New Lyman All-American press

S

stagpanther

New member
 
That should be a good buy. Its a much more conservative purchase than the RCBS, I cant imagine its much less quality. Would be good for precision rifle loading. I might want to set up my bolt action rifle calibers on one of these and keep my AR and pistol ammos on my Dillon 550
 
I believe you made a mistake, I would cancel the order if it were me.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand what would draw someone to a turret press that does not offer quickly replaced and low cost extra turrets.

Unless you only load two calibers and will only EVER load those two and will never add any more, I see absolutely no rational reason why anyone would choose this rig over a Lee Classic Turret.

Turrets for the LCT are what... $12 each? You could fill 10 of them with dies and swap turrets in less than two seconds.

The Lyman turret seems like it would be cutting edge technology... in 1958. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems like a very tough sell in this market.
 
believe you made a mistake, I would cancel the order if it were me.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand what would draw someone to a turret press that does not offer quickly replaced and low cost extra turrets.

Unless you only load two calibers and will only EVER load those two and will never add any more, I see absolutely no rational reason why anyone would choose this rig over a Lee Classic Turret.

Turrets for the LCT are what... $12 each? You could fill 10 of them with dies and swap turrets in less than two seconds.

The Lyman turret seems like it would be cutting edge technology... in 1958. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems like a very tough sell in this market.
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Not sure what you mean here--is the beef you have have to do with not being able to do a quick swap-out of turrets with the dies already positioned when loading multiple cartridges?
 
Haha, well I wouldn't say it is a beef...

Let's look at the benefits of a turret press over a single stage. With any turret press it's a fast click and you are now working with a different die. With the Lyman, you've got a big solid unit and it holds eight dies, that is a lot for sure! But that turret wasn't designed to be swapped out like a toolhead. With the Lee Classic Turret, each turret is a very low cost unit and you can add MANY, and literally pop them in and out in a moment.

Many love the LCT because it can also advance the turret, mimicking a poor-man's "progressive", I myself don't care for that advantage but many do. To me, the pure genius is fast swapping and ultra-low cost turrets.

Does Lyman even offer a second turret? And how much? Easy to swap?
 
By the time I'm done accurizing brass, bumping shoulders back etc. I've never used a "set-and-forget" die position anyway; the overwhelmingly compelling benefit of having a preloaded turret is a bit lost upon me--but then again I've never used one of any kind.
 
I've been reloading for 50 years on various single stage presses. Spotted an older Lyman A-A turret press at a flea market and bought it .
Not a bad press , great for doing handgun ammo, mine's set up for 38 Special. Each die is left adjusted , I do a batch of 50/100 , like it is a single stage , then move to the next die. Some think spinning the turret around and around doing one complete round at a time is the way to go but I don't like that method.
The new A-A's are beefier so should be better for rifle , 223 and such should be a snap for it. ...you don't state what you will be loading.
I always advise new guys that a good single stage press will always be useful. Lots of odd jobs, small lots and little things they are needed for. Some long rifle rounds benefit from the compound linkage when resizing .

The turret press main claim to fame is you can leave the dies adjusted, I got mine after all these years and like it just fine . I think you made an excellent choice .

Gary
 
I have to agree with Sevens. Lyman makes good products, but whoever makes product development decisions for them IMHO should retire. I guess there might be something out there that only uses two dies but, for the most part, rifle uses three and handgun uses three or, more often, four. At the moment, I reload for eight handgun cartridges, and before too long I expect to add 8mm Mauser into the mix. A non-indexing turret press that, at best, will only handle two cartridges without having to swap out dies simply holds zero attraction for me.

I use a Lee 4-station Turret press (the original, not the Classic), and it's so convenient that I've never bothered to set up the progressive press I have sitting in the crawlspace adjacent to my loading bench. Like the Classic, Lee's original Turret Press is auto-indexing, so after each step, when the handle is raised to retract the ram, the turret automatically advances to the next station. I have multiple turrets, all set up and ready to go. Changing to a different cartridge takes me longer to find the other turret than it does to make the swap. The actual changeover probably takes fifteen seconds.
 
By the time I'm done accurizing brass, bumping shoulders back etc. I've never used a "set-and-forget" die position anyway; the overwhelmingly compelling benefit of having a preloaded turret is a bit lost upon me--but then again I've never used one of any kind.
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Okay, even if you don't care to keep settings and adjustments on any of your dies (which honestly I find difficult to believe, do you load any straight wall handgun ammo at all?), you still have a lifetime limit of 8 spaces in the Lyman where the limit on swappable and low-cost turrets literally have no limit.

If you only load two calibers and no more, EVER, than yes, swappable turrets offers nothing over this Lyman press. If your entire handloading existence totals 8 or fewer dies, then the Lyman looks like a nice option.
 
My first press was the Lyman 6-hole turret and I still have and use it. Recently I was going to get either a Co-Ax press or a Redding T-7 turret press but when you consider the cost of the extra turrets (about $70) the T-7 can get very expensive. A friend gave me a Co-Ax press and, IMO, this is the way to go if you have a lot of dies. You only cry once with it's price but there is nothing else to buy. You're done. Dies change out in a few seconds and the accuracy is great.
 
The AA does have a swap-out turret head simply spin the lock nut on and off--though I've yet to find them available from a retailer--rather not pay the extra to go to Lyman directly.
 
I would find out how much they cost before investing in this press. It could wind up costing you way more than you thought.
 
I must be a contrarian as well. I saw it on sale for $192 and just love the meat to it. Turrets will be hard to find until this has a few cycles under its belt...but I’ve seen them priced as low as $42.91, though now out of stock. Nonetheless, it looks solid, and I love solid. I just wish they could come up with a solid ram prime die. I’m looking to obtain a solid loading bench this weekend, and one of these would like fine next to my Lock-n-Load Classic.

Good luck with your new purchase.
 
Turrets will be hard to find until this has a few cycles under its belt...but I’ve seen them priced as low as $42.91
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I just ordered a few extra from optics planet--almost as much as the press itself--but it's not going to upset my morning strudel if I have to swap dies out of the turrets on occasion. I don't like the idea of them drifting out of adjustment anyway--or the same bullet now has slightly different dimensions.
 
I don't see the need for extra turrets. I reload about a dozen pistol and rifle ctgs on the lyman turret press and once the dies are set are easy to screw into the press. I resize then prime separately using a hand held tool. I have Lymans excellent powder through expander dies so it throws powder(rcbs uniflow mounted on the die) and expands the the case at same time then I spin the turret to the next station and seat the bullet,last station crimps the ctgd. I can do 200 rounds in less than 2 hours depending on my mood(this is pistol of course, rifle is a bit different and takes longer due to trimming the cases)But hey to each his own....
 
gwpercle said:
I've been reloading for 50 years on various single stage presses. Spotted an older Lyman A-A turret press at a flea market and bought it .
Not a bad press , great for doing handgun ammo, mine's set up for 38 Special. Each die is left adjusted , I do a batch of 50/100 , like it is a single stage , then move to the next die. Some think spinning the turret around and around doing one complete round at a time is the way to go but I don't like that method.
The new A-A's are beefier so should be better for rifle , 223 and such should be a snap for it. ...you don't state what you will be loading.
I always advise new guys that a good single stage press will always be useful. Lots of odd jobs, small lots and little things they are needed for. Some long rifle rounds benefit from the compound linkage when resizing .

The turret press main claim to fame is you can leave the dies adjusted, I got mine after all these years and like it just fine . I think you made an excellent choice .

Gary
Click to expand...

I am absolutely in this camp. Only ever owned one turret press and it was a very good one I just couldn't get the hang of, sold it! Now I'm back to doing everything on my single stage and have a different set of dies for each rifle and each set to load for one rifle only! Works good for me!
 
I've been curious about that press.
I don't really need another, but, for some reason, the All American grabbed my attention.
I want to get my hands on one, in person, though.

Sevens said:
Unless you only load two calibers and will only EVER load those two and will never add any more, I see absolutely no rational reason why anyone would choose this rig over a Lee Classic Turret.
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May I offer my opinion and rationale?
I know this has been discussed further, since this initial post, but I wanted to go back to the original question.

For me, it's very simple: I hate Lee single-stage presses. I hate Lee turrets even more. I have mixed feelings about Lee progressives. (It's not all hate.)


And...
Some people don't need to swap all the time.
I've had 6x45mm dies in my Redding T-7 turret for ... five(?) years now. (Sizer, seater.)
I've had my .475 Tremor dies in the turret for three and a half years. (Sizer, seater.)
That leaves three holes for the flavor of the week.
The flavor of the week, however, has been .480 Ruger for the last 10 months, or so. (Sizer, expander, seater.)

When I need to crimp 6x45mm (rare, separate die), need to expand .475 Tremor (rare), or need to do anything else that requires another die and I don't want to mess with the turret, I just screw the die in the Rock Chucker. Very rarely, I might have something set up in the Rock Chucker that I don't want to mess with. In that case, I use the Pacific C-press on the end of the bench.
Worst case, if everything else has a die in it that I don't want to remove, I can grab the Lee hand press out of my die storage area and run that. -- I have never had to do such. (A positive Lee reference from me. Mark your calendars. ;))

Not long ago, I also had a Lyman T-Mag II turret press on the bench. But I never needed the extra capacity, and very, very rarely used it. So, I sold it.
(I also, for some reason, really didn't like that press. I don't know why. But the new owner loves it.)


I have very few cartridges that have a single, designated load that is the 'go-to' and gets reloaded regularly. More often than not, I'm loading something different each time I grab the dies for a given cartridge - they may be established loads, or even the 'go-to' load - but different than what the dies did the last time. As such, there isn't much point in having everything pre-set in their own turrets.

The only notable exceptions to the above are .475 Tremor and 6x45mm. I've been running the same bullets at the same COAL for quite some time now. The 6x45mm is a long-term resident due to the volume of fire. The .475 Tremor, because it's a bit of a beast for developing loads. (It took me three years to get a load worked up for just one bullet.)
9mm could also be a contender, but I loaded thousands of rounds of my 'standard load' just before I sold my Dillon 550B. So I'm good there ... for quite some time.
And the .480 Ruger is only a temporary resident of the turret, because it gets the .475 Tremor's 'sloppy seconds' (bullets that won't work there) and I've been establishing various loads for future use.


Some people say I'm wasting my life, one antiquated die change at a time, but I'm okay with that.
 
I just had a though for the guy's loving turret's that have a lot of rifles. Wouldn't it be great if someone made a turret press that held 50 different set's of dies at one time so you could switch from one set to another a lot faster? Seem's people want the press they can change dies and load the fastest with!
 
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