shotgun shell reloader

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shamoo

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My sons into shooting, just bought a 12 gage shotgun wants to start reloading his empty casings, I was looking the Lees 2 reloader, Amazon has them for 54 bucks, any good?
 
FWIW my bros (4 of us) and I have loaded thousands of Win AA reloads using old Lyman and Lee shotgun reloading presses. I once upgraded to a Ponsness-Warren, as I bought it cheap from an estate.

It was still a semi-auto multi-station machine where you cycle the loads from one station to the next. And I finally sold it - for a hefty profit, as while it was an awesome machine and looked cool on the bench ... the loads weren't any better.

I don't know if my old Lee is the 'same' today as that one you mentioned, but I use tons of Lee products and they work!
 
that is what i used when i was in highschool. works pretty good. i didnt have any issues with it. i will say that the MEC reloader is much nicer and seems to crimp much better. my buddy had a MEC in 12, 20 and 16 ga.
 
Thank you guys =D> , Im looking real hard, I don't want to buy an expensive loader (yet) until I see if he'll stick with it, till than a Lee will do the trick. I was reading some where that Lee doesn't sell the auto primer do-hickey cause the mold broke.
 
mine did not have the auto primer. i dont think it did anyway. the lee does come with all the bushings for the shot and powder which is a bonus over the MEC. my advice to him is try not to cram as much shot in as possible. mine didnt like to crimp full loads too well.
 
Haven't done any shotgun reloading, only rifle and pistol. I'd imagine you could save some money on turkey loads and such if you do a good bit of shooting or really wanna dial a load in.
 
If you ever get ready to upgrade to something that will turn out a lot of nice reloads in a hurry, try a Hornady 366 Progressive loader. I was given a nice used one as partial payment for some home repairs back in the mid 80's. Two of my brothers and sometimes a couple of nephews and I would sit down after dinner on the evening before bird season opened and crank some out. We would start after supper, typically be finished before midnight, and usually crank out around 700 to 800 rounds. It's rated for 250 rounds an hour but I don't think we ever ran it quite that fast. We would have one person putting in an empty hull, and one person putting in a wad then pull the handle. Do that for about 100 rounds, then stop and refill the powder/shot/primer, swap in a couple of fresh operators, then crank out another 100. It's surprising how tired your arm will get pulling that handle, but it does. :lol: We did that every year for a lot of years. I miss those days and our reloading sessions in anticipation of the next days hunt.
 
Proud owner operator of MEC Jr reloaders. Reloading for dad, girlfriend and myself to shoot trap and skeet leagues kept me out of trouble (for the most part) in high school. Now, 40 years later, the reloaders are still chunkin away.
 
Reloading and buying a press is a double edge sword, too cheap and it may be confusing and difficult to use, buy expensive and it may be the same, in both cases the risk of loss of interest is there.

I started with a hydraulic because I KNEW I WAS going to reload a LOT, and shooting upwards of 300 rounds a week it was just going to happen simple as that, and struggling with mechanical plastic parts breakage on metallic cartridges presses definitely steered me clear of value line stuff.

In the case of some I knew they bought inexpensive stuff, made lots of bad ammo, and stopped straightway.

I won't suggest you go hydraulic but I can advise you to not buy on price, AND if at all possible find someone who has done it before AND can help you get started with a known hull/wad/powder/shot combination that works for them and let them set you up.

Read everything you can find on shotshell reloading too before you start.
 

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