Thread: Load development beginner

Hi guys just after bit of guidance and/or recommendations. Have recently bought a new rifle which is a 7mm wsm christensen arms extreme, with a leupold vx 6hd 3-18x50 on it. I want to get the most out of the rifle and shoot out to 500m comfortably/confidently on game (which I know I can do), but also push it further on paper just for fun and test my ability in long range shooting. As we can expect factory ammo for this caliber is somewhat hard to get your hands on, particularly precision hunter 162gr edl x which is what I want to shoot for mid range stuff anyway, and keep the reloaded ammo for longer ranges, if I can get my hands one some that is. What's the best path to take, bite the bullet and buy all the reloading equipment and start trailing loads to see what the gun likes? How expensive can this get? Is it hard, and/or just time consuming? Or am I better off at the start because I'm new to the reloading game to get some help, and send the gun away to get a load developed for me? Again how expensive is this, and who's out there that can do it? But again what is the on going cost of getting the developed loads reloaded from then onwards? Or is this the point where I can step in and buy what's necessary to recreate the specific load for that gun? Thanks in advance.