The Best Value Reloading Kit? RCBS Rebel Master Reloading Kit

this Reloading Kit is the rebel Master kit and in my opinion one of the best value options on the market today however maybe not for the reasons that you think it includes the press powder measure scale pan hand priming tool reloading manual powder funnel case neck brushes primer pocket brushes deburring tools case loading block case slick spray and even some tools so let's break down this kit piece by piece go over the good the just okay and figure out if there's finely a Reloading Kit that I can recommend the first thing we need to do is disclosure RCBS did send me this kit to make a review as well as a beginner's reloading guide on Midway USA who sponsors this channel but RCBS paid me nothing for this review and no one gets to preview the video before I post it for any Reloading Kit to be a good value you pretty much need to be satisfied with most everything in the kit and still come out ahead price versus purchasing the items separately the most important part of any kit is going to be the Press if you're not going to use the Press it's completely not a a good value but I don't know what this press could possibly be lacking though the rebel is new to the RCBS lineup this press could have easily been called the new upgraded Rock chucker the opening is a little bit bigger it's 22 percent heavier you can still use both the 7 8 14 an inch and a quarter 12 dies the only real negative to this press is that you can't Prime on it which I don't recommend anyway it doesn't have a quick change system but you can use the ones from Lee or Hornady if you like since it has the inch and a quarter 12 bushing when you're depriming with the Press instead of primers falling out on top now they're going to come out the bottom and some crafty folks have solved this problem if you want to call it that where you can direct them where you want to go with a half inch ID tube or you can just plug the tube and allow them to collect there and empty it every now and then this press handle can be set up for either right or left-handed operation so you left these haven't been left behind assuming that none of these features are really deal breakers for you this press can easily be your Forever press it's very sturdy and there's very little play in The Ram which is not the case for a lot of presses that are out there our CBS claims use all the way from 25 ACP all the way to 338 Lapua so this press should have just about everything covered that you could want to unless you're trying to shoot something larger than 338 if you really don't know what kind of press you want and a single stage is what you're looking at I don't see how this press is going to leave you disappointed next let's talk about our priming tool this is the RCBS Universal hand priming tool and it's one of the big sellers of this kit for me if you don't want to compromise on your priming tool then this is one of the best options you can pick regardless if you're getting a kit or not it works without having to change out show holders but you do have to change it between large and small primer sizes but it has excellent feel when you're seating primers and has been on my list of recommended reloading tools for a very long time so recommending it today is absolutely a no-brainer next is talk about the reloading scale this is a 1500 grain digital pocket scale and it may be the first bump in the road for the kit but let's start off with a good it comes with a really good powder pan that you should have minimal issues with powder sticking to I'm not aware that RCBS sells the pan separately from the scale so it might be worth it to you just to pick up a nice pan because it does work really well the scale on the other hand does leave me wanting just a little bit more for a reloading scale the scale does live up to everything that's on the package as far as accuracy is concerned but it just tends to jump around 0.2 grains here and there and then right back to the value that it should be it's always been within the 0.1 grain advertised accuracy when it's not jumping around and so it feels a little bit wrong of me to complain but if there's anything that I would like to see improved about this kit going forward it is the response of the scale this kit comes with a uniflo 3 powder measure the powder measure is a little harder for me to have an informed opinion of I just don't use powder measures very often in my reloading process I don't have anything negative to say about it if you're using ball powders you should have some great repeatability with this powder measure however you should expect some variation if you're using this powder measure with any type of a stick powder it's just going to be that way with any powder machine the kit does not include a baffle for the powder measure or a stand itself just this bracket to mount it to your press but those are relatively inexpensive upgrades that you can do if you want to the cost of this powder measure by itself is around 110 at the moment so it's a significant value to the kit but you need to be using it as part of your process for it to be a good value if you want to throw powder Chargers pretty fast I have no reason to complain about it but for this kit to make sense to you you need to be using the powder measure another critical part of the kit when we look at it is the trickler I've used it with both ball and stick powders and for the most part it's been pretty good this trickler overall is very configurable it's one of its highlights you can use it with the weighted base the weighted base is actually also adjustable in height or you can remove the trickler from the base altogether this trick layer is pretty light when it's not in the base so there is a hollow space that you could add some weight to it if you wanted to that would certainly make it a little bit more usable if you're going to use it in the lowest height configuration but once it's secured in the base overall it works pretty well as you can see you can kind of increase this height to kind of a ridiculous level at the maximum adjusted height it's somewhere above four inches just to give you an idea of how high it can go for something like the scale it comes with it honestly the lowest configuration is probably the most convenient but again at least for me it bounces around a lot when you're trickling without the weighted base if you are using the way to base one thing that is very important is noted on the base that it has the word scale and that is the direction that your trickler is supposed to point towards your scale that's going to give you a little bit of angle and help the powder flow more appropriately the configuration I used the most was honestly with the extension on and in the bass one thing in this particular height it has to be considered is the higher you have your dispenser mounted the more power Splash you're going to get which certainly can be inconvenient but it's just going to be a trade-off you can use the included Allen wrenches to take it in and out of the base if you need to but it's going to come with everything to assemble it disassemble it overall with all the adjustability and how well it works I'm not sure which trickler you would trade it for unless you were going to trade it for an auto dispenser but for can do manual trickling it's going to work just fine next let's cover the manual as far as manuals go if you're going to use spear projectiles this is a great manual to have I was impressed that it has additions that a lot of manuals skip like both 223 and 556 load data I've had some good luck with spear gold dots and this manual has a reasonable amount of load data for them so it's a good addition to my collection just for that alone generally I'm going to point you to the reloading manual from whatever brand you use the most projectiles from but the manual seems just fine and it never hurts to have a couple reloading manuals laying around next let's look at the funnel and the reloading tray together I like how the tray is labeled for what goes on each caliber so it's clearly the numbered slots go with what caliber list however one thing I found to be a bit annoying is when I was loading 223 this funnel actually has to go below this part of the tray so it makes it a little bit annoying and a little bit easier to spill powder overall it's kind of a minor complaint as far as functionality it works really well and no matter what you're reloading having a good Universal trade never hurts and you're probably going to want to add more on the funnel itself at the bottom instead of having a smooth transition between all of your calibers it has different sizes so you have to make sure you're setting this down correctly on your brass not a huge deal but personally I prefer it the other way I don't think this feature is a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination and there are more frontal options these days when it comes to universals versus your caliber specific so if you decide you want to upgrade to something later that's fine otherwise this will probably work just fine for a very long time most reloading kits are going to come with some type of a Case Lube and this comes with the case lick spray by RCBS it works just fine I haven't stuck a case with it low to be frank anytime you're changing case Lubes you're going to want to clean out your dies of any residual Lube first one thing that is nice about getting this option right out of the gate is you're able to lube a lot of brass relatively rapidly rather than another option where you have to lube the cases individually but this is going to be enough caseloop to get you started and if you like it you can buy more or if you want to try something different that'll certainly be an option if you want to lube a lot of brass relatively quickly this should get that accomplished for you next is just kind of throw our handle and brushes and chamfering Tool all together on this part it's all just fine nothing is going to knock your socks off but it all works having the brushes to clean your case next out though they're not super expensive is a standout feature of this kit a lot of kits don't include them and I certainly recommend doing this step to handle it's going to come with is going to be Universal to basically most of the accessories for reloading they're all going to be on that same thread so it's not particularly great but it's a great inclusion for this kit the chamfering to burn tool itself I was pretty impressed with it works really well especially for something that gets thrown into a kit I don't think this leaves anything on the table if you wish you had a vld style chamfer tool this isn't going to fit the bill for that but overall for a great Universal chamfering to burning tool this certainly fits the bill the next item in the kit is the hex key set if you don't already have this item it's great that it's included nothing else that I can say about them is particularly interesting but if you don't have Allen wrenches it's great to have this tool available to get you started like I mentioned at the beginning I haven't entire reloading series over our Channel sponsor MidwayUSA where I'm using this kit if you want to check it out it's on my brand ambassador page over there if you'd like to know what other tools you're going to need that aren't included in most reloading kits I've got a playlist that covers that right here I hope to see in those videos and until then stay safe and small groups

Channel: Bolt Action Reloading

Views: 35,987

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Id: Tmozx0CJX-M

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 19 2023