequent insurance required to go with it) is that these outfits understand and have to adhere to SAAMI or manufacturer specific specifications when it comes to OAL, headspace tolerances, load weights, etc. With Joe Blow from the gunshow - who knows what they did. I've had enough of my own "what was I thinking when I sized this" type of mistakes, can't imagine putting any faith in somebody I don't know anything about and have no recourse against personally.

RE: Equipment

Lee makes some good things, other things they are on the cheap end of. I love their FCD and runout dies, and have made my fair share of ammo on their regular dies without any problems. I've since moved on with regular dies to other brands, but you can make good ammo with them. I've never used their presses, and likely would not. I have no personal use for a turret press - to me it is a solution looking for a problem. Either go with a single stage or full bore progressive instead of a crappy compromise between the two.

Hornady, RCBS, Lyman, Dillon, Redding....all make good presses. I have a green single stage and a red progressive, love them both.

 

[45tex]

Feds just arrested and charged a reloader that made tracers for the Los Vegas shooter.

 

[avvidclif]

They arrested him for selling AP rounds, not having a mfg license, and general stupidity.

 

[Gummi Bear]

I do not sell my services. I do assemble ammo for my family, they provide the components. Mom, dad and my brother all shoot ammunition I put together.

I have looked into it though, and might get the licensing and insurance to develop custom loads. I don’t have the time right now to pursue it. I think I may in the future. It satisfies my need to tinker, and reloading makes me happy.

I have offered to mentor folks several times; very few have taken me up on it. I’m happy to teach someone how, and sit and talk with them any time.



I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...

Henry David Thoreau

 

[robertc1024]

After having reloaded untold thousands of rounds, I think it would be interesting to watch some others do their thing to see what differences crop up.