.45 ammo - reload vs cost effectiveness

[harytaint]

Must be because they are such a great company, but I am sure they have limited warranty on that machine. Cant argue with great customer service can you.
My little 550B with all the bells and whistles is great for me. I would love to load 1000+ rounds per hour but cant justify the cost difference and the need to do so. I shoot that amount a month and dont see a problem loading an extra few hours that month and spend 900 bucks less. But give me one and I'll gladly trade mine in, lol.

[cottontoptexan]

Docgary, I have read some of the threads being displayed and i will say there is quite a bit of information out there on reloading (books, manuals etc.) and good and bad information from reloaders. Not referring to replies here on this site but from past experience and misinformation given to me in the past.
The first thing i would like to say is to buy a good reloading manual. Speer, Sierra Lyman etc all have good ones out there. Read the manual carefully and study it especially the pistol section which requires extra steps to reload then say bottleneck rifle cases. Many people think reloading is just stuffing new primers into used cases , then powder, seat the bullet and you are good to go you know. There have been many mishaps on reloading and most of it is operater error.
I have been reloading since 1980 for centerfire rifle and pistol. I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT I DO NOT LOAD ON PROGRESSIVE PRESSES. I am not saying they are not safe but i feel i have more control on checking powder levels and things going on than on a progressive. I have 2 presses ( one is a Lee Turrent, and the other a Big Max RCBS , not produced anymore.)I have never had a mishap in all of these years or a single dud. Never pick up range brass unless you have some idea of it's origin. This can get you in trouble fast. Also stay away from Remington brass in the 45 ACP. This brass is thinner and it will work with the cast bullets but can cause all kind of problems with jacketed bullets which run abut one thousand smaller than cast. I like Winchester brass but there are also other good brands out there. My cost which i calcualted last week using Lasercast 230 grain roundnose , 5.8 grains of WW231, and CCI large pistole primers runs me about 3.80 a box of 50. I do not order any of the components due to Has Mat fees and increased cost of shipping.
Get a good manual , read it well and you willl have an idea of what kind of set up is good for you. I like the RCBS Scale 505 and the Hornady dies are excellent allong with RCBS. I have several sets of Lee dies also so i would not rule them out. YOu will need to purchase a factory taper crimp die for the 45. Remember it headspaces on the case mouth and a roll crimp is not proper for this. Hope this helps . You can contact me at cottontoptexan@aol.com Curt

[harytaint]

Hmmm, never pick up range brass? that saves the most cost in reloading. I have yet to by a bag of brass. I check the cases pretty good when picking them up. Tumble them and catch some more that may be bent or knicked. Sift them where I find yet some straglers. Then lube small batches of them where i see them more closely. Grab each piece as I reload and see them. Watch the powder drop in each round and see the case yet again. Put them in a box go to the range and see each one before it gets put in the magazine. I would say that about covers a general inspection of range brass.
Progressive presses are unsafe? Well I opted for the 550B, which is manually indexed, for the reason of being most simple yet 10 times faster than a turret press. This comes down to prefference 100 percecent.
The fact that people demand the use of other dies such as the lees factory crimp really puzzles me. Never had a need for it yet and have not had any problems with my standard dillon dies. This must be a choice based on what people are saying and the fact that Lees is dirt cheap(you will notice the quality difference quickly). I adjust my taper crimp dillon die to the suggested size of about .468. That is measured at the very tip of the brass where there is a visible taper crimp. Aside from the general suggestions I check that my rounds pass the thumb pressure test in the barrel. I place a round in the barrel, press on it, and tip the gun up so that the round should fall out and not stick.
You may have found that a particular brass like you stated "remington" is not good for jacketed bullets. May be true I only have reloaded lead. But then why can you buy jacketed remington ammo? That seems odd to me. Unless you are loading 45 super.
I have used all brands of brass. Those that have too small a primer pocket hole I identifyed and watch out for. Some such as fedral and S&B brass and I think 1 other give me a little tiff when seating the primer but with a twist of the brass it goes right in. These just have a noticiable amount of additional pressure to seat them.
Bottom line is any loader will do what works for them. The previous posts are what one generaly needs as far as equipment/materials. But as suggested the Speer manual is good and thats what I use. Lots of reading and experimenting is required. Load on the very light side and go up to about mid way of what is considered max loads in the manual. Make about 10 of each and see which you like before you knock out a 100. You will probably measure each load by hand before making it, thats what I did. In short tiem you will be comfortable and start to pick it up then realize how easy it is. I suggest buying factory for a while since your production wont be all that great. You can also use them to compare oyur loads to.

PS just sved 100 bucks ordering bulk primers and powder after all hazmat and shipping fees. Of course if you shoot 50 round sa month then why bother buying 8lbs of powder. I relaly aim to become very godo at shooting and do about 1000 rounds a month, sometime more.

[cottontoptexan]

Hairytaint, I guess us reloaders are like people who drive SUV's we never agree on everything. I did not state that the progressives are unsafe but we were dealing with an individual whom had never reloaded before. I found one aspect in the progressive presses in which i could not get around and that is how do you clean the primer pockets which i always do and many people neglect. I seat with a cheap hand held primer tool (Lee)holds about 100 primers and is done with the thumb. It has to be the best primer tool ever used. I have a bench mounted RCBS and it has a tube in which all of the primers have to be pushed into. Never did like it much.
One of my old die sets has the roll crimp and i might have confused the wording on this which is what i did not intend to do. I used Lee 45 acp dies for over 12 years and have never relplaced a single piece on them. The do look cheaper than some dies i have to admit but load excellent ammo.
Now i hate to lay this on you but on the range brass thing here is the experience i had. A newcomer to 45's with a nice Colt Commander wanted to come over and see the reloading process. He had never reloaded before and wanted to get into this wonderful hobby. The day before he gave me a bunch of used 45 brass to polish for him. We loaded 50 rounds the following nite and then to the range on Sat morning. During the shooting the 45 malfunctioned and had a case stuck in the barrel. The extractor (stainless) was ripped off. I had never seen this before and upon checking had realized the 45 brass in the barrel was a steel case with a brass wash on it. That is why it did not extract. Wish i would have caught it on the resizing operation but did not. He stated he got a whole bunch of brass free just by scouring around the ranges. I guess it was enough for me. By the way if you can get Remington brass to hold jacketed bullets let me know. I have tried 3 direrent resizer dies with the same results and after speaking with some of the competition shooters and there testimony to the same problem i realized it was not my imagination.
I know the simple mistakes some reloaders make especially new in the game and was trying to steer this individual into learning the basics and then speed second not just how much money he could save that would be point number 2.
ALSO GUYS PLEASE WEAR SAFETY GLASSES WHEN RELOADING. A simple piece off an ignited primer can take out an eye. It isn't worth it.
Thanks for all the input and please understand what reloading is all about enjoying and having fun with your own safe loads. Thanks everyone Curtis

[Gammon]

I began my reloading almost 30 years ago on a Lyman turret press and soon became frustrated with the amount of time it took me to prodce ammo (I had discovered IPSC competition). I bought a Dillon progressive press and have NEVER regretted the switch. Single stage presses simply cannot produce enough ammo to feed my habit. I have noticed no "loss of control" as far as quality control is concerned. Quality control, just like safety, is a mental process, not the function of the machine you are using. David Tubb, arguably the best rifle shot in the world, loads his ammo on a Dillon press!
The tools I received with my Lyman reloading kit are almost laughable; I have NEVER used most of them. In 30 years of reloading, I have never cleaned a primer pocket and see absolutely no need to do so. Recently, some of my .40 S&W reloads (180gr jacketed truncated cone bullet, 5.3gr 231, and once fired SCROUNGED RANGE BRASS at 930fps) were fired out of a test barrel and yielded a 1.38 inch five shot group at 50yds. Comparable Federal factory ammo was used as a control and yielded an .872 inch group at the same distance. Sorry, but I'm just not willing to buy new brass or start cleaning primer pockets to improve my accuracy by .5 inch at 50yds.
I agree, Remington .45 ACP brass is the pits, but their .38 Super brass is the best I have ever used; I can't explain the difference in quality. Perhaps the "Brass Rats" such as myself (10,000 once fired .40 cases picked up at a local range last season) should explain our practices. I pick up once fired brass only. I am not interested in some garbage that has been abused many times over, and now may be unsafe to reload. If you can't tell good brass from bad, then don't scrounge. I ,too, came upon some steel .45 cases, but the excessive force necessary to resize them was ample warning. I dumped the whole lot without reloading one.
Cotton, don't take this as insult or condescension, but you just don't shoot that much. The thirty thousand rounds a year I consume is too much for a single stage press to produce, and the extra case preparation you suggest is too time consuming. If you are happy with your system, good for you. Shooters who are interested in volume must look to higher capacity machines and procedures and any feasible cost cutting measures. I buy all my components in bulk from the major dealers, such as Widener's, and realize tremendous savings, despite the HAZMAT shipping charges.
I have used Dillon dies for many years and am quite satisfied with them, but certain requrements I have encountered recently required the use of other dies. I have a 1050 set up in .40 which supplies most of my ammo, unfortunately I use three different bullets which means that I must readjust the bullet seating die every time I change . Using the Dillon die this was a pain, involving much trial and error. The Redding Competition Bullet Seating Die has a micrometer seating stem which does not need a lock nut. The seating stem is marked off in .001 increments, just like a micrometer, which allows you to record settings for different bullets, and simply dial in the proper seating depth when changing bullets. Also, if you want to make a change in LOA, you can simply use the settings on the seating stem, as they are marked off in thousandths. The die can be easily dissasembled for cleaning and reassembled without any readjustment or the use of tools, as the seating stem is finger tip adjustable and uses no lock screw. I also use the Lee Factory Crimp Die as I have encountered some feeding problems with my reloads in match barrels with tight chambers. The Lee die completely resizes the reloaded round during the taper crimping process. It also has the added advantage of being finger adjustable with no lock nut. You can drop test your ammo to avoid feeding/chambering problems; I would rather use this die to insure all my ammo will feed. I also use the Lee decapping/resizing die in .40 as it is the only die I have found that will resize once fired brass from an over sized chamber (Glock) without leaving a bulge at the base of the case. I have no idea why this Lee die works, but this bulging has been a problem for me for years, which I have tried to cure by using several different dies, and modifying others with no success. Lee dies are of excellent quality, I wish I could say the same for the presses.
PS Try a Dillon resizing die with the RP .45 brass, it just might reduce the inside diameter of the case enough to support the jacketed round.
PPS If you are reloading you should own a chrono, its the only way you can tell what you're doing. Short of pressure testing the ammo, bullet velocity is the only feed back you can get. You can check your cases for bulging, etc., but that is rather imprecise. A decent chrono can be had for about $70.00. I am using a Competition Electronics unit I bought for $170.00 over 20 years ago and it still works perfectly; one of the best investments I have ever made.

[harytaint]

Well I have yet to shoot new brass. I pick up what ever brass looks decent. if it has knicks on the mouth i toss it. Or if it is pinched or scuffed from being stepped on I also toss it.
Never thought to, or needed to clean a primer pocket but I guess if you want sniper accuracy all the little things add up.

Steel cases are pretty easy to spot and I leave them alone. There is also some very old looking war brass that is easy to identify. I try to get mostly winchester brass from those that buy those 100 packs at wall mart and toss it.

If a round ripped out an extractor I would guess it had to be a cheap one. I am no gun smith but that sounds a little out there for me.
The suggestion to start simple is great but from experience i can tell you tossing the 130 bucks i spent on that *** lee ****** and wish I had applied that toward what I was going to eventually buy anyway. Learing simple is nice but in this situation you will be wasting good money on **** products, and if that doesnt make you mad the deathly slow process on single stange will make you quit reloading.

[Gammon]

I agree, if I had to do it all over again, I would start with a progressive press. Unfortunately, when I started, the only progressives available cost well in excess of $500. The cheap machines had yet to surface. When they became available I bought myself an RL300, not a bad machine and maybe a collector's item in the future.
I stick to once fired brass because it is abundant at the local ranges and more easily resized. Most of my pistols have match barrels with tight chambers and won't feed cases with brass build up at the base of the case. There is just no sense in reloading somebody else's cast off brass when there is so much once fired available.

[Mannlicher]

Most who reload find the reloading as much fun as the shooting. I know I do.

[harytaint]

You know Gammon if we think about it do you really think there is much brass to be had that isnt once fired? I know that my brass has tons of reloads on it and so far i have found 2 cracked cases only. Think about this, I reload so i pick up my brass that falls. I know its origin and I know its been loaded a bunch of times.
The brass that is swept up to the buckets by folks who dont reload and most likely just bought factory stuff or at worst manufactured reloads.
So it wouldnt be often you would get a significant amount of really old defective brass from a range. The only way I see this happening is if a reloader decided to leave brass that he knew was on its last leg. Then again 45 is such low pressure and it really does hold up a long time.
Now that I think about the brass I get it is mostly winchester white box since so many non-reloaders buy it and leave it. There is some brass that you can figure came form gun shows that looks pretty nasty but they are easy to spot and I place them aside.

[robertbank]

I can't add much more to all of this except to say take a hard look at Dillon 550. This is a great press and frankly I am not ashamed to say that in 40 years in banking across Canada I have not yet found a company with better customer service than Dillon. I live about as far away as you can get from Dillon's plant and still live in Canada and I can tell you the service is unbelievable. When they say no ** warranty they absolutely mean it and I have personal experience with it. If I had a manufacuring business the first thing I would do is send my service department down to Dillon to find out what customer service is all about. Dillon walks the walk!