Get a Lee 4-20 - the 20 pound pot will be more useful in the long run.

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"Had his shooting been as good as his running, he might have given a better account of himself."
James. C. Henderson

I recently had to break down the costs of handloading .350 Rem Mag rounds vs buying factory fodder. While that situation is quite a bit different that what you need for your .357, the cost analysis process is the same. $83.22 delivered for 40 rounds from Wisconsin cartridge was the cheapest I could find this rather rare caliber. So $2.08 per round.

To load it, picking up components directly from Midway, costs 7.4 cents each for brass (assuming 10 loads for the life of the brass), $.33 each for Hornady cup and core bullets, $.21 per powder and $.03 per primer. That totals $.65 per round. There are 7000 grains per pound of powder, so you can get a pretty good idea how much your $25 can of powder will cost per round. Of course if you buy in bulk, it's cheaper.

So you can see at a savings of $1.44 a round, it won't take me long to pay for a $25 set of dies.

Now, .357 ammo is not rare and deals can be found. Better yet you can shoot .38 Special ammo. Then again, you may shoot a lot more rounds than I will with that .350. Just do the math and see how many rounds it will take you to break even (pay for your hardware). After that, it's all gravy! As was mentioned before, reloading also gives you the ability to tailor your load for your needs.

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A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I melt a lot of lead,old house demoltition has the best lead for anything.Lead toilet traps and all kinds of wire conduit.I melt it in a cast iron pot on top of a propane burner.Then pour it into a cast iron muffin pan.All things bought at a yard sale.Then when time to pour bullets or fishing jigs and sinkers,what I do,I use a Lee 10 pound bottom pour pot.Will melt the 10 pounds of lead in a half hour.I have poured a lot of bullets for a certain guy that always seems to know when I am pouring some jigs,lol.

Why do you think I want to get something different? I know AL is the wrong thing for lead melting NOW. However, I didn't when I made it and it worked fine for the small batch of bullets I made. The controlled & consistent heat of a dedicated lead melting furnace is best.

There are many benefits to loading your own as mentioned in the other replies. Better performance when loads are tailored to your own firearm, being able to crank out a few boxes when the store shelves are empty, being able to produce reduced loads to minimize meat damage, reduced recoil , etc. A few times I've bought a box or two of factory loads for my .44/40 and .45 Colt six guns cause I didn't have any more cast bullets at home, local GS were out, and I had to mail order them. I figured $50 a box is steep, but I'd have the brass to reload later, and that is almost half the cost. But the factory cowboy loads ( Black Hills, W-W) use soft lead,were dirty and not very accurate. I sure like my loads a lot better, and can load 500 rounds at a time for what 100 rounds of factory junk would cost. So besides your time spent sitting at the loading bench, there is a definite savings in being able to reuse your brass many times.

ONLY melt outside.

I figure that you can save if you shoot or want to shoot 4 boxes of ammo a year. If you shoot less then buying at gun show prices will be cheaper in the long run.
But most guys reload because they just want to....been reloading 52 years. Started to save $$$ when comp shooting.....never stopped.

Aside from dollars and cents there is the personal satisfaction you get from doing it yourself.

I started mid 60's reloading and only thing I've learn is you have to spend money to save and the more you spend the more you save. do you save more buy 8lbs vs 1lb of powder,

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Semper Fi
Vietnam Vet
VFW

Depending on the bullet I can reload .357 Magnum for $7-$10/50.

I can buy them for ~$25-$30/50. That's a savings of $15-$20/ box.

So you can pay for a Lee kit and dies in what, 8-10 boxes of ammo? Then when you get a new caliber you pay for the dies after just a couple boxes.

Yep, I save a TON of money reloading.

It depends of course on how much you shoot, but the purely economic argument for reloading can be extremely strong. I spent about $750 for progressive press, dies, casting pot, lubrisizer and dies, and all the crap you can imagine that goes with it. Time to break even: 2 weeks.

If you cast your bullets then you should be looking at about $0.10-0.12 a round for any commonly-available handgun cartridge such as 40SW and 45ACP, IF you have to buy lead at $1.25/lb. For these calibers you can basically zero-out the cost of brass because you will be able to reload it forever, basically. At the other extreme, for handgun, I have to buy 10mm Auto brass at $0.17 each...but I expect that brass will last nearly forever also, to the degree I can recover it.

To melt the lead I use a 5 qt dutch oven (Walmart, $30) and a low-boy cajun cooker (also about $30), but cajun cookers often use so-called 'jet' burners which are hugely inefficient and very loud. I've since replaced the cheap jet burner with a cast iron burner that looks more like a water heater burner--about 4-5" in diameter. Something like this is perfect: http://tinyurl.com/cqr3bso. Melts 20-30 lb of lead in 20 min. Lead splatter WILL get all over everything, no matter how careful you are. I would strongly discourage casting indoors, and would discourage any attempt to melt lead on the stovetop--first off, you'll ruin everything in the kitchen, and secondly the heat involved is considerable--we're not frying eggs here. Pretty dangerous, and ventilation is very important--toxic lead fumes of course, but there will generally be debris in and around the lead you use, and from time to time you may want to flux your lead. Fluxing allows oxidized components of your melt to be reduced and redissolved in the melt, and most materials used for flux produce a LOT of smoke. If you are married and want to stay that way, then it's a no-brainer--don't do it in the house.

Wheel weights are just about ideal--but they have to be the older style clip on weights and NOT the stick-on weights, which I believe contain zinc. Range lead seems to be okay, too.

I very rarely buy ammo--it's just ridiculously expensive.

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“If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.” T Bankhead

The zinc wheel weights will float on top of the lead in the pot for a while because they have a higher melting point. If you get the lead hot enough, they will eventually melt.

Zinc melts @ 750*F. If you are smelting wheel weights a must for you is a thermometer. I keep my smelting temperature to 600*F to 650*F just to be sure.

It is best to separate, if possible, because it takes very little zinc in a melt to ruin it.

Don't ask how I know that!

I get free wheel weights from a couple of local tire shops.