I'd recommend a neophyte purchase a basic hand operated swage press, such as a Corbin Co "S-Press" or an RCE "Walnut Hill" to start with. Even if you end up making a gazillion bullets a month, you'll be using such a basic press for 'research' while your line of electro-hydraulic automated presses are crunching out their items. In that regard, unless you plan to have a $6000 machine pay for itself (and you better have a specific plan for this), then it's wise to stick with the very capable, by far less costly, but manually operated ones. One of these small presses can do a LOT of superior work. It's true that non-powered presses can't make lead wire, or .065" walled jacketed or 50 caliber+ bullets, and if you want to do this you'll have to go with power. Both RCE and Corbin Co offer at least 2 powered presses below their top-of-the-line model and their web sites present them well at to their capabilities and limitations. From time to time you may run across a used press for sale, but I'd advise you really know what you are looking at before laying out any money: There's a lot of swaging items for sale that are non-supportable, or not what they appear to be, or defective. If someone is selling a press or dies for their "dead uncle's estate", you HAVE to be sure what their return policy is, as defects in tooling are not always obvious. This is one area (used swaging items) that the "buyer beware" flag must be watched.
