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So these days for 9mm first reloading - single-stage or progressive


lfine

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650

 

I went through three levels of Lee presses trying to save a buck or two. After almost 20k rounds the 650 just keeps producing quality reloads. 

 

I am loading PD FMJRN 147 with 3.4 Titegroup 135 PF out of Tanfoglio S2. 

I’d stay with PD FMJ, Montana Gold, Extreme plated or Acme FP coated. They all load easy and shoot well. 

 

Enjoy!

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18 hours ago, ddc said:

With respect only to throughput comparisons...

 

Back when I only had a Lee Classic Turret I did several tests where I tried to determine how many rounds per hour I could load.

My test was only for 5 minutes; not for a full hour.

At the max rate I could be sure I was doing everything right I was able to load 25 rounds in 5 minutes on several occasions.

I'm sure that number could be easily surpassed by someone younger and more energetic.

That extrapolates out to 300 rounds/hour.

HOWEVER: There is no way I could keep that rate of production going for a full hour!

That was the best I could do for 5 minutes and I was glad when the time was up.

It wasn't the physical demands that would be my limitation as much as the mental concentration making sure I'm not screwing up.

I would burn out quickly trying to replicate that time after time.

 

With the 650 totally different mind set. An actual real world 300 rounds per hour would be ridiculously slow.

It's a walk in the park if for no other reason than 300 lever pulls vs. 1200.

I've easily exceed that on many occasions including time to load primer tubes, make a pot of coffee and take a pee.

 

I got to the point where I dreaded reloading with the LCT. With the 650 I can catch up whenever I've got 30 minutes to spare.

 

I’ll change my 550 to a different caliber to load 100 rounds instead of using a single stage/turret. 200 rounds makes it even more worthwhile. 

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Lots of good info, thanks. I think for my price and experience level I'm looking at a 550 or a LNL. Seems like there's a lot of opinions on these two out there. Sounds like Camaro vs Mustang.I'll have to take a look in person this weekend.  If anyone wants to throw a strong opinion in here, please feel free but, yes, I realize there are already a lot of posts out there about this.Thanks again!

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6 hours ago, lfine said:

Lots of good info, thanks. I think for my price and experience level I'm looking at a 550 or a LNL. Seems like there's a lot of opinions on these two out there. Sounds like Camaro vs Mustang.I'll have to take a look in person this weekend.  If anyone wants to throw a strong opinion in here, please feel free but, yes, I realize there are already a lot of posts out there about this.Thanks again!

Remember that the Hornady is an auto-indexing press while the 550 is manual. That may or may not be a big deal to you. Since I started on the Lee Classic Turret that is also an auto-index press I never considered the 550 more than briefly as having the auto-index feature was a requirement for me. Therefore the 650.

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Will check out the 650, for sure.  seems like that's where a lot of people end up when they start this journey. Use it as a single-stage until comfortable as a progressive and can always sell for good $ if doesn't work out for me.  

 

Lee dies?

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I bought a 550 and used it for both pistols and rifle. Then I wanted to speed up the pistol reloading. I should have got a 650 at this point. But I didn't and added a case feeder. It took a little bit but it works very well now. Added just about everything I could to make it smoother and and run more efficient. Its set it up for 9mm, 38/357 and 45. So now I would still like to move up to a 650 but I have to much into the 550 set up so this is were I will stay. I have watch you tube clips of 650 with bullet feeder and the auto drive systems installed and that looks really cool but do I really need it "no" but that still doesn't deter me from wanting it. So the moral of the story is watch how you progress and determine what your ultimate goal will be.

 

Brad

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On 2/18/2018 at 12:23 PM, lfine said:

Will check out the 650, for sure.  seems like that's where a lot of people end up when they start this journey. Use it as a single-stage until comfortable as a progressive and can always sell for good $ if doesn't work out for me.  

 

Lee dies?

 

Yes, if you even have a remote thought that you'll stick with reloading than I think the progressive mases sense.  As you just said, you can use it as a single stage if you want (but you won't!).

 

I went with a Lock n Load and have a couple of thousand loads done in my first few months, so if I can do it anyone can.

 

I went with Hornady dies because the Lee dies are a bit short for the Lock N Load and Hornady was offering free bullets with them, but LOTS of people have loaded lots of rounds with Lee dies.

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