Choosing a Reloader
---
One Shooter's Experiences
and Opinions
The purpose of this document
is to describe my personal experiences in choosing and using a reloader to load .45 ACP ammunition for Bullseye
pistol competition. Since I have owned
(and still own) only two reloaders, I realize there
are many others who have experience on a greater variety of reloading
equipment. Still, I believe you will
find this essay useful and informative.
This document is not intended
to describe the reloading process, therefore you will not see a lot about the
number one concern in reloading:
SAFETY. But just as a precaution
I will mention it here. By all means,
whatever reloader you choose and use, be aware of how
it works and take all safety measures to ensure you are loading safe rounds and
that your procedures themselves are safe.
Also, this document is
chock-full of my opinions. If you
disagree with any of them, that's fine with me.
My goal is simply to relate my experiences in hopes that it helps some
other shooter/reloader. Please note that in this document I use the
word "reloader" to mean "the reloading
press" as well as "the person who operates the reloading press",
but you can tell which is which based on the context of the sentence.
Until about 5 years ago, I
had never reloaded any ammunition. Like
most shooters, I had read quite a bit about it and understood the basic
process, and of course I had seen ads for TONS of reloaders. Plus I had heard from many people the various
virtues of the many makes and models of reloading presses. Getting into reloading wasn't that important
to me until I got into Bullseye shooting. When this happened, I quickly realized the
only way to go was to start reloading.
Match quality ammo is hard to find and expensive.
To get started, I asked
several other Bullseye shooters for their
recommendations on choosing a reloader. Not knowing all the details myself, the large
amount of info I received was kind of overwhelming. I mean, gee whiz, do I need a balance beam
scale or a digital scale? What about
primers? What the heck is a primer flip
tray? Are there any "gotchas" for the various reloader
makes and models? And (frequently) why
is Bob telling me one thing and Bill is telling me the opposite?
Luckily I knew someone who
was selling a Dillon Square Deal B for a good price. I bought it along with quite a few
accessories and asked a long-time Bullseye shooter
and reloader to show me how to reload. My instructor helped me set up the machine
and showed me step-by-step the process of reloading.
The Square Deal is what I
consider a high-quality, entry-level reloader. Many would disagree with that
assessment. I can see where some people
would say that this is a top of the line, complicated, and pretty darned fast
progressive reloading press only experienced reloaders
should consider buying. On the other
hand, I can also see where some would say that the Square Deal is a poor choice
because it is a slow, cumbersome reloader that no
serious shooter could deal with for long.
How can opinions vary to that
degree? Allow me to explain.
Obviously, the process of
reloading can be a dangerous thing. I
certainly wear protective glasses while reloading and am very careful in the
reloading process. After all, you DO NOT
want a double charge of powder in a round of .45 ACP. Some people are naturally careful and pay
attention to details when they do something that's potentially dangerous. Like driving a car for example...some people
are naturally cautious and rarely get into accidents. Others are naturally not-so-cautious and get
into fender-benders regularly.
Because reloading has the
potential to be dangerous, and because people have differing natural
tendencies, many people recommend that the newbie reloader
should only get a single-stage reloading press.
Ok, fine. That will work. It will be slow and it will add quite a lot
of steps that the progressive reloading press handles automatically. If you've ever reloaded ammunition (shotgun
shells for example), you've probably already formed your own opinion of whether
or not reloading is something you simply must do one step at a time, or if
you're comfortable enough to let the machine handle some of the steps for you.
Getting back to the Square
Deal, in my opinion it is an excellent reloader at a
price that's very hard to beat. I'm
guessing they're about $250 currently.
Dillon is behind it and will support you any way they can. It is a progressive reloader,
so all you have to do is put the bullet on top of the charged/primed case and
put an empty case in the first station.
Then you pull the handle all the way down, push it all the way back up,
and voila you have a loaded round come out the end. The first station resizes the empty (already
shot) case and deprimes it. The second station puts in the new primer at
the end of the upstroke (when you push the handle all the way back up). On the downstroke,
the second station drops the powder charge into the case and bells the mouth of
the case to make ready for the bullet.
The third station seats the bullet (pushes it down into the case). The fourth station crimps the case mouth
around the bullet.
Your process goes like this
on the Square Deal (and is similar for most other progressive reloaders). Put in a
new, empty, already shot case into the first station. Put a bullet on the case in the third station
(where there's the primed/charged case).
Pull the handle all the way down and push it all the way back up. The shell plate turns during this process and
spits out the finished round from the fourth station. Do it again...put in the new case, put on the
new bullet, pull down the handle and push it back up. Another round done. Over and over. Case, bullet, pull, push. Case, bullet, pull, push.
So what else could you
want? Anything wrong with the Square
Deal? Well, even though that process is
pretty simple and produces great rounds, other machines can be faster. Also, on the Square Deal you're limited to
pistol rounds only. No reloading for
your .30-06 on the Square Deal. The
biggest issue (according to some people) with the Square Deal is that the
reloading dies are specifically made for it.
In other words, if you only have .45 ACP dies, but your buddy has a set
of "standard" dies to reload .357 Magnums, you can't use them in your
Square Deal. Most reloaders
use "standard" size dies. But
the Square Deal uses its own unique size.
In case you don't know, the
dies are the little pieces that do the various jobs at each station in the
reloading press. There's a resizing/depriming die in the first station. This is a piece of steel (usually with a very
hard carbide ring inside) which the first case is forced into (by you pulling
down on the handle and using a great deal of leverage to make it easy on you)
and is squeezed down to normal size. In
the center of this die is a depriming pin. Basically this is a straight pin like a small
nail that goes down through the flash hole in the case and pushes out the spent
primer. Another die is the powder
charging/case-mouth belling die (usually just called the "charging
die"). This die has a piece in the
center which is shaped something like a funnel.
So when the case is forced up into this die, the mouth of the case is "belled"
out. At the same time, a charge of
powder is dropped into the case.
Enough explanation of what
"dies" are. Hopefully you get
the picture. If you have a reloader which uses standard dies, you can simply go out
and buy dies made by most any manufacturer for most any caliber and they will
work in your reloader. If you plan to reload more than one caliber,
this is a pretty good advantage. On the
other hand, if you have the Square Deal, you'll have to buy dies made just for
the Square Deal.
All that being said, consider
what that really means regarding the dies.
Is it REALLY a big deal?
Theoretically, yes it is.
However, when you go buy a set of dies to load .357s on your machine
that you previously only loaded .45 ACPs on, you've
still got several other things to buy anyway.
Like the shell plate. Those .357s
aren't gonna fit into the shell plate made for the .45s. Depending on what model of reloader you have, you may need a new case feed attachment,
positioning pins, and so on. So reloading
a different caliber isn't as easy as picking up a new set of dies anyway.
Also, what's the big deal
that you have to buy those Square Deal dies?
Umm...that reloader has been around for YEARS
and YEARS and YEARS and it ain't going away.
There will be dies made for it FOREVER.
If you need Square Deal dies, chances are someone already has them, and
Dillon sure as heck has them to sell to you.
The reason I went into so
much detail on the dies is that this is the factor many people point out about
the Square Deal. "Oh it doesn't use
standard dies." Well that's
right. But all you have to do is order
the Square Deal dies instead of the standard dies. Big deal.
To me the biggest POTENTIAL
issue is whether or not you plan to load for a rifle. If you do, remember that the Square Deal
doesn't do that. Then again if you don't
plan to reload rifle ammo, obviously this is not an issue.
What about other issues you
hear about when discussing reloading equipment?
Like, does it break? Does it
jam?
Due to the many moving parts
of progressive reloaders, I would imagine that all of
them jam or break somewhere along the line.
In my experience with the Square Deal, one little spring broke on
it. I don't even remember what function
the spring served, but it finally snapped after so much usage. To fix it, I just used that same spring and
bent the end of it so it would fit back into its hole again. Hasn't broken since. Regarding jams, the only thing I had happen
more than a few times was that the primers would sometimes get out of whack so
that when the primer came up from the bottom (in preparation to be seated into
the new case) it would catch on the edge of the shell plate and would sometimes
flip upside down or sideways or jam altogether.
To resolve this issue, the
first thing I did was read the manual and I found where you could adjust the
timing of that little system. I then
proceeded to adjust the wrong *$&#$^ little hex-headed screw off and
on for about a year. Since I was
adjusting the wrong ##$@* little screw all that time, it obviously didn't help
much. In the meantime, I took off the
shell plate and, using a drill bit MUCH larger than the holes (it was actually
a countersink bit), reamed the holes in the bottom of the shell plate so that
the edges weren't sharp. I didn't make
the holes bigger, just took the edges off them.
This helped a lot since the primers were off just a hair when they got
out of synch. Of course, later I figured
out that I'd been messing with the wrong screw.
When I actually adjusted the right screw, this problem went
away.
What about the quality of the
reloads? Awesome. It turned out great rounds. Very consistent. Very rarely did I have a round that for one
reason or another was "fat" or had any other flaws.
Now on to the next reloader - the Dillon XL650. I know I'm throwing in a lot of personal
opinions into this document anyway, but here's the most blatant one -- this is
the reloader everyone needs. Ok fine, maybe not "needs". Maybe not "everyone". But if you gave all these bullseye
shooters loading on Lee's or Lyman's or RCBS (or Dillon models lower than the
650) a brand spanking new Dillon XL650, they'd slap themselves for not buying
one earlier. (Yes...I know...I've never
had a Lee reloader, so how in the world can I say
that? Because this is my article…HA!)
Yeah, yeah. I know.
This is the same type of "information" people always bestow on
those trying to choose a reloader to purchase. Everyone has the best reloader. Everyone thinks theirs is the greatest. I'll try to be more objective.
The thing about the 650 is
that it has all the good features of the Square Deal, plus a whole lot
more. First of all, while the Square
Deal is a high-quality machine, the XL650 is a heavy-duty extra-high-quality
machine. That sucker is solid. In the grand scheme of things that's not so
big of a deal. Heck, it'd be very hard
to ever wear out the Square Deal or practically any other reloader.
The 650 can also be set up to
feed the new cases for you. In other
words, remember on the Square Deal where the process was "put in a new
case, put on a new bullet, pull the handle down, push the handle up"? Well on the 650, the case feeder (sold
separately) does the first step for you.
So your right hand never even leaves the handle. It goes like this: "new bullet, pull, push". That's it.
MUCH faster. Here we go on that
whole speed topic. By the way, this is
where many people bring up the "yeah, it's fast, but you have to be extra extra careful with one of those newfangled progressive reloaders" argument.
To which I would reply "you have to be extra extra
careful with ANY reloader no matter how slow it
is". The thing about progressive reloaders isn't that you have to rush to produce ammunition
at a relatively fast pace. Just the
opposite. You can go as slowly in your
process as you want, and still produce ammo pretty quickly.
So how big of a deal is
speed? That depends on how important it
is to you as an individual. Without actually
timing it, I'd say the 650 is a little more than twice as fast as the Square
Deal. By never having to take your hand
off the handle, you get an easy rhythm going.
Just put the bullet on and work the handle. When I first heard about the speed, I thought
it was no big deal. The Square Deal was
plenty fast. At the time I was shooting
at least one 2700 a weekend and sometimes two.
And I was reloading for another shooter at the same time! Now you're probably thinking, "Well
yeah, if you're loading that much ammo you want something fast." Yep, but now that I'm shooting maybe one
match a month, it's still important to have that speed. Since I'm not full-throttle into shooting
right now, I'm shooting less rounds than in the past. Which means I REALLY don't want to spend time
reloading! I can crank out enough ammo
for a match for 2 people in one evening with absolutely no problem (and still
have time to eat dinner and work around the house).
Overall, the operation of the
Square Deal is what I would consider "typical" for a progressive reloader. You put in
the case, then the bullet, and work the handle.
Other reloaders work basically the same
way. The only difference is that a reloader with an automatic case feeder (like you can get
with the 650 and several other makes and models) eliminates the step where you
put in the new case.
Also note that the features
listed for many reloaders say
"self-indexing". This just
means that when you work the handle, the shell plate turns automatically,
moving the cases from one station to the next.
On some reloaders, you have to turn the shell
plate yourself. Take the Dillon 550 for
example. I don't know all the details
and features of this model, but I do know that you have to turn the shell plate
manually. So, in addition to the usual
steps, after you work the handle, you take your finger and turn the shell plate
one notch to move the cases to the next station.
Personally, I don't like the
idea of this at all. I'm sure there are
safety measures in place so that reloaders which do
not self-index prevent you from cranking the handle again without moving the
shell plate. But if you don't move the
shell plate and somehow crank the handle again, you could get a double charge
of powder in a case. Like I said, there
may be a million different safety measures to prevent this but it still makes
me wary. On a self-indexing reloader, the cases get moved to the next station by you
operating the handle. This means that
right after you drop the powder in a case, it gets moved to the next
station. Therefore there is very little
chance of you dropping another charge of powder into it. But hey, who's to say that the shell plate
won't simply stick and not get indexed to the next station? Anything can happen. But I think as you reload you'd notice
something very strange if that happened.
For one thing, when you went to put a bullet in the next case it would
already be there, sending you a red flag right away. Again...as a disclaimer...I do not know the in's and out's of the reloaders
where you have to turn the shell plate by hand.
But I would imagine it has to be slightly slower since there's an extra
step involved.
The 650 can reload
practically any caliber...pistol or rifle.
And it does use standard sized dies so you can go out and get dies made
by Lee or RCBS or whomever and put them in your 650 if you so desire. While we're back on the subject of dies, I'll
share my opinions on some things you may hear.
Lots of .45 ACP shooters don't like Dillon dies because they tend to
size the .45 case smaller than many other manufacturers' dies. You'll hear people talk about rounds from a
Dillon machine being shaped like a Coke bottle.
They'll talk about how this unnecessarily "works" the
brass. This will lead to talk about how
it will wear out your brass more quickly than other brands of dies. While these things may be true, again I ask
"what does this REALLY mean?"
In my experience, I avoided
the Dillon dies for quite a long time.
First I had some very old dies (can't remember the manufacturer right
now) which sized the cases larger than most dies. In other words, in the first station where
the case is resized, it squeezed it down only slightly. This produced rounds which were quite
straight (not like a Coke bottle). I was
very happy with this and several people commented on how nice my reloads
looked. Well, whoopty-doo. I don't care if my rounds are prettier than
anything Federal or
Back to my tale of dies. After a while I noticed that the dies I had
were scarring the brass when it resized the case. I figured they needed cleaning so I took them
out and cleaned them. Taking them out
means you unscrew them and when you put them back, you have to adjust them all
back to the point where they work.
Meaning you spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour screwing the dies
in an out until they're in what you think is the right place. But you really don't know if they're back in
the right spot or not. This isn't all
that big of a deal, but it does make you wonder whether or not you changed
something that affects the accuracy or reliability of your ammo. I've never noticed a problem, but then again,
I used to spend quite a bit of time on triple checking everything whenever I
put my dies back in.
Cleaning those old dies
helped for a while, but the scarring eventually got worse again. So I bought a set of Lee dies because
everyone talked so highly of them. They
worked fine. Nothing special. The sizing die sized the case down a little
smaller than the old set of dies, so the Coke bottle effect was there, but not
much.
About that time, I became
concerned with seating the bullet perfectly straight at the seating
station. Plus I was considering loading a
different shape of bullet (long-nosed vs
short-nosed). There's an RCBS (I think)
seating die called a "Competition Die" which pushes the bullet down
into the case by contacting the shoulder of the bullet only. Most dies push down on the end of the bullet. There's a little cup in the seating die so
that the end of the bullet naturally gets aligned straight up and down. But, in theory, if the die pushes on the
shoulder of the bullet instead, it should be "better". Plus this "Competition Die" allows
you to load either the long-nosed or short-nosed bullet since it doesn't push
on the nose, it pushes on the shoulder.
With a conventional seating die, you'd have to adjust the die when you
went back and forth from short- to long-nosed bullets (picture the long-nosed
bullet getting pushed too far down into the case if you had the die set for a
short-nosed bullet). For some reason, I
had lots of trouble with the Competition Die and could never get it to seat
bullets properly. Beats me why, but I
tried and tried. So I went back to the
Lee seating die.
There I was with a set of Lee
dies and I think I had some other brand in there somewhere, and mix-and-match
for a while as well. Anyway this was
fine. No problems really. Except of course if I wanted to clean them
there was the usual 30 minutes to an hour of readjusting dies.
Finally for some reason I
decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and order a set of Dillon dies. A friend of mine recommended them because of
how easy they are to clean. I always
avoided them because of the whole Coke bottle thing and because they are more
expensive than most other dies.
Holy cow! No wonder they're more expensive. I love those dies. First of all, they do produce a round that's kinda Coke bottle shaped.
But not bad...and like I said before...who cares? They are designed so that once you get them
set up, you can simply pull a pin on each die and they drop out so you can
clean them. Then you just pop 'em back
in and you're back in business. Once
again, how big of a deal is this? Not a
huge deal. You don't have to clean your
dies very often. Like once a year is
probably average. Some people maybe 2 or
3 times a year, others maybe once every 2 or 3 years. Depends.
The point is these dies work, they work well, and they're easy to clean
if you so desire.
There are other selling
points for the 650, like the fact that the toolhead
(where the dies are screwed in) is easily removable so you can pull out toolhead number 1 (say it's set up to load your .45 target
loads) and slide in toolhead number 2 to load your
.357 Magnums. At least that's how Dillon
kinda portrays it.
After you do that though, you still have to change out the shell plate
and case feed assembly and stuff. It
wouldn't take all that long (maybe 15 minutes or so), but it ain't as easy as
sliding in and out different toolheads. The great thing about the exchangeable toolheads is that you keep all your dies and powder charge
settings intact. No dorking
around with all that stuff if you want to change calibers. Just replace the toolhead
and other necessary parts, check everything out (including the powder charge,
bullet seating, and crimping) and away you go.
Another feature is that
there's an extra station on the 650 where you can put a die that does a powder
check. Basically, it protrudes down into
the case and based on how far down it goes before it gets to the gunpowder it
mashes a little device that sounds an alarm if the amount of powder is off significantly. It does NOT check the ACCURACY of the amount
of powder in the case. But it will sound
the alarm if you have a double-charge or no powder in the case. In all my reloading so far I have never
double-charged a case, but this alarm has sounded several times when there was
a big old piece of dirt still in the case.
So the case was pretty full of stuff (dirt and gun powder) and the
little beeper thingy warned me of this.
I imagine those rounds would have been light since it would have been
hard for the powder to get ignited properly with all that dirt in the way.
WHAT I'VE HEARD
So far I've told you about
stuff I know about. Now for the stuff
I've only heard about or have seen, but don't claim to be an expert on.
Many shooters use the Lee reloader. I'm sure
it is a quality machine and comes with all sorts of bells and whistles just
like the Dillons.
However, the people I've seen who have dud rounds (no powder in the
case, just a primer) all use Lee reloaders. I know of 3 people who have loaded dud rounds
more than once and they all used Lee reloaders. Maybe it's the person, maybe it's the
machine. I have heard you have to be
careful in your process to make sure the powder charge gets dropped into the
case when using the Lee reloader. Here again, I plead ignorance. This is only something I have heard and can't
verify personally.
Other people swear by the
Star reloader.
I don't think these are made any more.
I believe this machine is probably the workhorse of all reloaders. People
have loaded and loaded and loaded on these and they very, very rarely have
anything break. That being said, I
believe you have to manually turn the shell plate on these but I'm not
sure. Seems like there's some attachment
you can get that makes it self-index.
The only thing I don't care for about these is the fact that they are
currently being manufactured. This would
cause me to worry about getting spare parts if you ever needed them. Plus I don't know, but I doubt they offer all
the bells and whistles of some other loaders.
Maybe you can get an automatic case feeder for them, but I don't know if
you can or not. And although these are
probably the toughest reloaders, what does that mean
to you? I don't see me ever being able
to wear out my Dillons. Like I said before, I imagine all reloaders are pretty tough machines. I've not had any parts break on either reloader (except that spring I already mentioned). Furthermore when something breaks, you can
call the manufacturer and many of them simply ship you the part you need free
of charge. Dillon is famous for this and
I believe a few other companies are about the same way.
A final testimony for the 650
is that two of the best shooters I know (well, those who aren't in the Marines
and don't have to reload) reload on Dillon XL650s. I load on the 650 also and highly recommend
it. If you have the money, get it with
the automatic case feeder and Dillon dies.
Also, mount the loader on a nice sturdy bench, because if you have a
wobbly bench, it can sometimes adversely effect the operation of the automatic
case feeder. And having a sturdy bench
is a good idea anyway since you'll be applying quite a bit of force to the
handle of the reloader and don't want a bench
wobbling all over the place.
OTHER EQUIPMENT
So much for the reloaders, now for a brief word on other required
equipment. My list below may not be
perfect so you may want to jot it down and make changes to it as you talk to
other shooters/reloaders. I'll list the item and brief opinion.
Scales - I use balance beam instead of digital - you need
scales for SURE so you can check your powder charge - mine is a Dillon and
works just fine.
Brass tumbler - This is the vibrating thing you pour your brass
into, along with ground walnut hulls or whatever, and turn it on for a couple
of hours to clean your brass. By the
way, those walnut hulls or ground corn cob stuff is referred to as
"polishing media" or just "media". I have the Dillon CV-500 vibratory case
cleaner. (There's a big one and a small
one, mine is the small one.) I like
mine, but wish I had the bigger one (model CV-2001) only because I like to
clean a whole bunch of brass at once and get it in the "clean
bucket".
Brass/media separator - This may not be the right name, but it's basically
the thing you pour the brass and walnut hulls into after it's clean. Pour it all in, roll this thing over and over
and the walnut hulls fall out, leaving your brass. I cheaped out and
bought an inexpensive one. It works, but
I would try a different model now. If I
couldn't find any to try (like at a friend's house or whatever), I'd take a
chance and get one from Dillon (being careful to get the big one if I got the
big tumbler). A word here on the
"media" you use to clean the brass.
I first used ground walnut hulls.
Works just fine but is fairly dusty.
Then I got some corn cob media.
This worked great too and was a little less dusty than the walnut, plus
it made the brass shiny (which doesn't really matter but looked nice). I haven't been able to find good media that
isn't sold as "brass cleaning media".
What I mean is, lots of people go to the pet store and get ground corn
cob stuff you put in the bottom of a guinea pig cage. This works, but all of it I've used isn't
ground nearly as fine as the stuff truly meant for brass cleaning. It doesn't quite clean as well or last as
long as the good stuff either. My advice
is to buy some stuff from a reloading supply place that's made for cleaning
brass. Give it a try and then you can go
out and experiment with other types of media.
Maybe you'll find a great solution and let all us other Bullseye shooters know.
Actually, ask around and someone will probably have done the research
for you.
Primer flip tray - you need one so you can fill up your primer
tubes. I got a cheap RCBS one and it
works great. I imagine they all do.
By the way, one of these days
you'll run across an ad for the Dillon automatic primer tube filler. This thing is expensive for what it
does. I mean you can buy a primer flip tray
for just a few dollars. Seems like the
Dillon automatic primer filler costs over $200.
As a present to myself a couple of years ago, I bought one anyway. That thing is great! I use
One common misconception
about this machine is that it loads primer tubes. I pictured myself taking all my primer
pick-up tubes and filling them up using the automatic primer filler. It actually comes with a tube of its own and
it's not a regular old primer pick-up tube.
Basically the machine fills up this tube and you take that tube and load
up your reloader with it. So you really don't fill up your old primer
tubes all at once.
My process goes like this so
that I really never wait the 30 seconds it takes for the machine to fill up the
tube. Once my reloader
has run out of primers, I fill it back up from the tube on the automatic primer
filler, then before I start reloading again, I dump a pack of primers into my
nifty little machine and press the button.
If I can refrain from watching the primers race into the tube, I can
then start loading again. The primer
filler automatically stops after 1 minute and it's usually put all the primers
into the tube within about 20 to 30 seconds.
I'm not saying you should buy
the automatic primer filler, but if you ever have the "extra" money
(yeah right) and just wonder how well it works, rest assured that it works
great. And even though $200+ is a LOT of
money to spend on something it only takes you a couple of minutes to do by
hand, I believe it is worth it. I for
one do not plan to manually load primer tubes ever again.
Primers - get
Gun Powder - I'm not going to get into this one, but I use Bullseye powder made by Alliant. I use it because a billion other bullseye shooters before me have used it, it works,
everyone knows good loads for it, and it's not too expensive. Others will say it's dirty. Beats me.
I guess it might be dirty compared to some others.
Calipers - Is that the right word? I'm talking about dial calipers so you can
measure your rounds. Check to see how
long the rounds are, how much crimp you put on them, etc. These are nice to have, but you don't use
them very often and might get away without having them for a while. If you get calipers, buy good ones made of
steel (not plastic).
Bullets - Here again there will be a million opinions on
this. I use Valiant bullets. They're good and they're cheap. I may switch to LaserCast
or Star bullets though. Depends on
whether or not I ever get around to testing them.
I'm sure I'm leaving off some
equipment you need, just can't think of it.
SUMMARY
In summary, I'm not a Dillon
salesman and I'm sure other brands of reloaders work
great as well. What I'm saying is that
with the equipment I recommend in this document, you can reload safely and
efficiently without going through some of the problems I did.
Remember - safety and
consistency. You are not using the progressive reloader
to set speed records. You are using it
to create the most consistent loads you can in the most efficient amount of
time.