Sorta Newbie

[Johsens]

I joined the forum a year or so ago but dropped off for awhile due to circumstances beyond my control. I joined because I had just purchased my first reloading equipment (Dillon 550B) and I had (have) all of the usual questions. As fate has it since then I have inherited 60 years worth of reloading gear, a literal truckload of stuff. I am seriously reload-heavy right now. Still going through it all and haven't reloaded a single cartridge for at least three months. I'll be posting several newbie questions regarding this recent windfall over the next several weeks/months and hopefully not years.

[versifier]

You may not like what I am going to say, but I have taught a lot of people to load over the last 35years, and have yet to bury one from anything but natural causes.

If you are just starting out, despite what the marketing departments tell you, leave your Dillon in the box until you have learned how to safely load both rifle and handgun cartridges on a single stage press. There are way too many things happening at the same time on a progressive for any newbie to be aware if there is a problem until it's way too late. It usually takes about a year's experience and a few thousand rounds of each to fully understand all that has to happen. None of it is rocket science (except the ballistics), but there is a LOT of information that you have to process and learning one step at a time thoroughly and completely is the safe and smart way to start out.

Safe loaders are very patient and meticulous detail oriented people; factory ammunition is for those who need instant gratification. The folks whose time is that valuable or in that short supply ought not to be loading ammo unless they really want to earn Darwin Awards. The Dillon is a fine machine, but you don't hand a new driver the keys to a big Kenworth to learn on. And you will need a single stage press for load development anyway as it is a royal pain to be constantly adjusting a progressive (they are designed to crank out lots of the same load after you have finished load development and decide on THE LOAD for each gun, not for the small lots of different loads needed to safely find what shoots best in any individual gun).

[300winmag]

AMEN VERSIFIER VERY WELL SAID. AND I AGREE 110%
300winmag

[Johsens]

Interesting that you should say that as my buddy who recommended the Dillon uses his Dillon as a single stage (loading only one cartridge at a time (re-sizing/de-priming and then priming a bunch of rounds, one station at a time and only one round at a time.) and he recommended that I do the same so I have been doing that. It seemed to me to me over-cautious, but I am not one to tempt fate.

I now have several different presses/manufacturers to choose from so I will have to learn each one before I decide which one I like the best and go from there.

[kodiak1]

Welcome to the site.
versifier spoke volumes in his thread. I am pretty sure that most of the fellas on here that have been reloading 30 plus years all learned on single stage presses on cartridge at a time.
Hell it's a piece of pride every shell that you finish and get to put in it's case.

Good Luck Ken.