If my press is bench mounted, it better be progressive, blue in color, and say "Dillon" somewhere on it...
I highly recommend them for handloaders of all experience levels. Great product and outstanding customer service.
I haven't used my Dillon in about five years, because I don't have room for a bench to mount it on.
I've been handloading with the only press I've ever bought (Dillon was a gift) -a Lee Hand Press.. I've used it extensively for nigh on 30 years now and it still looks and performs as new. The dies I use with it are Lee Pacesetters or Deluxe with Collet Neck Sizer, depending on the caliber I'm loading for. They're inexpensive but have provided me with great service. The scale I use is the Hornady magnetic dampened balance beam unit. I prime with an RCBS hand priming tool. I prefer that over the Lee product because the latter uses special shell holders, while the former uses the same ones presses do. I have an old Lyman case trimmer that I use, too.
After every firing, I tumble my cases in walnut shell media sweetened with jewler's rouge. I think doing so is important for the longevity of the dies and the chambers of my guns, and I also have a measure of pride in anything I do that resembles work, so I want the cases to LOOK good as well as BE good.
I don't save any money by handloading. I have a shooting sports budget that's itemized, and around the first of the year, I determine how much I am going to spend and what I am going to spend it on. I keep records of purchases, too, so I know how much I've spent and what I spent it on. Thanks to our stellar economy, I've decided to cut back so I am budgeting a lesser amount for centerfire rifle this year than in the past few, but I'll spend the money allocated to centerfire rifle whether I load the ammo myself or a factory does it for me. What I get out the deal is the ability to do three to four times more shooting on that same money than I would do if all of my ammo was factory made. If I had to replace every tool in my Hand Press set up with new, I would have to load fifteen boxes of .250 Savage before I started seeing any reduction in cost per round. With something fairly cheap in factory form like the .30-30, it would take almost double that to realize any "savings." I shot a 9mm in various law enforcement shooting comps for ten years and never bothered to reload for it because I could get factory ammo cheaper than I could load it. I don't handload for my 7.62 NATO M-48 Mauser because I have a stockpile of NATO spec. surplus that I paid less for than I can handload a duplicate round for. So there are situations where handloading doesn't save you money and doesn't let you shoot more on the money that you do spend.
No one in my circle of association who handloads does so expecting to save money and they don't use savings as an excuse to do it. They are going to spend as much as they can on ammo regardless of the source it comes from. So they don't save money but get to do more shooting on the money they spend.
For me, the benefit is being able to shoot more on the money I spend, the ability to tune loads to extract the performance I hope for out of the rifle I shoot, and to increase cartridge versatility over factory offerings. An example of a rifle and cartridge combo that one might absolutely have to handload for is my Ruger M-77RL Ultralight in .250 Savage. Pencil thin barrels can be kind of picky about diet, and that gun has a really skinny barrel. There are exactly two factory loads available, both with 100 grain bullets. I'm lucky with this one because it shoots Remington factory ammo really well, but what if it didn't? The only other option in factory ammo presently is a Winchester load, but what if it hated that load, too? The versatility of the round is compromised by limited factory fare, too. Handloading makes that rifle much more useful and lets me shoot it more.
JP
