progressive press or single stage ?

what I meant was can you load the powder off press for when you are doing load development and want to change the powder charge is small increments ?
 
Not easily, but, what you can do is "unplug" the powder measure, leaving the die in place. Weigh or measure off press then just pour the pre-measured charge into the top where the meter would have sat with the ram fully raised.
 
what I meant was can you load the powder off press for when you are doing load development and want to change the powder charge is small increments ?
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Sure, just leave the measure empty and remove and replace the case. At the "powder station". I use powder through expanders on pistol rounds so I would leave the measure on so the case gets belled, if I were going to do it that way.

When I work up a load I take my press with me after setting the measure at a starting load. Then keep turning up the measure until I get the velocity I am looking for.

Saves hours over loading a few of everything and I never have to break down loaded ammunition that I didn't use. Kind of the same reasons I went with progressive presses to begin with.

3533895716_0a7f11a958.jpg
 
Being a newb myself, I asked and listened to these good peoples advice. I started with a LEE 4 hole turret, and run it single stage until I am sure of my loads/equipment.
 
Not easily, but, what you can do is "unplug" the powder measure, leaving the die in place. Weigh or measure off press then just pour the pre-measured charge into the top where the meter would have sat with the ram fully raised.
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Or, just pop the case out of the shellplate after the priming station, dump your powder, then replace it. There's no press that makes it easier to remove and replace brass than the LNL- it's just held in with a spring.

I always spot-check (weigh metered charges) about every ten to fifteen rounds when loading large quantities. Drop the charge, pop out the case, weigh it, replace it.

I plan on getting an RCBS Chargemaster- at which point I'll be doing just what you suggested; funneling in the weighed charge at the station that currently houses the meter.
 
Or, just pop the case out of the shellplate after the priming station, dump your powder, then replace it. There's no press that makes it easier to remove and replace brass than the LNL- it's just held in with a spring.
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Same thing on the 650 @ the powder charge station.
 
Tobnpr said it best.

It's really easy to pop the case out of the shellplate when you want to do your powder charges off-press. Or, you can take the powder measure off and put it back on the press very easily, so you could leave the powder measure off of the press and batch load just as tobnpr described with no real effort.
 
Times have changed, but, in years past, I found that a Lyman turret press was no good for reloading CF rifle cartridges as the turret, in order to be loose enough to turn easily would flex too much during resizing. Hence, I always stuck with the single stage press.

About 28 years ago, I did have the opportunity to reload for a fellow who sold at guns shows. He had 4 Dillon 1050s which were very impressive, but my take on them was that they were only good for pistol calibres.

Bottom line is what kind of reloading are you going to do? If it's several hundred pistol rounds for a weekend's blasting, then the progressive is your choice. If you're reloading, for example, .30-06 or .308, then the single stage is your best bet.
 
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I believe that using a progressive press that eliminates a lot of possible errors as it is automatically run from station to station is safer to use than a single stage that involves charging and working with your ammo in blocks of fifty. The more ammo you run, the more prone you may be to errors in a single stage, so you may be far safer over your lifetime using a full progressive. I couldn't run 223 on a progressive, it wouldn't work for me. you are probably looking at 2-3 hours a week on single stage, depending on how quickly you work, maybe half that with a progressive. using a turret would cut a few minutes off of your single stage time use.

If i was in your situation, this is how I would work. I would load in bulk on weekends, 500 lots.

The way I work is I keep a huge stockpile of brass. I take a container of several hundred, and work it through stages.
Clean.
deprime/size.
expand.
using fifty round blocks, I then..
charge
load and crimp.

I always have huge quantities of loaded ammo on hand, because I load in huge blocks, and when I shoot, everything goes into a great big unsorted pile until I feel like cleaning it and sorting it. It's not as disorganized as it sounds. Right at this minute I'm doing bulk resizing on 9mm. almost a thousand, i guess, by how heavy it feels. about ten pounds. When I'm done, I will expand, then tumble lightly again. I use an rcbs hand primer, and only prime them as I need them, taking only a few minutes per block of fifty that I plan on loading.

Since you are not planning on shooting HUGE numbers of rounds, but steady and large numbers, this may be a more efficient way of working than a progressive would be. It works well for me.
 
since i wrote the last post, I processed a one quart bin of 9mm brass through my sizing die. just about a full quart, about 4-500 rounds of brass, what, about 5 seconds per stroke on average? excluding the time spent on cleaning and inspecting, set up, or other times, the entire process of loading an ordinary centerfire pistol of pretty much any type will take about thirty seconds start to finish, something in the area of 30-45 minutes to run 100 rounds. loading single stage in bulk is where you save all of your time, by never changing any of your settings, dies, chargers, etc... throughout the whole process of 1,000 or 500 rounds. That's pretty much it. I tend to use up whatever number of bullets I have on hand producing as many loaded rounds as I can, if I'm just using leisure ammunition. I've got a good load for all of my rifles, and same with them, if I get a box of 100, i put 100 rounds into the boxes.
 
Times have changed, but, in years past, I found that a Lyman turret press was no good for reloading CF rifle cartridges as the turret, in order to be loose enough to turn easily would flex too much during resizing. Hence, I always stuck with the single stage press.
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I've had two Lyman presses. I know what you are talking about, when the turret flexes outward. I believe that you are making an error. That cartridge is pressed flat into the die by the flat surface of the shell holder. There is an insignificant amount of torque applied and that die goes off axis a few hundredths of an inch, but that only happens during the resize phase, and there is enough play in the shell holder that the cartridge itself is not subjected to any deforming forces.

It seems like a bad idea, but that's not a problem. If you would run identical once fired brass through your two presses, using the same dies and loads, label the boxes only A and B, I'm pretty certain that you couldn't find a clear difference out to even 3-400 yards, assuming that you put the same degree of effort into setting up both presses for accurate loading.

This is similar to the argument that comes up about people wanting to "cam over" on the steps done on the presses. When the shellholder has reached the top of the die, that's it. Crushing the die any harder does nothing at all. That cartridge has several thousandths clearance, and nothing that can be done from the outside of that locked shellholder and die unit would alter the cartridge unit that is locked inside it.
 
About 28 years ago, I did have the opportunity to reload for a fellow who sold at guns shows. He had 4 Dillon 1050s which were very impressive, but my take on them was that they were only good for pistol calibres.
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The RL's would only do pistol and 223. The Super can do longer rifle rounds but you still have to make two passes as the size and trim dies won't fit on the tool head at the same time as the other dies needed.

Even with two passes it is still much quicker than anything else I have used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La83ZVKnBzw
 
I read that even with the Dillon full length carbide dies for .223,lube is still required. It's hard to imagine any bottleneck cartridge being particularly easy to load under any circumstances. Loading a few thousands of.223 h as never turned out anything to make it much easier.
 
Yes, you have to lube rifle cases in Dillon's carbide dies, not an issue for me because I lube all cases. I loaded for 20 years before I tried lube on pistol cases, now I won't load without it. Post load tumble in corncob for 15 min removes the lube.

Once your setup rifle is not a lot different than pistol just two passes.

The press mounted trimmer saves a lot of time, under an hour to size and trim 1500 cases.

trimmer.jpg


Loading them is the video in the post above yours.
 
Carbide dies are relatively new, in the past, every case was lubed. Reloaders today have no idea how easy they have it. guys used to spend whole weekends putting together ammo. only the really wealthy would or could put together a serious rotary tumbler. lube, size, clean your pistol cases, doing it all by hand, etc, and now, if a person chooses to, there are even progressive presses that will feed bullets and cases automatically. It's a machine.

OTOH, it's ironic that thirty or so years ago, I was paying $15-20 a box for match wadcutter 38, and now, wth? I can get 9mm for half of that price?

there's something really fascnating about looking at the changes that took place over 30-40 years. I have a DUPONT 4350 can from maybe 1979-80 that still has the place of purchase and price tag on it, price was only $13.

Folks, we're really not doing that badly in some aspects. I sure wish that i could get a fine rifle for an equivalent price. Sure, I can pick up a walmart grade thing for about as much as I paid for my first .243, but browning isn't quite the same thing. some of my greatest regrets are all of the fine things I have passed up on that are absolutely out of range now.
 
My first press was a Dillon 550. Second was a Lee Turret. Third was a Lee Single Stage Challenger, 4th was another turret. Fifth was another 550. Have and use all but the turrets. Sold or gave them away. Too much slop. Felt cheap to me. But, my first was a progressive. What im saying is that it is hogwash about starting on a single stage. What is more important is to collect and read some manuals. Once you've gained an understanding of the process, techniques, etc., you can use any press.

It is a matter if personal choice. I went with what I thought was the best and what fit my needs. I've no regrets.

Uncle Chan
 
I went to Cabelas yesterday and bought the Hornady LNL AP. I will be setting it up today, most everything about setting it up is common sense to me since I have been using a single stage press for a long time and know the basics.
One thing in the video is they want you to use Hornady one shot cleaner and dry lube to clean preservative out of the new powder measure. I am thinking this is going to be a great press.
As another poster said about the Lee Classic Turret seeming very light and not having much beef to it, that was my opinion also. I might be wrong since so many people use them. My reason for wanting a progressive was getting one loaded round with every pull of the handle and the Lee doesn't do it. I did look at the Dillon presses but the square deal doesn't do rifle, I load a lot of 223. The 550 isn't auto indexing and the 650xl is more expensive than the Hornady.
So for me it seemed the Hornady was the way to go, I bought the press for $408.00 and three shell plates for $30.00 each. Cabelas gave me a veterans discount of 5% and I had some Cabelas gift cards to use.
 
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I used brake cleaner to clean out my new LNL powder measure. The brake cleaner did attack the red finish a little, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Any degreaser will work to take the oil off.

Have fun setting your press up! I had mine working within a few hours. Nothing is tricky and the videos are a good guide.
 
I cannot find the hornady cleaner and dry lube locally so I am going to use birchwood casey synthetic spray cleaner degreaser and then lube with some powdered graphite.
 
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