Completely noob question on reloading presses

tripwires

tripwires

Member
Rating - 100%
5   0   0
Location
Edmonton AB
First off my wife gave me my testies back from her purse and said I could buy a reloading press. ( yep..I'm still whipped ) but since I don't get to use them too often, I have to take advantage while I can.

Laugh2

Now for the noob question, and feel free to laugh if you want... is there a turret style press that will do both pistol and larger rifle rounds ? ( 9mm , 5.56 and 300 win mag. )

Been doing tons of reading on different sites that sell presses, but can't seem to find one that will do both. I did find a few advertising that they will do pistol and rifle up to .223, but nothing bigger

Am I going to need a turreted one for pistol and single stage for the larger rounds ? how about a progressive press to do both ?

Budget on this is 7 to 800, for press, die sets stand and all the goochie gear. Obviously, cheaper is better

Plus reloading supplies.

any help would be greatly appreciated
 
I honestly like the Lee gear. Others may argue its Dillion or nothing - but the Lee works just fine for my needs. I do 9mm, 45 ACP, 223 and .308. For the .308, the only additional piece of the puzzle I needed was the "Long Charging Die" and doubling up on the Disk Kit.

Definitely well under your budget and gives you some extra room for the bullets and powder you'll be needing!
 
I use a Lee classic turret press for .44mag, 9mm, .308W and soon 5.56. Fastest? No. Most accurate? I dunno, good enough for me. Cheapest? Yes, I would say so. After about 10K rounds with mine, if I ever get good enough to notice the difference, I'll buy something more expensive.
 
Lee classic turret or Lee Loadmaster will do both. You might consider having a single stage press for rifle anyway. Full length resize and prime a batch on the single stage then powder, seat and crimp on the Turret or LM.
 
If I can wade in here, I would sincerely recommend that you just go with a single stage press of good quality and some good accessories; At least to start with.

So, my recommended list for you is;

The latest edition of the Speer or Hornady reloading manual. -Read it, then read it again.
Single stage press (kit if possible because it will group a bunch of useful stuff with it.
A balance beam or electronic scale for verifying powder charges.
A set of dies and shellholder for each caliber you want to reload. (carbide ones for pistol)
A powder measure- Makes the process a little quicker once you establish the weight of each thrown charge
A vernier caliper to properly measure the length of your loaded cartridge -CTC for 25 bux
A handheld priming tool- because you will end up buying one anyway and it makes priming cases way faster.
Case trimming and deburring tools (for bottleneck cases)
A bullet puller or inertia type hammer-
A buddy to go through the process (could be a video on Youtube)

There are lots of other tools out there, but this is what I personally would recommend to start with. Others may have their favorites and that's OK too.

There are several types of reloader out there. Speed freaks and who load the cartridge to it's max safe pressures (and sometimes over) are risking both firearms and their physical safety. You can push the safe limit to a point, but the results of exceeding it are horrific.

Again, this is my own recommendation so do with it what you will;
Load 4 or 5 cases at the lower end of the recommended published data and increase the powder charge in .2 or .3 grain stages until you get to just below the max published load. Go to the range and fire each batch. You will likely find that each group will print in a progressively smaller circle and will then start to open up after you hit the "sweet spot". You can stop there and use the bullet puller to disassemble the unfired rounds and reclaim the components. Then you can go back and load for the best group size, because you can adjust your sights to compensate for where the bullets hit the target.
That's it in a nut shell.

Cheerz
 
redruns said:
Lee classic turret or Lee Loadmaster will do both. You might consider having a single stage press for rifle anyway. Full length resize and prime a batch on the single stage then powder, seat and crimp on the Turret or LM.
Click to expand...

This is good advice----buy a kit with bundled accessories.
For 30 years I used a single stage press for rifle and a lee turret press for pistol. I like Lee stuff.
Oh, ya, I also have a dillon 650 with all the trimmins'.
You may have to wait for a few more outings from the purse for the dillon.
 
Lyman makes one of the strongest turret presses out there, take a look at that, never the less, the Lee turret press has some distinct advantages. It is relatively inexpensive, has interchangeable turrets that are quick and easy to change and has an "Auto rotate" feature. The disadvantages are that although it can be fitted with a primer system, I'm not fond of that part and, well that's about all I can think of. I use my Lee turret when I'm doing a short lot run, from 50 to 200 rounds for testing and load development, if I need to do a larger run I set up my progressive press for that. I hand prime so the priming system is not an issue.

Scott
 
Dillon claims the RL550 progressive can do rifle rounds up to 338 Lapua, but I've only loaded 45 acp with mine, so no real experience. How much do you shoot? I loaded a few thousand pistol rounds with my single stage before buying the progressive, but I was prepping brass in fairly large batches, then loading in smaller batches as I was shooting it. The progressive is nice though, once dialed in I can crank out a few hundred rounds an hour instead of 50-100 with the single stage.
Kristian
 
freedomintheskies said:
If I can wade in here, I would sincerely recommend that you just go with a single stage press of good quality and some good accessories; At least to start with.

So, my recommended list for you is;

The latest edition of the Speer or Hornady reloading manual. -Read it, then read it again.
Single stage press (kit if possible because it will group a bunch of useful stuff with it.
A balance beam or electronic scale for verifying powder charges.
A set of dies and shellholder for each caliber you want to reload. (carbide ones for pistol)
A powder measure- Makes the process a little quicker once you establish the weight of each thrown charge
A vernier caliper to properly measure the length of your loaded cartridge -CTC for 25 bux
A handheld priming tool- because you will end up buying one anyway and it makes priming cases way faster.
Case trimming and deburring tools (for bottleneck cases)
A bullet puller or inertia type hammer-
A buddy to go through the process (could be a video on Youtube)

There are lots of other tools out there, but this is what I personally would recommend to start with. Others may have their favorites and that's OK too.

There are several types of reloader out there. Speed freaks and who load the cartridge to it's max safe pressures (and sometimes over) are risking both firearms and their physical safety. You can push the safe limit to a point, but the results of exceeding it are horrific.

Again, this is my own recommendation so do with it what you will;
Load 4 or 5 cases at the lower end of the recommended published data and increase the powder charge in .2 or .3 grain stages until you get to just below the max published load. Go to the range and fire each batch. You will likely find that each group will print in a progressively smaller circle and will then start to open up after you hit the "sweet spot". You can stop there and use the bullet puller to disassemble the unfired rounds and reclaim the components. Then you can go back and load for the best group size, because you can adjust your sights to compensate for where the bullets hit the target.
That's it in a nut shell.

Cheerz
Click to expand...

This is fantastic advice and I fully agree with you

Fortunately, I am not one of the speed freaks you spoke of. I am way too pretty to risk messing up my face with questionable reloads. I do plan on taking it slow learning this skill, I really would hate hurting myself, or even worse, someone else by messing up.

I was looking at turreted presses simply because

1. I am a bit of a hoarder, yep, I'll admit it and I am coping ...I have a hard time selling things, not sure why, LOL. I have roman and greek coins that I've been telling myself I'm going to sell .....still sitting in binder on book shelve after a year. But in all honesty, I know that if I buy a single stage, I will eventually go to a turreted and will have a single sitting in the back room for years. So in my case, I may as well go big with all the gear I need ( or want )while staying within budget. this is beneficial both financially and will save the wife from harping on me about the clutter in the storage room..

2. I burn through lots of ammo. I can easily burn through 1000 plus rounds in a month, ( more if I bring my buddies out for a day) so I was thinking I could manufacture more without sacrificing quality.

3. I was also thinking that with a turret press I could just " set up and forget " Once I have everything set up properly I could just change the holders for different calibers.


But I am more that willing to take any advice from those who know and do, you have my thanks
 
I never considered the Dillon, or Lyman, honestly I was shopping around with brands I knew with little experience I have ( the ones I've seen on shelves in various store or in the dealers stores listed above. )

the Dillon is a nice press, but would have to go to the 550B, and by the time I add the extra gear, and dies for 3 calibers , PLUS the US dollar exchange I am well over the 1000 on this 738.60 USD for 1 caliber
 
Last edited:
koesdibyo said:
I honestly like the Lee gear. Others may argue its Dillion or nothing - but the Lee works just fine for my needs. I do 9mm, 45 ACP, 223 and .308. For the .308, the only additional piece of the puzzle I needed was the "Long Charging Die" and doubling up on the Disk Kit.

Definitely well under your budget and gives you some extra room for the bullets and powder you'll be needing!
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd seen the disks and long charging dies on the Lee site, but had no ideal what they were, or were used for ( as I said I'm a noob to this ) The 4 hole classic turret press with the accessories would do the trick

I could have this set up well under budget with extra turrets for the different calibers.

do you have to remove the indexing attachment to get larger caliber casings ?
 
Last edited:
tripwires said:
I never considered the Dillon, or Lyman, honestly I was shopping around with brands I knew with little experience I have ( the ones I've seen on shelves in various store or in the dealers stores listed above. )

the Dillon is a nice press, but would have to go to the 550B, and by the time I add the extra gear, and dies for 3 calibers , PLUS the US dollar exchange I am well over the 1000 on this 738.60 USD for 1 caliber
Click to expand...

x-reload has most dillon stuff in stock and they are located in quebec. check them out.
 
What is your monthly ammo usage like? That'll tell you if you can reload handgun on a single, a turret or if you should jump in with both feet and go progressive.

For accurate rifle rounds you pretty much need to weigh out every charge. And given the better practice of de-capping the brass then cleaning it before you size and load you are better off with a single stage.

The reason I don't say "turret" for this is that all the turret presses I've seen allow the die plate holding the dies to lift up and get cockeyed to the ram by a touch. Even the really solid Lyman Tmag I've got had some of this before I shimmed the support heel on the base that sticks out the rear and which the die plate rides on.

So all in all if you want to eliminate the possibility of even a small bit of misalignment between the die and the ram you want a single stage press for really accurate rifle rounds.

With that same single stage once you get used to it you can load a batch of 50 handgun loads in about 20 minutes or a hair over. So that's between around 130 to 150 per hour. If that's enough to keep your handguns fed then you can manage with just a single stage. If not then you need to look at a second press that will increase that amount.

For many of us that means a progressive press. With even a basic progressive setup where I hand place the casing and bullet then pull I still manage to push through about 350 per hour. And that's at a pace where I'm not rushed and have time to check different things throughout the cycle to ensure it's running smoothly. Some get up to around 400 if they push a little. With automatic powered bullet and case feeders you can top 500 per hour without too much trouble.

The in between one position turrets that only do one round at a time? Slightly faster than a single stage but no where near what you can do on a full on progressive. Keep in mind that with the turret press it's still four pulls of the lever per round. With a progressive it's one pull, one round. Sure saves on the arm and shoulder....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom