by Doug Coulter » Sat Apr 19, 2014 11:32 am
Lee's hand press is the size of a monkey wrench, including the dies. They even still sell a pliers version for handguns. There's a tale about an old guy who used to reload on a bar stool for his neighbors in Alaska with just that. In a lot of cases, it's all you need other than fresh primers, powder, bullets, and for one caliber, we're talking about a shoebox total size of stuff. Again, you can't do the super-fancy high precision stuff I do for matches with long-range rifles (off sandbags), but you can certainly do any handgun, and perfectly serviceable handgun ammo - where in most cases, it's not the ammo that limits the accuracy anyway. Ditto hunting ammo, since you rarely have things like sandbags - the limit is how well you can hold more often than not.
All you need is a table you can sit at. You don't need a bolt-down press or any of that to just be in the game at all. I do have all the fancy stuff - some of it turned out to be a waste, FWIW.
Though, having said that, sometimes I'll even bring my big lathe into the job. I use it for neck turning brass with a special quick release brass holder and a fancy Sinclair turner($), and for turning the bases of cast bullets flat before putting on a gas check, also using a special quick-release collet I made in the shop. But all that is venturing into the land of "tweaking for the extreme at heart", not actually required for most uses.
I'm still working on my video series about reloading, and have had some other requests along the minimalist line - I think I'll pay attention and make a few about how to do it with as little as possible. For the main series, I am awaiting a disk drive with a bunch of video the Vice guys shot on my main rigs - they did a better job (by far) than I can do talking to a camera on a tripod.
Really, it often does turn into a hobby all its own, and can easily become a case of "space for it is the final frontier" but it need not, there's just a lotta guys who do take it that far. I have to admit it's confidence-building when you're at a long range match - say 400 meters and above - to know you've got the very best, tuned to your rifle which is also the very best. But...that's the exception for most people.
While you can mail-order the "goes bang" parts here (primers and powder), the hazmat fee is crazy, so I most often get those things from dealers at gun shows, since that fee is amortized over a ton of stuff - it's cheaper there. If you mailorder, you have to pay it twice, as they won't ship primers and powder in the same shipment. Which is nuts, but who ever said the lawmakers knew anything? A can of black powder, which is a heck of a lot more dangerous (would open a UPS truck like a can-opener) costs the same to ship. Smokeless powder just burns and pops the can open gently under the very same conditions.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.