Best Turret Press for money??

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Bobbyg00

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Hi All,

Looking to purchase a turret press kit.
Was looking at Lee Classic turret kit. Sounds pretty decent and price is great.
I know everyone has their preference but the cost difference between Lee and some other presses is about half. I've spoken to a few Lee loaders and no issues.
What's your advise??

Thanks!
 
I use a RCBS turret, works good load 45, 303 and 300win mag, only issue is using a RCBS bullet puller old style when I tighten the collet it turns the turret, not a big deal just annoying, had this unit over a year now and would recommend this press
 
I don't know if any of us have used enough turret presses to say what is "best" however I've put about 6,000+ rounds through my Lee Classic Turret and its still like new. I have had few issues loading 9 mm, 45 ACP, 223, 22-250 and 308. The only issue I would indicate which is inherent in both turrets and progressive's is the seating of bullets in cases with light neck tension. In some cases, the pressure needed to seat the bullet is insufficient to remove the slack/slop in the press leading to inconsistent seating depth.

I think you will be happy with the press. If you go in this direction, look at some of Inline Fabrication's offerings for storing turret heads.
 
I use the Lyman T-Mag press and love it, I have found it solid and easy to work with. The only drawback would be the priming tubes that I hate but I stopped using those when I got the hand-primer and life is good! Amazon.ca has it on for $255, which is a fantastic deal.
 
laurencen said:
I use a RCBS turret, works good load 45, 303 and 300win mag, only issue is using a RCBS bullet puller old style when I tighten the collet it turns the turret, not a big deal just annoying, had this unit over a year now and would recommend this press
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Hows the spent primer catch? I read it can be problematic and jam up the press
 
AFAIK Lee is the only company that has an auto indexing turret press. The other company turret presses are manually indexed.

I was given a bunch of Lee gear by a helpful old timer that I was helping out. I used it for quite a while before I tripped over a good price on a used Dillon setup. The Lee stuff had been working for me but only with some regular adjusting and a few modifications to enhance the reliability and to get the ram to correctly line up with the die plate. Given all these little mods that I had to do and a few other things I found were constantly fussy I'm not a big Lee fan. Yes the stuff works but it was never as fuss free as the Dillon.

The two Pro1000's and the Classic 1000 ( I don't know if there ever was such a thing but this was a 3 position turret with the ram set up for single shell holders) proved to also throw primers just about everywhere. One of the mods I did was to make up a snap on deflector from some aluminium siding that snapped onto two of the support posts to aid in trying to deflect the ejected primers down to a bucket. Even so this was only about 75% successful. Every reloading session ended with a good sweeping of the area to recover the sprayed out primers.

I've since passed on the Lee gear to a shooting buddy who is continuing to use it with the half dozen reliability mods I'd done.

The boxes of Lee gear also came with an aluminium version of their Classic Cast single stage. It turned out that the one I got had the ram travel out of alignment with the die mount so it skewed cases sideways as they seated in the die. So that proved to be useless for trying to reload accurate rifle ammo.

In the end the only Lee gear I still have and which I like a lot are the two hand operated primer tools. The need for lots of attention and some modifications to keep the presses working smoothly along with the lack of quality control in allowing that single stage to leave the factory put me right off any more Lee gear. YMMV on this. But my suggestion if you go for a Lee turret press is to check it over carefully in terms of how well cases stay in alignment with the dies as they are seated.
 
laker415 said:
Hows the spent primer catch? I read it can be problematic and jam up the press
Click to expand...

the primer catcher is a issue if it does not catch the spent primer and it falls in the ram, the main issue set it close to the ram at all times, the catcher is real cheap plastic and needs tape to hold 2 halves together, I have a plastic printed part more robust and works better but it still needs to be almost rubbing the ram to work 100%
 
laurencen said:
the primer catcher is a issue if it does not catch the spent primer and it falls in the ram, the main issue set it close to the ram at all times, the catcher is real cheap plastic and needs tape to hold 2 halves together, I have a plastic printed part more robust and works better but it still needs to be almost rubbing the ram to work 100%
Click to expand...

I have never had a problem with the spent primer catcher or punched out primers getting caught in the ram on a turret press that I haven't gotten on a single stage press. As with everything else in reloading, be watchful and all will go well with very few hiccups.

I didn't know that Lee has an auto indexing turret press. It seems to me that the OP is trying to get something out of a system it wasn't designed to do.

I like my turret press. It works well with both pistol and rifle cases and best of all loads straight ammo with less than .002 run out if I do my part and set up my dies properly. I will admit I got lucky on the first press I purchased and all stations on the turret are true to the axis of the mandrel. That has always been a bugaboo for hand loaders. Not so important in a handgun cartridge but it certainly is for rifle cartridges and is often overlooked until it comes to precise shooting. I went through at least a dozen or more single stage presses until I found a couple that were acceptable. Two are Rock Chuckers and the other is a 45 year old RCBS Jr. I have sent more than one set of dies back to the manufacturer because they weren't straight. Yes, I get a bit anal about accuracy.

There is a very good reason why bench rest shooters use Wilson die sets with arbor presses for their reloading needs. Precision takes time/care/patience/consistency when it comes to reloading.
 
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I've been using a Lee Turret press (as well as a couple pro1000s) for over 15 years and haven't had any real issues. I upgraded to 4 hole turrets and installed the......sort-of-auto-prime (can't recall the name) and have no complaints.

BCRider---The alignment problems you had sound like the previous owner used a bit too much elbow grease and bent things out of line. If you have to use that much force you're doing something wrong (not you obviously, the previous guy) but I can see why that'd put you off Lee products.
 
laurencen said:
I use a RCBS turret, works good load 45, 303 and 300win mag, only issue is using a RCBS bullet puller old style when I tighten the collet it turns the turret, not a big deal just annoying, had this unit over a year now and would recommend this press
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that you are happy with the press.
 
I bought a Lee Loadmaster. It was about $550 all in, came with everything needed to load 9mm. I added optional decapping die and factory crimp die (for about $80 more.) It does take some set up and adjustments as you go but I can crank out 200-300/h and have easily recovered the cost vs factory loads in less than a year (when considering the time as hobby, comparable if I consider my hourly wage.) It is progressive, and is supposed to handle rifle loads as well (with add on's.) I am happy with it, though one day might buck up and buy a Dillon to save on set up time and primers lost. Until then the Lee works good as long as you are willing to tinker with it as you go.
 
I've reloaded thousands of handgun loads with the Lee Turret Press with no problems. Just keep things tight and clean(after 500 rds.).
 
calibrecarstairs said:
Redding T-7? Redding doesn't give stuff away but you'll only buy it once.
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I bought a Redding T7 several years ago when they were a hair under $200 usd. It's a great press and it's hard to beat their quality but that does come at a cost.

I've been eyeballing Harrell's little turret press for use at the range. Harrell's Precision makes some top notch tooling and their pricing is fair. The exchange right now hurts though. I'll wait.
 
No issues here ! ;)

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lister said:
....BCRider---The alignment problems you had sound like the previous owner used a bit too much elbow grease and bent things out of line. If you have to use that much force you're doing something wrong (not you obviously, the previous guy) but I can see why that'd put you off Lee products.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought too so I checked the alignment of the overall cast frame as well as I could given the need for draft tapering in the casting so it comes out of the mold. There was none I could find. So I shrugged and assumed it came that way from the factory. In the end it was the bore for the ram that was not quite square to the machined surface on the base of the frame. And that slight out of square showed up when it was out of center with the die station.

Hence my suggestion to at least check things out. Odds are that everything will be fine. I do seem to have a way of these out of spec things being attracted to me where others never see them.... :D

I should add that while I'm not a Lee fan I do appreciate that a lot of you are getting along just nicely with the Lee gear. And it's entirely likely that a lot of my problems were related to the age and wear on the presses I was given. They DID come from an unknown source. The fellow I got them from wasn't the original owner either. It was part of an estate. So who knows what they'd been through before I got them.

Oh, and I'm also a trifle OCD on how my mechanical stuff works. So I'm not above fussing over the small stuff until it's running like something made in a Swiss watch plant... :D
 
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