I M INTERESTED IN HAND LOADING 45ACP & 223/556, IS IT WORTH IT FOR ME, WHERE TO START

[Neumann]

A Lee Loader gets tiresome real quick. You can set up a nice RCBS Rockchucker press for about $200 and never look back. Down the road, if you find yourself shooting more and less time to reload, consider getting a progressive press. Ditto if you start shooting other pistol calibers or .308.

If you are a plinker, you probably can buy .223/5.56 cheaper than you can reload, especially if you dial in your time. Besides powder and components, bottle necked cartridges require trimming and chamfering, and military brass must be reamed or swaged to remove the primer crimp. If you're looking for match quality, it pays to reload costwise and for accuracy.

.45 ACP is definitely economical reload, and much easier in most respects than .223. It's still not cheap, considering the cost of heavy bullets and that you will lose at least 20% of your brass in the weeds. You can get a lot of bullets out of a pound of powder too, and pistol powder can be hard to find at times.

Before you buy any hardware, get a good reloading manual and read it thoroughly. I recommend the Lyman 59th edition, but others are good too. Lyman has a particularly good tutorial section, with do's and don'ts for reloading. You can't have too many manuals.

 

[fredj338]

COnsider you can load for 1/2 the cost of cheap factory, even 223, equip cost, IMO, should never come into the equation. Consider a top of the line progressive with bells & whistles, like a 650, would be about $1200 or 4K rds of cheap Russian 223. You can load 223 for about $650/4K, so the savings in that alone gets your best equip paid for in two years. Keep it for 10 yrs, it's $10/M, 2.5 gallons of gas!!!
At 10K rds a year, 800/m, you don't need a progressive but doing that on a nutcracker like the Lee, why? Unless your time is worth pennies, spend it working or shooting, not drudging thru 50rds/hr. Something like the Lee Classic Turret will get you a decent volume, 150rds/hr, so you can reload your 800rds/m in a lot less time.

 

[venomballistics]

yes, choose your tools wisely.
You can fight with an experiment or just fill your needs from day one.
I would avoid a progressive out of the gate.
slate that for later after you know what your doing, and can deal with the press specific mechanics separate of the reloading mechanics.
either a good solid turret press, or a decent O frame are the best places to start. Your focus is on the dies, and their adjustment.

Lee also makes a hand press.
If it were the only thing I had, I'd hate it.
But since its not, it augments my primary tools.