How do I get started reloading so I can get into 6.8 or 6.5?

It really depends what your budget is. Since you only shoot .223 I am going to assume that you are shooting a good bit of it. Some people will encourage you to start out with a single stage press, me I will tell you to start out with the best progressive reloader you can afford so you don't have to upgrade later. There are more things going on when reloading with a progressive but it is not difficult to set up if you follow directions.

I think the first thing you should do is pick up a reloading manual, like the new Lyman one. It will take you through all the different steps and gives pretty good instruction. There are many reloading setups out there, all of them work, some are just more efficient than others. I load on a Dillon 650 and can crank out about 700 rounds an hour at a normal careful pace. I can't even imagine loading .223 on a single stage at the rate I shoot it.

Here is a link to another forum that has a good discussion going on the different progressive loaders. Hopefully it will have some good advice for you.

http://forum.m1911.org/showthread.php?t=39787

I started reloading about 28 years ago & started out with a RCBS single stage press. I bought the startup kit whitch had everything + manual to start reloading. As aziator said read manual carefuly you do not want to mess this up, it can be dangerous! I now have a Dillon 550 manual indexing progressive, it is a little more to it than the single stage press. With that said, you can set up a manual indexing progressive press as a single stage press untill you get comterfull with each step of the process. I still use the RCBS single stage press to resize my cases before finishing off the rounds with the Dillon 550 (because of my cleaning process of the brass, I like to clean my brass after resizing). Getting started slow is a good idea & doing that would be a single stage press or a manual indexing progressive set up as single stage.

My take, Lee presses are only good as boat anchors.

Buy a Dillon 650, the 550 is a pain in the ass and having a pregressive press means there is one less thing for you to forget to do. If you go Dillon think about buying used. their lifetime guarantee is really good. Get a set of dies, cleaner, tumbler, scales, calipers and go party.

Use once fired brass as it's much cheaper and can still be used 3-5 times depending on how high you run pressures. I find Hodgdon H335 to be a good powder as is Varget. for bullets, Dillon do good deals on 55grain FMJ and Midway does basically everything else. Dillon service guys are also really helpful to get you started.

I run two 650s, one for larger primers and one for small, and a forrester Co-Ax for .303 and .338 Lapua. For me the Dillons have loaded .308 that shoots a 0.25" group, so it will do almost anything you ask of it.

I would agree that if you have never reloaded you probably shouldn't go out and drop 1K on a setup to find out you don't like it (unless you want to sell it to me at a huge discount). Try and find someone that has a setup you can try and give it a shot, especially the case prep part. I found that the dillon 650 wasn't too much for me as a first time metallic reloader (been doing shotgun for years) as even though it is a progressive you don't have to use it as such. If you want when you are just starting out you can load just one at a time until you get the hang of it. The great thing about the dillon is that you don't have to buy all the little goodies right away, you can add most of them later. If there is one thing I can recommend it would be the powder checker at station 3. I have loaded about 7K in the past 6 months and have yet to have a powder throw that was incorrect (over or under and I am knocking on wood). I read all the time about somebody that had a squib load and almost shot a second round down the barrel into the first bullet sitting there. When you are loading 500-1000 rounds an hour it is nice to have that little checker that beeps if your powder level is off. It has saved my butt more than once on a low powder charge.