A Turret Press that works??

Thanks to everyone for the great advice and insights!
Got my shipping notice from LEE yesterday. All spare parts are on their way. Parts were free (no matter the qty)
I think lubing the turret head and replacing the guide rod bushing are going to fix me right up. Again, appreciate the help!
 
Well, I've officially tried all the tricks. I'm going to call it a loss and buy a turret press that I can spend more time reloading on than indexing manually and replacing nylon parts, holy smokes.. thanks again for all of the tips and tricks to try out.
 
y'know , it strikes me that there's a LOT of people that don't read, figure things out for themselves, or SHOULDN'T BE RELOADING in the first place- 9/10s if the time it's not the press, but the OPERATOR-if something goes wrong, they want to throw the press in the garbage- WRONG ATTITUDE- I approach reloading like I do tying flies- slow and methodical- if something goes wrong, STOP, figure out what it is, fix it and THEN carry on- I've taken days to tie a fly b/c it didn't "look" right - think of reloading like baking- from scratch, not a mix- if u can cook, you can reload
hey I just hit 10k posts- where's my GOAT?
 
t-star said:
y'know , it strikes me that there's a LOT of people that don't read, figure things out for themselves, or SHOULDN'T BE RELOADING in the first place- 9/10s if the time it's not the press, but the OPERATOR-if something goes wrong, they want to throw the press in the garbage- WRONG ATTITUDE- I approach reloading like I do tying flies- slow and methodical- if something goes wrong, STOP, figure out what it is, fix it and THEN carry on- I've taken days to tie a fly b/c it didn't "look" right - think of reloading like baking- from scratch, not a mix- if u can cook, you can reload
hey I just hit 10k posts- where's my GOAT?
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Hi T-star, yes I do hear you. I'm the first to look at what I'm doing (or not doing) properly. I've tried varying the way I'm working the press, making sure I'm consistent on my strokes etc. Honestly, the indexing on my particular press is very inconsistent no matter what I do. I noticed that it is wearing through the nylon indexing rod guides really quickly. There isn't much to these presses. I don't belive that the metal indexing rod and nylon rod guide are the best combination for both wear and consistency. Being this is my first turret press I do not have any comparison to go by. Social media is very helpful in determining issues such as this that others have already experienced the same issues and you can reach a resolution more quickly instead of trial and error until you find the issue. Just as social media has allowed you to express your opinion on this subject. I was warned that some Lee equipment works but will always require a level of "tinkering" to make it consistent, so I do take some of the blame here. I don't however agree with your statement that some people shouldn't reload in the first place, that kind of statement is actually the wrong attitude. Most reloaders I have encountered here on CGN are extremely positive and offer up any help and tips they can to help a new reloader improve their reloading experience. Although I do not tie flies for fishing, I have baked from scratch so I think I can get where you are going here:) At this point in my life time is scarce, I take the time to ensure safety is a priority and to make sure I am correctly following the guidelines of my reloading manuals, second to that, I want to be reloading ammunition, not figuring out why the nylon parts on my brand new press are wearing out too quickly. In saying that, thank you for sharing your opinions.
 
BobbyG, FWIW, I reloaded on a single-stage for over 20 years, rifle ammo only though. I got into pistols two years ago, realized the very first time I tried reloading some pistol ammo on the Rockchucker that progressive was the way to go.

I considered the Lee Turret briefly because it was cheaper, but the idea of having to spin something four times and pull a lever four times just to make one loaded round didn't sit well with me. One spin, one pull, one round is much, much more efficient.

I ponied up the dough and got a 550b with the stand and a few conversion kits. It paid for itself within the first 6 months! I drank the kool-aid and I recommend you do too, blue or red seem to be the tastiest!
 
Bobbyg00 said:
Well, I've officially tried all the tricks. I'm going to call it a loss and buy a turret press that I can spend more time reloading on than indexing manually and replacing nylon parts, holy smokes.. thanks again for all of the tips and tricks to try out.
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Your woe's are baffling to me, iv had my rotary Classic Cast for ten yrs or so, loaded hundreds upon hundreds of rounds on it and have never had a hick-up of any kind. I had 3 Dillons (2 650 and a 550) and consider my Lee as my "never sell" press. Really..not wishing to be 'cheeky" or anything but if you can't "troubleshoot" a Lee rotary, anything else might be beyond your mechanical ability as well.
 
fingers284 said:
Your woe's are baffling to me, iv had my rotary Classic Cast for ten yrs or so, loaded hundreds upon hundreds of rounds on it and have never had a hick-up of any kind. I had 3 Dillons (2 650 and a 550) and consider my Lee as my "never sell" press. Really..not wishing to be 'cheeky" or anything but if you can't "troubleshoot" a Lee rotary, anything else might be beyond your mechanical ability as well.
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Yep, I hear ya. Really nothing to these presses. I'll take the other side of the coin and ask, why do I need to "troubleshoot" a new press? I don't find satisfaction in the fact that I need to tune a pull and a push to just the most precise motion to have the press work. Pull the handle in an even motion, push the handle in an even motion = on to the next step. Maybe that's just too easy by the feedback.
 
Prairie Plinker said:
BobbyG, FWIW, I reloaded on a single-stage for over 20 years, rifle ammo only though. I got into pistols two years ago, realized the very first time I tried reloading some pistol ammo on the Rockchucker that progressive was the way to go.

I considered the Lee Turret briefly because it was cheaper, but the idea of having to spin something four times and pull a lever four times just to make one loaded round didn't sit well with me. One spin, one pull, one round is much, much more efficient.

I ponied up the dough and got a 550b with the stand and a few conversion kits. It paid for itself within the first 6 months! I drank the kool-aid and I recommend you do too, blue or red seem to be the tastiest!
Click to expand...

I have several presses now. A beefy single stage for doing all the "dirty" work like pulling bullets and full length resizing. A Lee turret for pistol and most of my rifle, and I am just in the middle of getting a Redding T-7 with competition dies for my .223 and .308. In the past I also had a Dillon XL 650. While the single stage is incredibly simple to use and solid, for reloading handgun ammo it is just not the way to go. I keep the Lee turret for that.

My first buy I thought was going to be my last, an XL650 with all the bells and whistles. The learning curve is steep, and a screw-up at one stage is a screw-up that can, and a lot of times does, carry through to following stages making for a 'fun' time sorting out the disaster. The worst is when a primer gets missed and soon after there is H-110 gunpowder everywhere. It can take an hour to disassemble everything, clean it up and get it back to the stage that you are making ammo consistently again. They are wonderful presses and while most screw-ups are user error and with experience can be easily avoided, there are still some which creep in to make a reloading session less than amusing.

So saying, I bought a Lee turret to make .308 rifle ammo although I never used the auto-indexing feature. I'd just hand rotate the turret to the die I required and made up 50 or 100 at each stage. It is easy to maintain consistency when repeating the same process and with care there is little to no chance for user error.

Within a short time I decided to give the Lee turret a go for 45ACP as well, bought dies and a turret, stuck in the indexing rod and fiddle farted around until it worked perfectly. A year later the XL650 had been sold and I had a couple more turrets and die sets to reload my other handgun ammo, mainly .357 and .44 mag which I had been doing on the Dillon. While I could run about 300-500 rounds per hour on average through the XL650, I found I could do about 150 rounds of auto-indexed pistol ammo through the Lee turret which suited my handgun reloading needs perfectly.

Over the past several years I have been getting involved in more precision long range rifle shooting and I am taking it to the next level with the Redding gear on the ammo front.

Now, I know this isn't helping you out with your difficulties with the Lee press but it really is pretty straightforward to adjust and get working perfectly. There are only two really frustrating parts on it. One is the little square nylon bushing. If it needs replacing, and it will every 2000 to 3000 rounds, it MUST go in the correct way. Damned if I can remember which way that is without it in front of me. At the same time you have the clamping assembly off to change out the indexing ratchet, make sure everything inside is 100% clean. Blow it out with about 50-60 lbs of air. No oil, powder, dust, dirt, etc. Carefully and firmly clean the indexing bar with some WD40 and a clean rag to remove any gunk which may have slowly built up over time. Put it back together with the bolt done up just firmly enough to hold the assembly in position. Too tight and it warps, too loose and it twists and turns a bit in use which makes for indexing grief, either not aligning properly or jamming on the indexing bar. The other part that I still have a bit of trouble with is the auto-prime feeder. Usually the last one or two primers will not feed. I have given up trying to adjust it. I just pop them out into my hand and manually put them into the priming cup.


Two items which will damage a Lee turret press:
1) short stroking. Make sure the arm goes all the way to the top and all the way to the bottom on each stroke. This ensures that little square black indexing ratchet will rotate freely when it has to.
2) manually trying to index the turret with the arm not fully raised (ram lowered). Basically another version of the above, almost guaranteed to damage the indexing ratchet.
 
rick357 said:
I have several presses now. A beefy single stage for doing all the "dirty" work like pulling bullets and full length resizing. A Lee turret for pistol and most of my rifle, and I am just in the middle of getting a Redding T-7 with competition dies for my .223 and .308. In the past I also had a Dillon XL 650. While the single stage is incredibly simple to use and solid, for reloading handgun ammo it is just not the way to go. I keep the Lee turret for that.

My first buy I thought was going to be my last, an XL650 with all the bells and whistles. The learning curve is steep, and a screw-up at one stage is a screw-up that can, and a lot of times does, carry through to following stages making for a 'fun' time sorting out the disaster. The worst is when a primer gets missed and soon after there is H-110 gunpowder everywhere. It can take an hour to disassemble everything, clean it up and get it back to the stage that you are making ammo consistently again. They are wonderful presses and while most screw-ups are user error and with experience can be easily avoided, there are still some which creep in to make a reloading session less than amusing.

So saying, I bought a Lee turret to make .308 rifle ammo although I never used the auto-indexing feature. I'd just hand rotate the turret to the die I required and made up 50 or 100 at each stage. It is easy to maintain consistency when repeating the same process and with care there is little to no chance for user error.

Within a short time I decided to give the Lee turret a go for 45ACP as well, bought dies and a turret, stuck in the indexing rod and fiddle farted around until it worked perfectly. A year later the XL650 had been sold and I had a couple more turrets and die sets to reload my other handgun ammo, mainly .357 and .44 mag which I had been doing on the Dillon. While I could run about 300-500 rounds per hour on average through the XL650, I found I could do about 150 rounds of auto-indexed pistol ammo through the Lee turret which suited my handgun reloading needs perfectly.

Over the past several years I have been getting involved in more precision long range rifle shooting and I am taking it to the next level with the Redding gear on the ammo front.

Now, I know this isn't helping you out with your difficulties with the Lee press but it really is pretty straightforward to adjust and get working perfectly. There are only two really frustrating parts on it. One is the little square nylon bushing. If it needs replacing, and it will every 2000 to 3000 rounds, it MUST go in the correct way. Damned if I can remember which way that is without it in front of me. At the same time you have the clamping assembly off to change out the indexing ratchet, make sure everything inside is 100% clean. Blow it out with about 50-60 lbs of air. No oil, powder, dust, dirt, etc. Carefully and firmly clean the indexing bar with some WD40 and a clean rag to remove any gunk which may have slowly built up over time. Put it back together with the bolt done up just firmly enough to hold the assembly in position. Too tight and it warps, too loose and it twists and turns a bit in use which makes for indexing grief, either not aligning properly or jamming on the indexing bar. The other part that I still have a bit of trouble with is the auto-prime feeder. Usually the last one or two primers will not feed. I have given up trying to adjust it. I just pop them out into my hand and manually put them into the priming cup.


Two items which will damage a Lee turret press:
1) short stroking. Make sure the arm goes all the way to the top and all the way to the bottom on each stroke. This ensures that little square black indexing ratchet will rotate freely when it has to.
2) manually trying to index the turret with the arm not fully raised (ram lowered). Basically another version of the above, almost guaranteed to damage the indexing ratchet.
Click to expand...

Hi rick357, great info and thank you for your time. I will definitely take the nylon pieces apart and clean them thoroughly. I will also check my screw tension on the indexing rod "bushing guide?" I may actually have snugged it up a little tight. I did speak with Lee tech support today and the technician emphasized that if the turret short strokes, when holding the indexing rod with the 1/4" wrench, only turn the turret half of the distance to the proper landing position as anymore will likely cause the turret to overshoot. Although I do not get a lot of overshoot on the turret, it does short stroke often but I had been adjusting the turret the full length of what it was short so I do think that the 1/2 adjustment will make a difference. I don't remember reading that in the manual. I know I just need a little more patience with the equipment which is at times hard for me to remember.
Thanks to people such as yourself I have gained a lot of insight on how to diagnose this turret press (and others by the sound of it). Thanks again!
 
I've loaded 10,000 plus rifle rounds on my Lee classic cast turret. It's work flawlessly for years.

I also own a Lyman Tmag which is also great just not as fast. I like them both but I won't ever get rid of my Lee press.
 
I love my Lee Classic Turret as well. Not unusual for me to load 500 rifle rounds per week on it. Always reliable. I agree with the comment that a turret may not be for everyone.
Every time you automate any feature on a press, you complicate the system, and need to be able to troubleshoot them. And this just isn't the strong suit for everyone, and perhaps a single stage is more appropriate for those folks.
Personally I could never go back to a single stage, but lots of folks love them for their simplicity. And prefer reloading at a more leisurely pace.
 
Redding T-7 turret press is the Rolls Royce of the turret world. I dearly love my Dillon and RCBS gear, but if I could only choose a turret, the Redding is my choice everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.
 
One tip that I learned from a tech at Lee was this: Take bolts out of the top plate and drill the holes in it out a size or two - this allows lining up the top plate with the ram perfectly as the bolts are retightened. Sometimes they don't line up correctly from factory. He said that I could send it in and they would drill it out if I didn't want to do it at home - if my turret didn't line up with the ram.

Sometimes a little crud builds up in the ram, preventing the shell holder from seating back far enough in the slot.

Sometimes a little crud builds up in the shell holder, preventing cases from seating fully in the holder - again, causing mis-alignment.

See if taking the advancing rod out and turning it by hand for a few loads will let things line up right - maybe the detent ball isn't coming out far enough to lock it positively?

For other Lee Classic Turret fellows : I liked my Rockchucker press only because it went overcenter at the top of the stroke - so I ground the stops off my Lee press so it does the same. When it resizes for instance, then goes over center and drops a little, the return stroke goes back up and hits it again before coming down. When it goes over center like that, there is no question that it has completed the stroke, bringing the shoulder back the right amount.

I shortened the press lever up a lot in the clamp - and turned it so that when seating primers, my hand is half on the press and half on the lever - squeezing the primer in with hand-squeeze for better feel, rather than arm strength heaving against the bench.

Lee is for guys that grew up makin' do or doin' without. We is jus' glad for havin' anythin'.
 
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