New to reloading and looking for some guidance

bwp

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I’m piecing everything together and am looking for some confirmation. I’m thinking about the brass prep center below from Amazon…then adding a Little Crow trimmer for my 6.5 PRC. Is this a good setup?

What calipers would you recommend?

I’m going with the Hornady Auto Charge Pro. Do I need to add anything with that?
 

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Starret or mitutoyo (sp?) Are good for calipers however ive only ever used cheaper digital ones amd they have always worked well. I like digital due to being easy to zero for comparators or the like. The wft is great but you probably dont need to make a purchase like that or the case prep center until you're a bit more invested into reloading. I like the lee case length gauges that are cartridge specific. If you already have a cordless drill you already have half of your case prep center. I stick the case holder in a drill, insert piece of brass, trim, chamfer and deburr. Quick and easy and inexpensive.
 
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Starret or mitutoyo (sp?) Are good for calipers however ive only ever used cheaper digital ones amd they have always worked well. I like digital due to being easy to zero for comparators or the like. The wft is great but you probably dont need to make a purchase like that or the case prep center until you're a bit more invested into reloading. I like the lee case length gauges that are cartridge specific. If you already have a cordless drill you already have half of your case prep center. I stick the case holder in a drill, insert piece of brass, trim, chamfer and deburr. Quick and easy and inexpensive.
I do have a drill already. I wasn’t sure what all I needed for case prep.

So the Lee caliber specific gauge, Lee cutter and lock stud. Does that cover my brass prep?
 
You will probably wear that brass out before it needs trimming

Agreed. The short, fat cases with sharp shoulders don't need much trimming, if any at all. It is one of the advantages of going AI on standard cartridges.

As for your case prep center, I have one. It is good. The only drawback is that it is designed to sit as pictured, so when you are cleaning primer pockets and prepping the case mouth, all the debris falls directly onto your bench. I found a guy online that makes a 3-D printed catch basin to go under it, but if you don't mind having it accumulate on your bench or sweeping/vacuuming it up after a loading session, it won't be a problem for you.
 
Modern calibers can easily be fired 5-7 times between trimmings, maybe more. It's not even something I think about anymore. Here's why:

Let's say you buy good brass that costs $1.25/each (or $62.50/50 which is ballpark for Peterson brass now).

If you shoot that case 5 shots and toss it, that's $0.25 per shot. If you shoot that case 8 shots, that's less than $0.16 per shot.

If you buy a $75 trimmer (which in all honesty isn't a bad price, though I get by fine with the cheaper Lee Case Length gauges for when I do trim) you might now get twice the brass life but you're getting it with brass that likely already has the primer pockets loosened up a bit, and likely needs to be annealed (more $$ and time) and at some point you have to ask what your time is worth.

Buy all the annealing and trimming and cleaning tools you can find, and the best you'll do is to make your ammo component costs drop from $0.25 per shot from brass down to, absolute best case, $0.08 to $0.12 per shot. That doesn't even begin to consider that most guys will load hot enough to loosen their primer pockets before they get to 10 firings, or that if you're resizing aggressively between shots so as to maximize clearances and reliability (some people do 0.002" shoulder bump, some people fully resize, some people find some happy medium) you'll likely be working the body of the case enough that head separation becomes a possibility after several shots.

So you'll end up with hundreds of dollars worth of gadgets and hundreds of dollars worth of time, if you value time at all, to make your brass last a little longer but in doing so you end up shooting lesser quality brass as it's just 'more worn out' by the time it gets to the end of tis life. The most you'll ever save in this process is $0.25 per shot and $0.15 per shot is a more realistic estimate.
 
If I were new to reloading, I'd focus on learning to reload before I focused on which brass prep centers, automatic trimmers, and auto charges.
 
If I were new to reloading, I'd focus on learning to reload before I focused on which brass prep centers, automatic trimmers, and auto charges.
this in spades.

we gather a lot of crap or junk over the years we only use once. you will gather plenty.

get the basics down first. then buy things that suit your system.
 
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