For the do it yourselfer cheapskates (like me
)…
Don’t bother making a rotary tumbler even though it’s cheap and easy to do … it isn’t worth it unless you’re gonna make it huge for tumbling thousands of rounds at a time… They’re blindingly SLOW compared to a vibrator tumbler that you can buy pretty cheaply from Midway.
I suffered through a couple of years of a rotary, and didn’t even know I was "suffering"… until I bought one of those silly looking blue pumpkin things.
Mount presses to doubled ¾ plywood bases, make your bench where it accepts the bases, and a storage rack to accept them too, unless you have lots of room. Accumulating reloading equipment tends to "just happen" after you get into it, and it’s really irritating changing out stuff once you end up with a couple of MECs, a progressive, a single stage, some bullet sizer/lubricators, a case trimmer or two, etc. … and ALL have different mounting hole patterns.
Don’t skimp on a powder scale… but oddly enough, I’ve found that the Lee balance is actually pretty accurate.
Don’t buy a Lyman case trimmer :barf:… unless it’s about 90% off and you intend to make your own using only the pilots and cutter head out of the box…. The rest of the thing is scrap metal,imo.
A powder trickler is so cheap, there’s no excuse to not have one ... if you’re going to be working up rifle loads.