AusVarmint

I have recently purchased my first centrefire rifle, and on the advice of a friend I invested in some reloading equipment. When doing my initial investigating into reloading, one store owner suggested that I would need to spend at a minimum of $500 to get anything decent. I must say however, that I spent less than half that on a Lee Anniversary kit, Lee Pacesetter dies and Lee Zip Trim. I have found this kit to be well made, easy to set up and straight forward to use, with very comprehensive instructions. I have had a lot of fun reloading and testing my own loads and have already turned out some great loads of my own. Does anyone else out there use Lee reloading equipment? If so, what has been your experience with their products? Thanks for your response and suggestions. Brad.

Well i just walked in from using my Lee Anniversary kit!
It's.....................................................................um...
....Rough as guts actually
I just got back into my shooting in a big way a few years ago and went the same path as you getting started with the Lee stuff and a few bits of Hornady/RCBS gear from my old mans hey day.
The weakest link of the kit would definitly be the press i think. After sussing out some mates reloading set-ups with the higher end of the market and quality is just so much higher.......
But the Lee range does work and can do so very well if as always you put the effort in...

bradster I use the lee challenger kit, with their prem. dies as u get a neck re-sizer, and though I haven't used anything but lee for 30 yrs I have had no prob's whatsoever and my loads are certainly accurate enough for my level of shooting and way, way more accurate than "premium" factory ammo. Even my lee loader rounds are more accurate than prem. fodder in my rifles, shooting under the 1moa most of the time.
Regards Alpal

Thanks for your responses guys. Probably the only part of the reloading process I find a pain is measuring powder with the supplied powder hopper and thrower. I find that the loads lack consistency by around 0.2 gn from what I have set the powder measurer to deliver. Is this normal? Am I expected to have to load each and every throw on a digital scale to ensure consistency with my loads? Interested to hear your responses. Bradster.

my background (as far as shooting goes) is exactly the same as detritus and I junked the lee kit last year. Good to learn on but thats it. Press broke twice. Handle snapped of hand priming tool (under abnormal pressure tho!)

In my experience and reading, stick powders like ADI stuff dont meter too well. You will get a granule of powder blocking the cylinder and the catching and then force to cut it is enough to throw off a charge by the amount you quote. I found this with the Lee and the RCBS that replaced it.

If you are loading for minute of pig and are not near max then this wont matter.

If you get the bug for making small groups you will probably end up setting your thrower to throw just short and weigh each charge topping up with a trickler. That's what I do now. Yes its slow but reloading is not a chore for me, its now a hobby (plus I dont get to shoot as much as some)

By the way, I have been in Ireland for the last few weeks, have we had any rain?

trevort wrote:By the way, I have been in Ireland for the last few weeks, have we had any rain?

cant speak for the east but in Central Aust it has been patchy with some places getting good falls and others (like us) getting cloudcover and humidity.

Last week all of the SA outback tracks were closed due to good falls around the lakes (Lake Eyre and LE South)

Hope its better over in the east