Want to start RELOADING but need help

J, Welcome to the forum.

I think you are on the right track, as far as components and loaders you mentioned. The MEC 600jr MKV is a great machine to start reloading on. They are simple to use, and reliable. Parts are easy to obtain, if you should ever need them, and their cost is not prohibitive. If your shooting increases to the point that you need a progressive machine, then there is several good one on the market.

You may find as you go, that other components may be less expensive, or will give you better results. That is all part of the fun of reloading. A little experimenting dosen't hurt, as long as its a listed recipe. Just make sure you get good reliable data from a reloading bible, or from the manufacture's, and follow it!

Good luck, and have fun!

The Sizemaster is virtually the same as the 600JR MKV, but it does have the advantage of coming with a auto primer feed as standard equipment. This can make reloading faster, than manually placing the primer, but it can have its complications as well, for a beginner. For first time loading, the manual placing of the primer, can prevent mistakes from happening, but if you were to read the instructions, and follow them closley, you shouldn't have any problems with the auto prime. At least not any more, than experienced reloaders suffer!

I believe the other features it has are that it is able to be adjusted to load 3" shells, which is good if you plan on loading hunting loads for a 3" or 3-1/2" chambered gun. The re-sizing stage is different as well. After reading about the Sizemasters features, I think I would go with one over the 600JR

By the way, you can get new dies to be able to load 20ga shells, if your Dad wants to do some of them.

To learn more about the MEC products go to

http://www.mecreloaders.com/ProductLine/Product.asp

Further information can be found by clicking on owners manuals, and if you have Adobe Acrobat, you can click on PDF, and read about the features of each unit.