As I said, it was a stab at everybody in the "I'll bet I can spend more money on my stuff than you can" club. (I wisht I had coined that phrase) so you can take it as you wish. You buy what you can afford. But too many people in America believe the only criteria for quality is price. "if it cost more, it has to be better". This is why Dumba$$es will pay $$$$ for a pair of sneakers that cost $6.00 at the factory in Korea. And in the shooting and reloading sport, diminishing returns has certainly found a poster child.
The point is, the guy had bought the kit. He wanted to know how to USE the kit. If parts of it were not what you would have selected or he needed additional "stuff", he'd find out soon enough.IMO, no kit is complete. I guess that's why they're called starter kits. But they'll get you off the ground, And that's what they're intended to do. I've read too much good stuff about the Lee kits in here to believe they are junque.
I've never bought a kit. I was lucky in that I bought my reloading rig intact from an accomplished reloader and we moved it from his house to mine. I didn't even have to figure out where to put what for a flow of continuity. And he mentored me in my early efforts. He was my cyberspace. Even with that, I have added to my inventory of "stuff". He did not have a Lyman 1200. (which I've heard some refer to as junk) And so, I own three pieces of Lee eq: a 7-08 die that I bought when Remington first brought out the 7-08 and still use, three autoprimes, 1 for small primers, 1 for large primers and 1 on the shelf if they turned out to be POS's like you folks said they would (I bought all three 8 years ago), and a Challenger press. I bought the press a couple of years ago after hearing them bad-mouthed so that I just wanted to see one. It's set up on my bench and I use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's the equal of any $100 press out there. Is it the equal of, say, an Orange Crusher? I don't know. In 45 years of reloading and case forming --that includes taking 30-06 cases down to 22-250 to learn how and to see if I could-- I've never needed an Orange Crusher. (See note above about hundred dollar sneakers
) But my point is, all three items have done the job I bought them for.
If what he had already picked isn't what you would have picked, that's okay. Maybe somewhere down the line, when he decides he has to have a Dillon, he can pass his choices off to one of the kids he is mentoring. To them, it would probably be like gold.
