need advice on new press

R

rebs

New member
Here is what I have been doing reloading on a RCBS single stage press. I prep the brass then size and deprime, then use a hand held RCBS primer tool and prime them while watching TV. When I am ready to load them I put the cases in a loading blocknd add powder to them all with an RCBS uniflo powder dump and seat the bullet on the press for 223 I do not crimp.
I was thinking the Lee classic turret would speed up my loading time some. But with problems with Lee's powder system I maybe just as well off with the way I have been reloading. I already have both drums large and small for my RCBS uniflo powder dump. I am also realizing that with the turret I only have to handle the brass once, put the case in the holder, size-deprime, prime, add powder, add bullet and seat. With my method I am handling the brass to size, depeime, then again to prime, then again to put i loading blocks, then again to put in the press and add the bullet and crimp.
Give me some opinions on if I should buy the Lee classic turret or not ?
 
My personal opinion is that the turret press is great for handgun loads. For rifle rounds, I prefer to use the turret press much like a single stage press. By that, I mean that I like charging all cases individually, then seat the bullets.

Possibly the new Lee powder drum might make a difference? I'm anxious to see what others have to say about it.
 
Are you only loading 223? If you are reloading in batches of 20-50 it will not go much faster with a turret. If you have multiple calipers you can buy a Hornady Bushing system on your press which will make change overs go faster.
 
I now own the Lee Turret Press but began with the single stage. My prep was/is the same as yours. I keep kitty litter boxes full of prepped brass for reloading at a later date. I also use a hand primer and like it much more than the press.

When it comes to powder, I have a Lee Perfect Powder dispenser attached to a piece of wood which I clamp to my bench. I've found that the plastic squares from S&B 9mm ammunition make for excellent loading blocks. They are easy to manipulate in your hand when dropping powder. From there I move the blocks over to the 3 hole turret press. The big advantage is that you have the option to employ multiple dies if you want/require. Your deprime/resize/expand step is much faster with the turret. You will cut your prep time significantly.

I load 38/357, 9mm and 223/5.56. I crimp for 38/357 and sometimes use the crimp die for the 9mm. If I find that if I over-expanded the brass, the crimp die can fix the issue. As for the 223/5.56, I don't crimp those rounds but the press comes in handy for prep as I use a Lyman Universal Decapping die and a Lee resizing/expanding die.

I see your progression into a multi-die press as a maturity of the loading process. You've mastered the technique, understand the safety requirements and have made your current process as efficient as possible. But that only goes so far and with a multi-die press you can extend your experience and efficiency. It's the right move.

Good luck. Have fun.
 
The only way that you can make it faster is to go with a progressive. Single stage press or turret it takes so many press strokes to turn out a finished round.
 
Reb, I do my loads very much the same way your do.
Only difference is I use a trickler to "top off" the powder drop.

So I got a Lee Classic turret press a while back to see if it
would speed up loading. It does - sorta.

I'm not interested in priming and dropping powder on the press.
I like hand priming. It give e a chance to examine every case
and cull problems before they make it to the press.

I also am completely anal about powder weight. I want it to be as
close to exactly the same as I can make it, and you can't do that
dropping blind. (the trickler stays!).

When dropping powder, ever charge is weighed and when it goes
into the brass, it is inspected for level and a bullet is set on top.
(prevent doubles)

So what I wound up doing on the Lee is this:
Removed the twisted rod that moves the turret,
put the seating and crimping dies on the turret.
( I use a four dies set with the crimp done last.
It's way easier to get setup correctly that way)

And then manually index (turn) the turret.

Set the bullet, flip the turret, crimp (just remove the bell),
and drop the completed round in the box.

It IS a bit faster, but how much I wouldn't guess.

I'm just getting started on .223, so don't know how it will be
once I get comfortable with it.

But I intend to start out just this way again...

PS: rereading this thread, Mark reminded me...
Depriming and belling the brass I do on the Lee as well.
Same way. Two dies on the plat and manually flip the back and forth.
That operation is probably twice as fast as doing it on the RCBS press
just from not having to pick up and put down so any times.
 
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"Possibly the new Lee powder drum might make a difference? I'm anxious to see what others have to say about it."

I bought the Auto Drum and use it with the Lee Classic Turret. It is my first press mounted powder measure. I know lots of people like the disc powder drops but I could never warm up to them.

The drum design makes a lot more sense to me. I took mine apart when it arrived and washed the actuating mechanism in very hot water, let it dry, and then reassembled it using the "small" drum. It throws very, very consistent charges for 40 S&W (HS-6 powder), 221 Fireball (Reloader #7 powder) and 223 Rem (H-4895 powder). I have yet to swap out the small drum for the large drum. I'm considering a second Auto Drum for large drum use simply because the current configuration works so well I don't want to take it apart.

i really like the adjustable drum and it is very repeatable. I did see a difference in charge weights depending on method of use. If I take the auto indexing rod out of the turret press and use the press in single stage mode I get slightly lighter charges than if I leave the index rod in and allow the powder to settle via the indexing motion. This is more evident with longer extruded powders than with ball powders.

rebs - if you are considering the Auto Drum my advice is - go for it. You will not be disappointed.
 
Thank you guys for the replies. I have decided to save a bit more money and buy the Hornady LNL AP. From everything I have read it is the most bang for the buck with the least amount of doing mods and upgrades. I believe it will speed up my reloading with a bullet completed with every pull of the handle.
 
There is another approach.

It odes not cut down on handling but it does on moving dies around.

When I got into reloading I had a RCBS Junior, good for pistol loading, ok for rifle which I did not do a lot of.

At some point I got a nice combo set on sale of RCBS Rockchucker.


I sometimes use the junior for bullet seating while using the Rock Chucker for sizing.

Setting up two single presses speeds things up, a bit more bench space used.

Mine have nuts under them so I can pull a press and leave the bench clear.

I have another station with the powder charger setup that gets moved off when I am done.

If you have a dedicated bench or can have back to back benches you can get it to work well. It seems to me the fiddling with the progressive only works for one load and setup and not worth it for the 30 to 50 rounds batches I do.
 
I have enjoyed reloading for almost 35 years but with getting older comes arthritis with sore joints etc.. Having to pull the handle 4 times to reload one 45acp is not so enjoyable any more. If I load 100 rounds it takes 400 handle pulls so I figure with a progressive I can get a loaded round each time I pull the handle. Not only speeding up the reloading time but drastically reducing how many times I have to pull the handle. The main cartridges I reload are 45acp and 223 Remington with only a few 38 and 357 mag.
In your opinions am I thinking right with a progressive press ?
 
Rebs you are thinking right. With my LNL, I get so much done with so little effort. You don't have to go fast with a progressive, either.
You can pull the handle,
Remove the case and check your powder drop,
check your primer seating,
check your bullet seating,
check your crimp,
take a sip of beer,
and pull the handle again.

The progressive does not have to add stress as it moves only as fast as you want it to. I absolutely love mine and now my Rock chucker gathers dust except when I use it to deprime military brass.
 
Here is what I have been doing reloading on a RCBS single stage press. I prep the brass then size and deprime, then use a hand held RCBS primer tool and prime them while watching TV. When I am ready to load them I put the cases in a loading blocknd add powder to them all with an RCBS uniflo powder dump and seat the bullet on the press.
Click to expand...

That is my exact process; with my RCBS single stage ("RS2"). Been doing it that way for 31 years. Now this year, I got a Dillon BL550 progressive. But I still hand prime on the couch and charge with my Uniflow via loading blocks. And although I'm not using the progressive in its most conventional (and efficient) way, it still saves me a lot of press strokes.

I recommend a Dillon progressive.

I do not and can not see the appeal of a turret press. Nor can I see how it saves an appreciable amount of time - no matter how many times folks have tried to rationalize it for me. It's still a "one press stroke, one operation performed" press - unlike a progressive. I understand it saves time loading and unloading the case into the shell holder, but whoopie-doo. That pales in comparison to multiple operations in one press stroke.
 
Here is the appeal to me.
Lee 4-hole turret press cost me maybe $200 to get up n running for the 2-3 most popular pistol calibers I reload for, not including the dies I already owned. I did get the auto-disk and the powder-thru expanding dies. Yes, this does not spit out a loaded round every pull but it's hands down faster than the single-stage. (especially when you want to crank out a couple hundred rounds of pistol ammo.) L-N-L AP, dillion or other are VERY nice setups. Setups that cost hundreds of dollars more than my cheapie LEE. Also they take up more bench space and cost quite a bit more to add another caliber to the mix. A fully optioned L-N-L AP with bullet feeders and all that could cost more than some of my best shooting guns. Money saved (and then spent on other worthless crap, oh well..) rant over.
 
Even though I own three Dillons, I can see the appeal of the turret because my first press was an Lyman Spar-T turret press. It had no auto-indexing, but for pistol loading I found it faster than a single stage because I didn't have to change and check die setup for every session with .45 Auto. The turret also made short runs of load work-ups a little easier to do. My Forster Co-ax press does much the same thing, but without involving a turret. I do have to physically pop the dies in and out, but it's a lot faster than having to change dies using threads and verify setup as on a single-stage, so, again, it encourages small experiments.

Since the die turret rotates while the cartridge stays in place, it let's the user examine powder level and everything else more closely for each round. That can help a beginner, especially, to keep attention on each step of the process.

The Lee Classic Turret lets you keep dies set up in a removable turret shell holder plate, same as your 550B does, making changing calibers quicker than a single-stage. You just pop the dies and a different shell holder in and swap the primer seating ram, if you use that. If you want to load for four or five guns in one evening, that quick caliber change is a plus.

The advantage also depends on lot size. If you load 1000 rounds, time spent changing dies gets less significant, but time spent popping cases in and out of the shell holder adds up. Anyway, the turret is a slower but less expensive alternative to a single stage than the progressive. An in between solution that costs an in between price, so I think it is a case getting what you pay for. For the plinking shooter who likes to take three or four guns to the range each trip, but not shoot a mountain of ammo through any one of them, it might be about the right speed.
 
Here is how I would load 1,000 pieces of 223 ammo:

Clamp an RCBS Partner press to a 2x4 or 2x6 board with sheet rock screws and washers.

Clamp the board to the sturdiest table or bench I can get next to the TV.

Deprime with Lee depriming die.

Rub Imperial sizing wax on the outside of the case or at least every third case.

Size in the press enough to push the shoulder back 0.001"
In 7/8-14 die thread, that is an adjustment of
1/14= 0.071" thread pitch
[.001"/.071"] [360 degrees in a circle] = 5 degrees
If the die is a clock, that is rotating it less than a minute. I can barely see that small. Sneek up on it.
Do not use the expander ball stem.

Prime in the press.

Pick up a case, charge it with powder, seat a bullet, drop the loaded round in an ammo box. No loading tray needed, cause I don't set it down until done.
Label the ammo box so well that people call me a NAZI.

This is going to take hours of watching tv. The Fargo series is good.
 
Agreed on the turret press, NickCS. I don't understand the appeal.
Click to expand...

If what you're upgrading from is a Lee Pro 1000 (like I did), the Classic Turret is a heck of a lot less frustrating. Spending on a Dillon is not in the cards.
 
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