Pinto how much shooting do you think you'll do with the 7? That should dictate whether or not you invest in reloading equipment. I haven't been around reloading equipment for several years now (my brothers place quit carrying it several years ago) so I honestly am not up on prices for the new stuff. 15 years ago my wife bought me a simple RCBS starter package (can't honestly remember what the press was called for sure but I want to say it was the Rockchucker and not something like a Lil Partner.) but anyway the whole package was only like $150-$200 and it included the essentials like press, scale, primer tray, shell holder, loading block, chamfer too, de-primer and maybe a few extras. Again, just very basic. I haven't reloaded in years and if I was to start again I would want a digital scale, a powder trickler and a case trimmer.

I believe you can find some used kits on various websites (maybe even on here in the classifieds?) for sure you can find dies for $20 or so on Ebay. Powder, bullets, primers and brass will also need to be purchased. I would estimate that since you have none of that for a brand new rifle I would think you are gonna spend around $300-$500 (or more) to get started. That's sounds high intially but once you have the basics you need only periodic purchases of powder, primers and bullets and maybe an occasional lot of brass.

Reloading can be fun and gratifying for sure, that's as much the reason some do it as anything else. Strictly from a monetary point of view, you would have to shoot a couple hundred rounds a year to make it worth it for you to get started. If you don't think you are going to shoot that much then just get a couple of boxes of factory ammo and be done with it. Personally I would recommend the 150Barnes X offering of Weatherby's for EVERYTHING. That is a one bullet, one gun load for anything you are likely to tackle with the big 7! Typically they are around $50-$60 a box for that offering. For a lil cheaper target or plinkin load you can get the 139 Hornady Interlock from Weatherby for about $40 a box. Weatherby also offers Nosler Ballistic Tips and Partitions in various weights for the 7 Wby. The 160 Partition offering is also priced about the same as the Xbullet and would be a one load/one gun deal as well. Remington used to offer some 140 Corelokts for the 7Wby and they were around $30 a box. I wouldn't hunt with those, but if you could find some anywhere, they would be a cheap alternative for just shooting up.

Another alternative is to pay a buddy of yours who already reloads! Just buy a set of dies, powder, bullets, cases and primers of your choice and pay him a dollar a round or something for the time. That's something that alot of folks don't think about but is a real time saver for you and yet you still get the benefits of custom loads. Personally I would go with the 120 Barnes TSX for anything up too Caribou and go with 140TSXs for anything larger. The 7Wby will SLING those bullets plenty fast to make a "lasergun" out of it, but those bullets will still bore holes in anything that gets in their way!

Good luck and have fun,
RA