A newbie asks for opinion on presses

V

VinnyQC

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
11   0   0
Location
Quebec city
The newbie in question is me :)

So, I read through a couple of thread here about quality of Dillon and Lee, and I think there is a consensus on "Don't touch a Lee Pro 1000, even with a 10 feet pole". I guess those things have cholera or something.

Anyway, Amazon.ca sells the "Lee Precision Load-Master 45 Reloading Pistol Kit" for about 400$. the Pro 1000 is about 275$. All I can tell is by looking at the pictures: Comparing the pro 1000 to the loadmaster seems to me like comparing a Honda Fit to an F150: one is a tiny box of aluminum and the other a massive piece of steel. But to be honest, I have no clue.

So does anyone have used the loadmaster? Is it as bad as the Pro 1000? I just read the "How I spent my Winter and Then Some" article from acrashb, and it would seem like the loadmaster is the worst of the 3, but the best quality/price ratio, given that the Hornady is 2X the price, and who knows how much a Dillon even costs.

Right now I don't plan on making that many ammos. I think maybe 1000 to 2000 per year. And right now it's gonna be .45acp only, maybe I'll add 9mm sometimes later, but I don't even own a 9mm yet. I plan on shooting very limited quantity of rifle (less than 100/year, different calibres), so buying factory bullets will probably be the way to go, just the dies would probably cost me many years of what I'll shoot.

i thought about buying a single stage, but damn it looks tedious, especially managing open casings full of powder. I easily see myself dropping a tray of 50 bullets full of powder. And even though something like a Lee Reloader Single Stage Press (71$) might be the "right" press for me given it's price and my limited amount of ammos production, I just don't see myself making 50 ammos per hour. My day job pays me enough that I can just work one extra hour and buy a box of 50 rounds.

Looking forward for infos and opinions from anyone who owns (or has previously owned) a loadmaster.
 
do a little more research and you'll find lee isn't all that bad- I have 3 1000 a turret, a dillion 550 and a loadmaster: the loadmaster is used for revolvers, 1000 for automatics, and the dillion not hardly at all b/c on the manual indexing- 308/338 only- sure there's tricks to setting up the 1000, and most of these guys beef have only bought the 1, haven't the time or inty to take the time find out or simply won't be told-like saying all chevys are bad b/c u bought a chevette
 
redruns said:
For upwards of 2000 rounds per year, you might even consider a turret press of any make.
Click to expand...

I said I was a newb, so here it goes: What's the difference between a turret press and a progressive such as the loadmaser? Just looking at pictures on amazon (Lyman Reloading Press T-Mag Turret, 255$ vs Lee loadmaster .45acp, 375$) and they more or less seem the same to my untrained eyes, but the lyman will end up a lot more expensive after I buy the powder measure (120$), dies and shell plate (60$).

What am I missing?
 
Some of your pricing isn't correct. Look at the prices from Budget Reloading in the link at the top of the page.

There are three types of presses. Single stage, turret and progressive.

A single stage only holds one die at a time.

A turret holds more dies but only uses one at a time. The Lyman is a turret style. A turret press requires three or four pulls of the lever per round. Turret presses don't use shell plates that hold more than one piece of brass at a time. What you were looking at is called the die plate because it holds the dies. Turret presses use the single shell holder style button inserted into the end of the ram.

Progressive presses DO use shell plates and can hold as many pieces of brass at a time as there are positions on the die plate. The Classic 1000 holds three at a time. The Dillon Square Deal and 550 hold four at a time. The Lee Loadmaster, Dillon 650 and Hornady AP hold up to 5 dies at a time. These styles of press perform simultaneous operations at each die station during each pull. So for every pull and advance of the plate a loaded round falls into the hopper.

You Tube is your best friend for all this. In the search line on You Tube look up things like "single stage reloading press", "turret reloading press" and "progressive reloading press" and watch how they are used. Or look up specifc model names and watch the videos.
 
I'm completely new to reloading as well and ended up buying a used Dillon Square Deal B. I had some issues getting it to run correctly and there was some worn/missing parts that ended up being part of the issue. All I can say is based on my dealings with Dillon they've made me a customer for life. I called them and was up front that I had bought the machine used, no issue they talked me through every issue and shipped out all replacement parts without question free of charge. Their customer service is definitely invaluable in my mind.
 
VinnyQC said:
I said I was a newb, so here it goes: What's the difference between a turret press and a progressive such as the loadmaser? Just looking at pictures on amazon (Lyman Reloading Press T-Mag Turret, 255$ vs Lee loadmaster .45acp, 375$) and they more or less seem the same to my untrained eyes, but the lyman will end up a lot more expensive after I buy the powder measure (120$), dies and shell plate (60$).

What am I missing?
Click to expand...

The difference is production rate. A turret press (I have a Lee classic) does 1 operation at a time and then requires a stroke of the handle to progress and index to the next operation, so 4 pulls of the handle to complete 1 round of ammo. Progressive presses can do multiple operations at the same time (4 or 5 depending on brand) so they are much faster. Basically once it's set up, they produce 1 completed round with every pull of the handle.
If I hump it, I can do 200 rounds in an hour with my turret press, there are others on here that can do 1200+ with their progressives.

One benefit of the turret though is that it is extremely easy to change over for a different calibre by swapping turrets loaded with different dies. I currently load 4 different ones (9mm, .44mag, .308W & 5.56) now and am adding 2 more. And have done well over 10000 rounds in about a year. But the turret press can also be used as a single stage for loading small quantities of rifle ammo. Changing calibres on some progressives can get quite involved to the point where some people buy another press for a different calibre.
The larger cartridges are pretty easy but there are times when a progressive press to do 9mm becomes very tempting.
 
^^^Thats a great explanation, It all comes down to how much ammo you feel you need to produce in a length of time, and how much you want to pay to be able to produce it. The turret press produces all I need quite reasonably.
If your pounding out about 200 an hour I'd say you have it figured out pretty good. I'm doing about a 100 per hour just going easy while sitting in front of the tv.
 
Magellann said:
^^^Thats a great explanation, It all comes down to how much ammo you feel you need to produce in a length of time, and how much you want to pay to be able to produce it. The turret press produces all I need quite reasonably.
If your pounding out about 200 an hour I'd say you have it figured out pretty good. I'm doing about a 100 per hour just going easy while sitting in front of the tv.
Click to expand...

I can't keep up that rate for more than the first hour, most of the time 100 per is more like it. Otherwise it becomes too much like work.
 
the 650 can easily do 600 rounds an hour not even trying. (casefeeder, bullet feeder, primer filler). Now thats good.
 
VinnyQC said:
Thanks a lot guys. I'll see if reloading is even worth it for me. Your infos have been quite helpful.

Vinny
Click to expand...

Dirtybarry and Magellan are offering up pretty good numbers for turret press production. Back when my progressives were packed away due to moving I was forced to run a turret Lee press for a while. I got to where working in batches of 50 at a time I could size and flare on the press, prime using a hand primer, powder all 50 using a dipper from a tin of powder, CHECK THE POWDER LEVEL and then back to the press to seat and crimp the bullets. Working at a steady but not manic pace I found I was doing three batches of 50 in between 60 to 70 minutes. So around 140'ish rounds per hour give or take a few.

Because I found that I preferred to run each step for all 50 at a time if I were using the Lee turret press I'd have taken off the auto indexing parts and just used it as a hand switchable press like the Lyman is.

Is it' for you? That depends on how much you shoot and what you shoot. If you're shooting 9mm then you need to be shooting a pretty good amount per month to make reloading pay. But if you enjoy shooting even modest amounts of things like rifle or any of the magnum handgun ammo a reloading setup will pay for itself very quickly and after that you are loading and shooting at around half or less the cost of factory.

Look at the cost of components from Budget Shooter Supply. The link is up top on this page. Figure out what it costs per thousand for bullets, powder and primers. Powder is 7000 grains to the pound. Then divide that down to the cost per 50 or 20 depending on what you're shooting and see how much you save. From that you can figure out how much you would save on a per month basis. Take that and figure out how many months it would take to pay the $350 or so it would cost to buy the equipment for reloading.
 
BCRider said:
Dirtybarry and Magellan are offering up pretty good numbers for turret press production. Back when my progressives were packed away due to moving I was forced to run a turret Lee press for a while. I got to where working in batches of 50 at a time I could size and flare on the press, prime using a hand primer, powder all 50 using a dipper from a tin of powder, CHECK THE POWDER LEVEL and then back to the press to seat and crimp the bullets. Working at a steady but not manic pace I found I was doing three batches of 50 in between 60 to 70 minutes. So around 140'ish rounds per hour give or take a few.

Because I found that I preferred to run each step for all 50 at a time if I were using the Lee turret press I'd have taken off the auto indexing parts and just used it as a hand switchable press like the Lyman is.

Is it' for you? That depends on how much you shoot and what you shoot. If you're shooting 9mm then you need to be shooting a pretty good amount per month to make reloading pay. But if you enjoy shooting even modest amounts of things like rifle or any of the magnum handgun ammo a reloading setup will pay for itself very quickly and after that you are loading and shooting at around half or less the cost of factory.

Look at the cost of components from Budget Shooter Supply. The link is up top on this page. Figure out what it costs per thousand for bullets, powder and primers. Powder is 7000 grains to the pound. Then divide that down to the cost per 50 or 20 depending on what you're shooting and see how much you save. From that you can figure out how much you would save on a per month basis. Take that and figure out how many months it would take to pay the $350 or so it would cost to buy the equipment for reloading.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty much how I was gonna run the numbers. Throw it all into an excel spreadsheet and find out the difference in cost between new ammos or reloading myself. So far, if I use Campro bullets and cheapo primers from canada ammo, and casings are free, with powder at 35$/lb, I've pretty much come up with a rule of thumb on money: reloads cost half the price of new bullets for .45acp (which is what I'll shoot, as soon as my gun arrives anyway). That's not even counting the time and money required to clean the cases.

The reason I'm not sure it is for me is that I usually give my time some value. An opportunity cost if you will. For example, if my day job pays 60$/hour, so let's say 40$/hour after taxes, I need to make at least 80$ worth of ammos (.45acp) per hour to break even. At 30$/50, that's about 133 rounds per hour. If you guys, who actually know what you're doing, come up with 100-150 rounds/hour on a turret, I probably wouldn't do much more than 80. At least in the beginning.

So it really depends on your salary (someone retired or unemployed would make money right out of the gate, but Bill Gates would need to make like a gazilion of rounds per hour to match his income), but for me at least, I believe anything other than a progressive press would cost me more per round in lost income than just ordering a case from canadaammo, and working a couple extra hours. I know that not everyone can count like this, cause they work 8 hours or so pe day and that's it, but I have the chance that I can work from home anytime I want for how many hours I want.

I guess those who make large rifle rounds save a lot more than those who make pistol rounds.

Thanks for the infos on the production rate guys. I had no idea where to even begin before this thread.
 
VinnyQC said:
Yeah, that's pretty much how I was gonna run the numbers. Throw it all into an excel spreadsheet and find out the difference in cost between new ammos or reloading myself. So far, if I use Campro bullets and cheapo primers from canada ammo, and casings are free, with powder at 35$/lb, I've pretty much come up with a rule of thumb on money: reloads cost half the price of new bullets for .45acp (which is what I'll shoot, as soon as my gun arrives anyway). That's not even counting the time and money required to clean the cases.

The reason I'm not sure it is for me is that I usually give my time some value. An opportunity cost if you will. For example, if my day job pays 60$/hour, so let's say 40$/hour after taxes, I need to make at least 80$ worth of ammos (.45acp) per hour to break even. At 30$/50, that's about 133 rounds per hour. If you guys, who actually know what you're doing, come up with 100-150 rounds/hour on a turret, I probably wouldn't do much more than 80. At least in the beginning.

So it really depends on your salary (someone retired or unemployed would make money right out of the gate, but Bill Gates would need to make like a gazilion of rounds per hour to match his income), but for me at least, I believe anything other than a progressive press would cost me more per round in lost income than just ordering a case from canadaammo, and working a couple extra hours. I know that not everyone can count like this, cause they work 8 hours or so pe day and that's it, but I have the chance that I can work from home anytime I want for how many hours I want.

I guess those who make large rifle rounds save a lot more than those who make pistol rounds.

Thanks for the infos on the production rate guys. I had no idea where to even begin before this thread.
Click to expand...

I think you over value your spare time. If you're not doing anything productive at the time there is nobody paying you to reload your own stuff just like there is nobody paying you to watch TV.

There is no "cost" for reloading based upon or relative to your employment salary, because you are not working at the time. I charge over $1000 day and my employer charges the client double that much for my services. If I were to place that same hourly value on my spare time then I couldn't afford to shoot, period. So that's just silly.

OTOH, reloading is not for everyone and there is no reason to do something you don't like doing on your own time. Lots of people would be just as happy and content to shoot factory ammo exclusively, and that is ok too. It's your hobby and your spare time so do what works best for you. Just don't try to say your time is too valuable to reload, because that's not the case unless you have to take time off from work without pay to do your reloading.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom