Hi all, first post.
Anyway, I thought I'd chime in with some of my experiences. I've only been handloading for a few months, but I've found it to be very enjoyable. I'll repeat what I've read from a lot of people, you probably won't end up saving money reloading, but instead shooting a lot more for the same amount of money. I'd reccomend your first purchase to be a reloading book, or two. I own both the "Lee Modern Reloading Volume 2" and "Lyman 48th edition" manuals. Most anything recent will give you a good overview of techniques, and advice on what equipment you will need. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Lee book, it is loaded with propaganda for Lee's own products. Many people I've talked to either enjoyed it, or hated it because of Richard Lee's style of writing (lots of opinion thrown in.)
As far as equipment goes, I think it's best to start off with a decent single stage press, the appropriate dies/shellholders, reloading blocks, scale, calipers, powder measure, and of course brass/powder/bullets. I've probably forgotten something...
I've bought my first stuff used from friends, then from a Cabella's store, because my local gun shops didn't have much of a selection, then I found a store pretty close by that sells only reloading supplies. I also order things they don't carry from
www.midwayusa.com. There are a bunch of online stores that sell this sort of stuff, but I haven't tried anyone else yet. Anyway, Midway has a guide here
http://www.midwayusa.com/midwayusa/...og2006/Reloading/Metallic Reloading Tools.pdf
which shows more products than I could thing to find a use for.
If you start digging around on the internet, you'll probably find a mess of polarized brand reccomendations, and a lot of it has to do with budget. As far as the less expensive stuff goes, Lee dies have worked great for me, but I've read varying account of their presses. I only have one Lee press, which is their cheapest (around $20 or so) which came with my Lee reloading book. I've only ever used it to hold my powder measure, and I'm not sure I'd want to use it for anything else.
I'm going to quit before I get ahead of myself here. Hopefully some of this might be useful.