Re: Planning To Buy Reloading Equipment-Where To Start
I always recommend the RCBS Rockchucker Kit as a good place to start. It comes with almost all of the stuff besides dies and components to start loading. A lot of people like Redding and while I would agree that Redding dies are nicer than RCBS as far as presses I don't see much difference in the top brands for single stage presses.
I have RCBS, Foster & Redding "Competition Dies" where the seater has a micrometer adjustment and would give the nod to Redding but I doubt you could tell a difference from ammo loaded on one or the other.
For standard loading I use a mix of Hornady, Redding, RCBS, Lyman and even Lee dies. Since you asked about Long Distance Shooting though I would stay with the Redding dies.
While not a necessity, I find that having a powder dispenser and/or digital dispenser/scale combo is a great tool for making precision loading go faster. With a typical volumetric thrower/dispenser I would suggest throwing slightly under charge weight and trickle to finish. Since I am lazy though I use the RCBS Powdermaster Digital Scale & Dispenser combo. Definitely worth the $250 I paid for it.
I am a bit of a reloading junkie so I have way more stuff than any one person needs for reloading but I like tools and toys and all of the stuff I have makes the job more fun and either go faster or be more precise. For high volume loading I use a Dillon 550b and typically just load handgun rounds on it although I have done rifle on it before. I still load everything on a single stage, including handgun rounds, but that's only because it takes longer to change stuff on the Dillon so I will do load development on the Rockchucker, batches of 50 or less and once I have a load I like I will crank a ton out on the Dillon. I have a Dillon Square Deal for handgun only loading but I haven't set it up yet as the "gun room" is still in disarray from the move awhile back. For rifle loads I prefer to go single stage just because there are a lot more steps to rifle loading than handgun loading. I also have a Lyman turret press that I keep loaded with different seating and/or crimping dies as I usually re-size and prime in batches separately.
I find that for me it is a better use of time to de-prime & re-size the brass in larger batches and do any other prep like trimming, chamfering & de-burring at the same time. Then I will remove any case lube with a towel or rag and then prime the cases with a Hornady hand held primer tool. That way when I go to load I can just charge the case, seat the bullet & crimp (if needed). I find this makes the reloading more fun and it seems to go faster. Not to mention my son & daughter like to help so I get them to help with the various processes that do not invlove powder or primers.
