have a Challenger should I get a Turret press?

IM_Lugger

IM_Lugger

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I have a Lee challenger press and been using it for about 5years now. It's been great with no problems of any kind but I was thinking of upgrading to Lee Classic cast Turret Press but was wondering if it's going to be much of an upgrade. how much faster would it be over a single stage?
 
depends on what you're doing and how much- you lose a bit of speed if you have to remove the auto- index, but you gain in not having to screw/unscrew dies- you also do one round at a time from re-size to complete whereas you do batches with a single stage - ie 50 rounds resize, 50 rounds primed, then powder charge, etc- as to whetjer it's faster, i would say yes, at least double, if you get a rythm going and no hang up- esp with the primer feed- i went from single to turret to progressive, and i still use my turret for doing small batches of things like 338 win mag- with the auto- index disabled
 
I'm not working really fast, but with an automatic powder dump on a Lee Turret, hand feeding everything else, including primers, I can reload a box of 50 handgun cartridges in less than half an hour. That's just fine for me, I can listen to the news and have a box ready for the range.
 
With my turret I was doing about 100 an hour, 9mm and 45 ACP.
I just offloaded that press and sometime this year I'll be getting a progressive. maybe the Hornady LNL or a some sort of big blue machine.
 
I find the turret press is great for rifle, but to really crank out the handgun rounds, a progressive is the way to go. I have a couple Lee Pro 1000s'.

But either way, the turret press will be much faster than a single stage.
 
I prime cases using the lee hand prime tool and have an auto disk with adjustable bar for charging cases while I flare them...

So with the Turret press would hand-priming the cases slow me down? I'd have to do things in batches like I do now right?
 
With the turret all you need to do is tumble and deprime before hand.

For the turret with me it was....

Insert case, go up into shell resizing die, use auto prime to place primer in primer holder, down stroke to seat primer. Up stroke to fill case with powder, down stroke, place bullet in case, up stroke so seat bullet, down stroke, up stroke to crimp bullet. Round done.
 
the turret primes on the downstroke anyway- as you're retracting the ram, the shellholder comes into contact with the priming arm- at least it does on my old fella-but i don't have the auto-prime
 
t-star said:
the turret primes on the downstroke anyway- as you're retracting the ram, the shellholder comes into contact with the priming arm- at least it does on my old fella-but i don't have the auto-prime
Click to expand...

Yeah, but he's got autoprime somehow working on the downstroke. I'd like that feature.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Yeah, but he's got autoprime somehow working on the downstroke. I'd like that feature.
Click to expand...

I miss typed sorry. I'd put the shell in, go up to resize, use auto prime to prime the holder, then seat the primer on my downstroke.

See the video above for clarity.
 
Never seen one of those kind of primer feeding gizmo's before. I'll have to look into that. Did it work reliably? Save time over putting primers individually into that primer holder by hand?
 
I never had any issues. The primer disk has raised bumps so when you shake it they all flip over the correct way (cant remember if thats primer strike surface up or down, but w/e) Never had any issues, I had one for small and large primer and sometimes the mechanism would not click and no primer would come out, but you would feel the difference and visually see it not in and since its not a progressive its easy to catch your mistake. Also, not a problem with that AutoPrime but on tighter pocketed brass like S&B 9MM you would really have to push to get the primer so seat flat into the casing. Once or twice I did have primers go in sideways or get folded over, not a big issue however.

Grizzlypeg said:
Never seen one of those kind of primer feeding gizmo's before. I'll have to look into that. Did it work reliably? Save time over putting primers individually into that primer holder by hand?
Click to expand...


I never hand primed, but I liked not having to handle the casings more than once. Once I pick it up an empty case, the next time I put it down its a loaded cartridge ready to go.
 
With the turret all you need to do is tumble and deprime before hand.
Click to expand...
Deprime? Why? To clean the primer pockets?

I don't run dirty cases thru the dies. will 3 hole turret be enough if I only have 3 dies? or do I need another turret hole for priming on the press
 
IM_Lugger said:
Deprime? Why? To clean the primer pockets?

I don't run dirty cases thru the dies. will 3 hole turret be enough if I only have 3 dies? or do I need another turret hole for priming on the press
Click to expand...

Sorry, as I said I got rid of my press and its been a while. The press does deprime on the up stroke into the resizing die.

3 die is fine, but for pistol I like using the 4th hole for a factory crimp die.
 
I sold my Dillon 550B since it doesn't get much use anymore.

In its place I am ordering a Lee Classic Cast Turret with the Pro Auto Disk powder measure, Auto Prime and 45acp, 9mm, 38/357, 40 SW Pistol 4 die-sets. On my friend's Lee Turret (old style aluminum base) we can do 200 45 acp per hour, plenty fast for me.
 
I went from the Challenger to the turret to the LNL AP. You may as well cut out the middle step if your going to be loading lots.

If you load lots of pistol, absolutely skip the turret and go progressive
 
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