Where to start reloading .338-378?

[Bighig]

Looking to get into reloading. Looking at a rock chucker press. What else do i need to start to reload the .338-.378 Weatherby? Should i start with a cheaper caliber? I have .243, .270, .500 S&W, .454 Casull, .300 Weatherby. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Also i picked up the Hornady reloading book and rhe Lyman reloading book. Also I'm new to the forum

[.257]

Welcome
My advise at this point is for you to read the reloading sections in the 2 manuals you purchased.
After understanding in detail the process of reloading than you can start to look at purchasing tools to do it. There are several very good starter kits available

[HighDesertHunter]

Looking to get into reloading. Looking at a rock chucker press. What else do i need to start to reload the .338-.378 Weatherby? Should i start with a cheaper caliber? I have .243, .270, .500 S&W, .454 Casull, .300 Weatherby. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Also i picked up the Hornady reloading book and rhe Lyman reloading book. Also I'm new to the forum

Welcome to the Nation. The rock chucker press is adequate and will do the job but it has it's weak points. It is an entry level press.  At first you may not notice or even care about precision but over time you'll discover that a lot of the little gremlins you're chasing are coming from your press. For that reason, I suggest that you start with the Ammo Master 2 instead. Since getting my Ammo Master 2, I have retired my Rock Chucker to doing depriming and all my precision work like bumping shoulders back, neck sizing, bullet seating, etc., are done on the Ammo Master.

[Jay W]

Welcome to the nation! Definitely read a reloading manual first... Learn how to size brass PROPERLY.  Only bump the shoulder back a couple thousandths and don't push maximum loads until you understand how to read pressure signs. Ruining expensive Weatherby brass is not a fun hobby to be involved in. Practice on your smaller calibers first(.243 & .270) to learn how to set up your dies correctly before jumping into your Weatherby. Understand how to read a dial caliper and what headspace is and how to measure it, then your brass will feed properly will last a very long time.... Don't get hung up on trying to achieve super velocities, accuracy is what fills the freezer... Jay

[224KING]

Get the Rock Chucker kit.That will give you the basics to start making your own ammo.Take out a year's subscription to Handloader magazine.If you don't like it you can drop the subscription.They touch on a lot of the same subjects over and over,but informative until you see the same topic for the second time.

[African Leadwood]

I agree on the manuals.

There are also great resources on the internet on various sites and forums (here is good too, but you may need to ask more than you will find topics already discussed).

I do think there is value in learning with a rifle that you already shoot very well and which has proven accuracy. With a rifle which is a heavy recoiler like a 338-378 you may be less inclined to be able to actually measure the effect of incremental reloading changes or adaptations due to how tough it is to shoot with very high precision vs. say a 243 / 270 / 308 etc.

I learnt on a 300 Win Mag so I'm not saying you can't do it, I just think you will learn faster / easier.

There are some other good books on the topic too. One is South African - The accurate Chain - here is an extract: http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/Portals/0/files/extracts/AccurateChain_extract.pdf

Glen Zedicker's book Reloading for Competition is good but possibly a bit OTT to start out.

[Northern hunter]

Yup, the rock chucker kits are good for the money you pay when you get more into it you can replace components as needed. My rock chucker press got replaced by a big boss 2. I dont expect you to spend that much money on just the press but i do quite a bit of reloading too.