Home Forums Reloading Shotshells New to shotshell reloading

I am thinking of getting into shotshell reloading, need input as to where to get started. I have been reloading rifle and pistol for 15+ years but have no idea where to start for shotshells. I proably will not load more than 500 shells per year so I do not need a high out put system.

Thanks in advance

Arl\ky

You should read the other thread about whether it's cheaper and consider your motivation for reloading. Regardless. I reload shotshells, and I'm quite happy with a single-stage MEC. The cheapest one they sell should be fine for your purposes. My volume is even lower than yours will be. I got mine from a friend, and he already had an assortmet of powder bushings and charge bars. However, if I were startng from scratch, I'd probably buy a universal charge bar and be done with it.

As others have said, the Lyman manual is a good reference. I have one that's two or three editions out of date. It helped me a lot when I was getting started, but I rarely use the recipes in there. I use recipes from the free pamphlets distributed by the powder manufacturers. If you buy a new loader there may be enough "how-to" to get you started without the lyman manual.

I hope you enjoy it, I do.

I'll second the thought of a single stage MEC, and will also agree to check out why you're reloading before jumping in to it. Not telling you not to, but if economy is the reason, I just don't see it these days for 500 shells.

I will disagree, however, on the universal charge bar concept. I had one when I started and soon got rid of it in favor of bushings. I spent what I considered too much time adjusting it when changing loads or trying something new. If its just one gauge, get a range of bushings for your chosen components. Once you know what charge they actually throw, there is no messing about; plug in the bushing and start loading. Since I load 4 gauges, with some overlapping charges in gauges, the bushing and bored bar worked best for me. Different strokes and all that. I would not buy the Lee loader as I had one of those to start as well and very quickly graduated to the MEC; it really is worth the extra money at the start.

+1 on the MEC
In my area it is much easier to find bushings, bars and parts for a MEC than for any of the other machines.

A very important piece of equipment is a powder scale. Being involved in metallic reloading, I am sure you already have this covered. Always, check the powder bushings for accuracy.

Go ahead and buy 1,000 primers. Once you see how much fun it is to break targets with ammo you built, you will be shooting more often.

Welcome to my addiction!

One more thing. If you go the bushing route, don't be afraid to take a dremel to a bushing if it isn't quite right. The charts aren't very precise, or perhaps bushing manufacturing processes aren't very precise. Even if they did drop the nominal charge, sometimes the charge you want is in between bushing sizes. I've done that many times and it seems to work fine.

Mec Sizemaster, and if you are doing it for any other reason than the ability to tailor your loads for your purposes (i.e. light loads, spreaders, buffered, etc) you're in it for the wrong reason.

FWIW, Dutch.

I agree with Dutch completely.

I went from 1 1/8th oz 12ga to 1 oz in order save a little money on shot. My scores didn't change. Then I dropped down to 7/8 oz and my scores started to improve. Recoil reduction became noticeable.

Lately I am shooting 3/4 oz 12 gauge for skeet with amazing results. The soft recoil has really helped on doubles. These light loads have improved my confidence as well as my scores. As an added benefit, shooting 3/4 oz instead of 1 1/8th allows me to shoot 7 additional rounds of skeet from a 25 pound bag of shot.

Building spreader loads for those up close sporting clays targets is a hoot too!

I have a MEC and a Lee. The Lee was a little quirky about the crimps at first but I learned to use a more gentle technique and it produces loads as nice as the MEC. Thanks...Bill.

Yep... Sizemaster.

I just used my little Lee set of hand tools to load up 2 dozen 12 gauge shells this weekend. I bought the set of hand tools for $5 used. I think new they run about $20. You really can't go wrong at that price if you load a low number of shells like I do.