Any good standard progressive should be able to load the 30-06 round.. BTW the .223 case is a finicky little bugger to size properly, he'll have some frustrating moments.. tell him never to OVER lube .223 cases when sizing. It's tough to get .223 exactly right, especially for a .223 autoloader. But once you succeed it's wonderful to be
out there acing a target with your reliable home-rolled steel penetrator or softpoint handloads
I load my own 63 grain penetrator rounds for my .223s, (Mini 14s and AR15s) and have had great success (eventually) The 30-06 is a joy to reload, and handgun rounds are a piece of cake, relatively speaking. If he's looking to load military type 30-06, tell him about possible remaining supplies of the black tip WW2
AP bullets from this source:
www.wideners.com Perfect load for a Garand rifle. You'll maybe find the .223 penetrators there also
For hunting or other use softpoint loads I like the Hornady 150 grain boat tail softpoint. My military style rebarreled .308 (98) Mauser puts my handloads with this bullet into 1 MOA with iron sights. Military brass, same batch of brass, weighed and sorted for uniformity. Not kidding about the 1 MOA! Of course when it heats up the rounds start
walking, that's the wood military stock..
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In addition to the press, he'll also need:
A powder/bullet scale.. these vary from a a simple sliding weight type to the really nice electronic-digital type, $$$ and convenience is the difference
Dies for each caliber. For auto pistol calibers and even some revolver loads I recommend a Lee taper crimp die for the final step
Lee or other primer cleaning tool (cheap)
Case trimmer. After a few firings (especially rifle cases) the overall length has grown due to case stretch. He'll need to measure OAL and trim to original specs. I have an RCBS trimmer and it's great
Micrometer, to measure case specs. Inexpensive plastic versions are available and do the job just fine.
Case mouth reamer. Make sure it's the type that can do up to .50 caliber, so it'll be the last one he'll need (cheap) This process is done after any sizing/trimming, and before the loading process
Lube pad and something like RCBS case lube, this is for rifle and some other bottlenecked cartridges
Case cleaner. Personally I prefer the rock tumbler type, using automatic dishwasher detergent and hot water. Yep. It leaves a matte finish on the brass, not nice and shiny, but it cleans very well inside and out, and is CHEAP with no "media" to replace. You simply rinse the brass in the sink when done, and shake them back and forth in a rolled up towel to dry, then lay them out on a dry towel overnight.You can also tumble rocks and such
If he's not going to do a large quantity of rounds per session a small tumbler will do. I have a small and a very large tumbler. Large reloading operations sometimes use cement mixers with media
I like to deprime first using a cheap Lee single stage press and the unbreakable Lee depriming die, before sizing. Then I clean primer pockets, tumble the cases clean, trim to length, etc..Many deprimers have weak pins which regularly break.. if you go this route, note that steel pop rivets are your best source for replacement "pins"
Good reloading book such as the Hornady handbook of cartridge reloading, for charge weights and step by step help.
I had a welder buddy make me a sturdy steel reloading bench.. it's large, wonderful and immoveable and I'll never go back to another style of bench. I have stations for each process and my shotshell reloader in one corner, also. I store my brass and such under the open style bench, in large plastic jugs such as the kind find protein mix comes in.
