Reloading 101: An Introduction to Loading Your Own Ammo!

[DougC]

Read more at AmmoLand blog.

Hello, shooters! Welcome to AmmoLand’s five-part series on reloading. You’re not a reloader, you say? Hopefully, after this series, you will want to join the club. There’s even a secret handshake… well, not really, but we are a brother/sisterhood of sorts. Reloading has grown by leaps and bounds, even in the last decade, and has attracted many new practitioners. But why would you want to reload? And, if you answer that satisfactorily and decide to give it a go, how would you go about it? That’s what we’re going to look at in this introductory article.

 

[Charley]

Been reloading for over 40 years. You won't save a penny reloading. You WILL be able to shoot more for the same amount of money, though.

 

[DougC]

Read more at AmmoLand blog.

You will find that, of those four types of presses, three might interest you — unless you want to load right at your shooting bench at the range. That’s a different proposition. If you are talking about bench-mounted presses, you will find that there are single-stage, turret, and progressive presses. Here are the differences:

• Single-Stage presses hold one die at a time. You screw a die into the press, perform that die’s function on all your cases, then switch dies. You will only produce loaded ammo after using the final die of the set.
• Turret presses have a tool head that rotates (either manually or automatically) and holds all the dies at once, usually three or four stations. But you can place only one case at a time in the shell holder. This way, the turret head rotates with each pull of the handle. It takes as many pulls of the handle as you have dies in place to produce a loaded round.
• Progressive presses are different. They use a tool head that holds all the dies, like the turret press. But, they have a rotating shell plate that has as many stations as there are die mounts in the tool head. I own a Dillon Precision XL750 press, where I load 9mm and .223. Since the basic progressive process is much the same for all progressive presses, I will use it as our example.