I have used RCBS, Lyman and Lee. I honestly I have never run into any equipment I would tell someone to avoid. Reloading is a blast, you will love it. 

I have zero experience with that particular press (in fact zero experience with any single stage press) but if it wasn't for reloading, I would have put five hundred rounds through my 10mm, not five thousand.

I encourage anyone who likes to shoot to get into reloading.

How many times can a pistol case be reloaded / what factors pull them from consideration?

Depends on the load. Full power pistol loads will probably earn you no more than 3 or 4 reloads before signs of case weakness appear. Look for a thin ring just above the base. That's a sign of case stretching. At that point, the brass is getting thin and may separate upon extraction, leaving the case in the chamber. Also look for small cracks at the case mouth after re-sizing. If you see them, chuck it. Since you should be loading the same cases in batches, if you see multiple cases within a batch showing signs of wear, be safe and chuck the whole batch. Pistol brass is cheap in the long run. I do the same with my semi-auto rifle brass. After 3 or 4 loadings, if I see multiple signs of failure in a batch, I'll chuck it and start with a new batch.

Revolver brass, however, can generally be used more due to the lack of extraction wear. Semi-auto pistols and rifles abuse brass like nobody's business. Wheelguns do not.  Also, you can build up nice soft-shooting plinking loads that are easy on the cases.  Full-power SD or hunting loads won't last as long. I have a friend who gets 10 or 12 reloads out of his .45 Colt and .44 cases simply because he keeps the power levels low.

I have a complete Dillon set up.

If you can afford it - go Blue:
http://www.dillonprecision.com/#/content/p/9/pid/25792/catid/1/BL_550_Basic_Loader

Progressive reloaders make 100 rounds in about 30 minutes once you get it up an running.

As a side note - back when I was shooting a lot - I was very consistent and had a routine system.  The major danger you have is double charging the powder. 

I did manage to double charge a 9mm and fired it form the USP.

Result: Loud boom, big fireball and stove pipe with a split case

I was shooting a very high quality gun well overbuilt so had no issue but it could have been worse I suppose.  Set up a system to systematically check powder measure ( some people rely on overfill if doubled charged).

Have fun and post up pics.

Yup - I find loading the primer tubes and checking the powder throw takes a while to set up.
Once you start pounding them out it goes great as long as you don't stop or break the rhythm.
For rifle I do them individually across each station so a progressive is not that helpful.

Stay away from the T-Mag. The rotating head is great for leaving your dies set and in place, but that pivot point is also a weak spot during substantial pressure on the piston upstroke. I had one and used it quite a bit for 6.5x55 and .270 Win but started noticing lateral movement of the rotating turret during operation after a couple hundred rounds.
Go for the Rockchucker for small qty. rifle loading. Die mounted in solid steel frame, nothing there to move on you.

My edjumicated IMO based on heavy real world use.

For pistol, my Dillon 550B with all the goodies was the cat:s ass. Great press for pistol rounds. I've loaded thousands upon thousands of .45 ACP, 9mm, .380, .38 Special and wadcutter, and .44 Mag. on the Dillon.
Money well spent on a good progressive press.

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Manual single stage---consistency, more suited for large rifle cases.
Slow.

Progressive--speedier, higher production loading for pistols. Also consistent if you do it right. Less force involved in loading pistol. Shorter, thinner cases. For rifle on a single stage press, powder chages are manually weighed for every load. A progressive press has a powder charge chamber that is set to a given charge weight. Pretty accurate, but not as accurate as weighing each charge for a rifle.

Resizing a rifle case takes quite a bit of force.
Cases must be lubed, deprimed and sized in the die, trimmed and deburred, then cleaned before priming and charging and seating a new bullet with a different die setup.

Pistol cases arent so finicky. Tumble the brass, then resize and eject spent primer in one shot, prime + charge, seat bullet and crimp. 1 complete round off with every handle stroke. The key with pistols is to keep your brass sorted by brand and known number of firings. I used to keep good "match brass" and "misc plinking brass" seperate from each other.

TIP: use a seatimg die, then a seperate crimp die for pistol. Better more uniform results than seat/crimp die in one operation without a doubt. I used to pound my .45 reloads through one ragged hole off the bench at 25 yards. My loads would X-ring at 50 yd through my Les Baer wadcutter gun with a red dot sight.

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Yes. A great deal of attn to detail is needed. Also, go by the books. DO NOT DEVIATE unless you know what you are doing. There are high and low load ranges for any given caliber. A load too light can be just as dangerous as a load too hot. Double charging a pistol round can be disasterous. Loading a squib (primer only, no powder) can be disasterous. Everybody likes 9mm, 9mm are easy to crank out by the hundreds. 9mm is also a very high pressure round with a very narrow range of proper load. Pay the F*** attention amd do it in a place where there are no distractions while loading and also pay attention while firing reloads. Look for normal recoil and muzzle report. Loading can be a dangerous business when approached nonchalantly.

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Long gone. Sold to a fellow who runs a major bullseye shooting board. Won his class at Camp Perry with the pistol. It was the Champion's Choice .45 wadcutter gun, built by Les Baer, sold by CC. Guaranteed to shoot 1.5 inches at 50yd. I paid extra to get the "plus" edition, which was worked to tighter tolerances
Guaranteed for 1.25". Mine shot just over an inch. A real shooter's .45. I put a Clark slide mount scope rail and a 1" Ultradot on it. Took 1000 rounds of break in before you could rack the slide by hand the gun was built so tightly. When it was new you had to break the lockup by pressing on the muzzle if the gun with one hand and gripping the pistol grip with the other. You literally could not pull the slide back in the normal manner.

I had about 1400 into that back in the late 90's early 2000's. Probably run around 2k now I would venture.
I had a brand new Hammerli 208s to go with that for 2700 matches.
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Planning on taking a reloading class that is offered through the local range I just joined.

Already informed the wife I'll be spending a great deal more time out in the shop.

300 AAC looks an awful lot like 7.62x39 to my untrained eye.

How do the ballistics compare?

Looking into it a bit - seems like a good option for a suppressed gun - but as that is a no go in CA - what is the attraction?

300 AAC looks an awful lot like 7.62x39 to my untrained eye.

How do the ballistics compare?

Looking into it a bit - seems like a good option for a suppressed gun - but as that is a no go in CA - what is the attraction?

Yep, 300 BO/Whisper is probably the best option for a suppressed SBR.
7.62x39 if you don't reload and want cheap blasting ammo.
6.5 Grendel if you want a medium range target rifle (400-800 yds)
6.8SPC if you want an AR for hunting

These are all from a 16" barrel with a 200 yd zero:

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The thing that tends to appeal to me is just this: I hate leaving unburned powder to go flying out of short barreled guns.  The 300BLK lets you maximize a short barrel.

There is a lot more load data for sure. Folks have been messing around with small (grains) loads of pistol powder in them as well.  There might be a better selection of bullets now? Either way its something I wanted to try.