More money than sense: Lube Sizer or Turret Press?

MDF

MDF

Regular
EE Expired
Rating - 100%
15   0   0
Location
North of Toronto
Let's set some ground rules before I begin.

Anyone commenting with the single word "DILLON" gets an ignore flag.

Anyone commenting with the vaguely creepy "Buy once cry once" gets an ignore flag and I will buy something from them on the EE just to give them negative feedback.

So here's the thing. I have a few bucks burning a hole through my debit card and I am thinking of blowing it on some reloading equipment. And I am debating whether to buy a Lube Sizer or a Turret Press. There are only enough scorching dollars available for one or the other at the moment. All other surplus funds are marked for strippers and blow. And the Conservative leadership campaigns. (But I repeat myself.)

Here's the case for each.

Lube me up

Have been casting a lot lately and have found that I really dislike pan lubing. I also don't particularly like tumble lubing with the Lee goo. Both work and I get good results as far as I can tell, but I either don't like the process itself or don't like the look of the hardened Lee schmoo on the bullets. So I am thinking a Lube Sizer might help me out here. I imagine that the process will be neater overall. And if I improve this process, I'm hoping I'll cast and lube and reload more.

Turrets syndrome

Have started reloading for pistol. Am just doing the common rounds that everyone reloads: Swiss 1882 Ordnance, 38/200 for the Enfield pistol, 7.62 Tokarev, and 32 WSL which isn't a pistol round but might as well be. You know, the common every day stuff. I also load 223, 308, 7.5 Swiss, and other similarly sized rounds. I'm using an RCBS Rockchucker and batching the operations. I get good results as far as I can tell but it can be tedious as frig. So I am thinking a Lee Classic Turret Press and Auto Drum might help me out here. I imagine that the process will be quicker overall. And if I speed up this process, I'm hoping I'll reload more.

So I am sort of stuck here. But I must admit, sort of stuck in a pleasant way. Stuck in a First World Problem sort of way.

The Lube Sizer addresses two tasks: lubing and sizing. It will -- or should, I think -- address the mess that really turns me off with pan lubing. If I have more lubed bullets ready to go, I am pretty sure that I will load more often.

The Turret Press addresses a lot more stuff: I should be able to load everything that I currently load on the Lee Classic Turret. It will -- or should, I think -- encourage me to load more and more often.

So what are your thoughts? Would you modify a process that you really dislike? Or would you streamline a process that you're already good at but sometimes put off because of the tedium?
 
I don't cast my own bullets so I can't comment on the lube sizer, but a turret does speed up the whole reloading process compared to a single stage. You should double your output in ammo/hour, maybe even more. So even if you don't spend more time reloading you'll end up with more ammos. Unless you're going for max accuracy (benchrest stuff), a turret does everything a single stage does but faster, especially with small ammunition like pistol ammos and 223.

Booze and strippers seems like a good choice too.
 
I would buy something Dillon.......(Buy once cry once).
Since you have a limited amount of $ you can't buy anything from me therefore no negative feedback.
 
If you keep an eye out, you can find some great bargains on used/abused RCBS LAM/LAM-II and rebuild them with free parts from RCBS.

As for turret presses, it sounds like you're at the point where one makes sense. However, please do yourself a massive favor and buy a Redding T-7. It's so far beyond its nearest competitors in terms of build quality and utility it's not even close. And I say this as a lifelong RCBS fan and Dillon convert (I hope this isn't grounds for expulsion :) ).
 
I would do what removes the "dislike" , so go for the lube sizer! Keep it fun .. or at least out of the realm of dislike.
 
I have a lube sizer (Lyman) and while it works it is brutally slow. And unless you get a heater with it so you can use hard lubes you are going to be stuck using soft lubes like 50-50 beeswax/Alox which is just about as goopy as the liquid lube. I pan lube using Rooster Jacket which goes on liquid but dries completely with no tackiness. And while I haven't tried it myself I have read that dusting liquid lubed bullets with talcum powder eliminates the tackiness. If you just can't abide pan lubing look into powder coating. Just as fast or faster than the lube sizer and you're good for velocities of 2000 fps or greater which you can't do with any lubed bullets.
I also have a Lee Classic turret and it is perfect for medium volume reloading of cartridges you don't shoot in large quantity which is why I bought it. Turrets are cheap and priming is easy. Bottom line it's a great press for the money.
if I were you the choice would be easy - Lee Classic Turret press.
 
i would say give powdercoating a try. It has quite low startup cost which would mean you can still purchase the turret press. Or buy the turret press and tumble loaded liquid alox rounds with some mineral spirits to get rid of goo.
 
Get the turret press (I've been using the older model since 1985) and go with powder coating your cast bullets. Lots of info on it in the bullet casting threads.

Auggie D.
 
ted_dent said:
I have a lube sizer (Lyman) and while it works it is brutally slow. And unless you get a heater with it so you can use hard lubes you are going to be stuck using soft lubes like 50-50 beeswax/Alox which is just about as goopy as the liquid lube. I pan lube using Rooster Jacket which goes on liquid but dries completely with no tackiness. And while I haven't tried it myself I have read that dusting liquid lubed bullets with talcum powder eliminates the tackiness. If you just can't abide pan lubing look into powder coating. Just as fast or faster than the lube sizer and you're good for velocities of 2000 fps or greater which you can't do with any lubed bullets.
I also have a Lee Classic turret and it is perfect for medium volume reloading of cartridges you don't shoot in large quantity which is why I bought it. Turrets are cheap and priming is easy. Bottom line it's a great press for the money.
if I were you the choice would be easy - Lee Classic Turret press.
Click to expand...

A thrift store hairdryer makes for a cheap lube heater as does a standard heat gun you'd use to strip paint, etc... I used one for years before I ever acquired a dedicated lube heater.
 
My lyman 4500 came with the heater but i haven't ever used it, i use ben's red with a bit more beeswax to harden it up. in the winter i sometimes take a propane torch to the body of the sizer for a couple seconds.
 
Can't help you with the lube question.

For presses.......
I have, and use:
a) Hornady LNL AP, great for large amount of one caliber.
Takes time to change over to another caliber, mostly due to adjusting case drop powder measure to different caliber case lengths. Primer changeover and dies change with bushings is great.
b) 2 Lee Turrets. Not bad for small batches, but much slower per round than LNL AP once it's set up.
c) RCBS Rockchucker. Have a Piggyback conversion AP for it, but the bad indexing drove me crazy. Use it as single stage only these days since getting the LNL.
d) Hornady Classic single stage.
e) CH (by Roddy) C press, used for universal deprimer die station, mostly.

I set up LNL AP and Rockchucker presses in the middle of a thick wooden stair plank bolted to the turntable of an old Oliver stringing machine. That allows me to stay in one position for those presses. Lee's and CH presses are bolted to plywood rectangles which in turn are clamped to the Oliver plank when needed.
Hornady Classic is on a Lee reloading stand that I had to drill the Lee steel base block with the Hornady Hole pattern. Lee wooden base blocks are useless.

Die setup is different for each press. Have to keep die lock ring setup for a particular machine, if that matters to you.
Even the two Hornady LNL presses have different distance from the top of the ram to where the dies seat.
 
Last edited:
MDF said:
Have been casting a lot lately and have found that I really dislike pan lubing. I also don't particularly like tumble lubing with the Lee goo. Both work and I get good results as far as I can tell, but I either don't like the process itself or don't like the look of the hardened Lee schmoo on the bullets. So I am thinking a Lube Sizer might help me out here. I imagine that the process will be neater overall. And if I improve this process, I'm hoping I'll cast and lube and reload more.

Turrets syndrome

Have started reloading for pistol. Am just doing the common rounds that everyone reloads: Swiss 1882 Ordnance, 38/200 for the Enfield pistol, 7.62 Tokarev, and 32 WSL which isn't a pistol round but might as well be. You know, the common every day stuff. I also load 223, 308, 7.5 Swiss, and other similarly sized rounds. I'm using an RCBS Rockchucker and batching the operations. I get good results as far as I can tell but it can be tedious as frig. So I am thinking a Lee Classic Turret Press and Auto Drum might help me out here. I imagine that the process will be quicker overall. And if I speed up this process, I'm hoping I'll reload more.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to get a handle on your volumes, rifle vs. pistol. You say you are casting " a lot" but I don't associate the easy to cast for calibers you list with a lot of shooting. If you are casting for the rifles I would call you a fairly advanced caster and say you definitely deserve the lubrisizer. If you're shooting those pistol cals in serious volume you are just weird.

Maybe it's just me, but in my mind I don't hold turret presses as being good for rifle. Sure they can work, but it looks to me like space is limited, powder dispensing is questionable and the turret has a bit too much play. I reserve my turret for handgun; for rifle I go single stage or progressive.

I am leaning towards saying get the lubesizer, I do like mine, but I also would not have paid the asking price for the Lyman 4500, which I consider excessive. I found mine at an auction, where going price on the 3 they had was $15-35. If you're going to spend the money on new, maybe look at a Star, I hear they are nice.
 
I consider both my Lee classic Cast Turret and a lubesizer (two of them actually) critical to my loading operation...and I did have two 650's bolted to my bench as well.

If you cast your own boolits to get the most satisfaction from them a sizer is a "requirement" especially for rifle boolits. The reason I have two Lyman sizers is one for conventional wax lubeing, the second one is absolutely clean & dry for messing with the sizing I do to rifle bullets I plan on powder coating. As Battle has offerd up, no need to pay commercial sticker price with auctions & gunshows around, I think I have a total of $45 in each of my units ( both came with a selection of dies & top punches that were worth considerably more than the press themselves. You will get much more satisfaction from your cast rifle boolits with a sizer.

As for the Turret press, when I'm down to my last press it will be the Lee rotary...no doubt the blg blue press's are better at what they do best but the Lee does everything, rifle or pistol very well.
 
Thanks to everyeone for your comments. Some thoughtful stuff here. Even from the guy who took the time to say he was going to ignore the thread.

I've decided to go with the turret press for now and have a Lee Classic Turret with the Auto Drum measure on its way to me. The press should be immediately useful for most if not everything that I load, so I think that's the biggest bang for the buck for me at the moment.

I will probably get a lubrisizer at some point but for now I will stick with pan lubing, tumble lubing, and Lee push-through bullet sizing dies. Rather than throwing money at equipment to try to figure out bullet lubing, I think I just need to work to figure out bullet lubing. I need to play with the process a little more and figure how to address the sticky bits that I don't currently enjoy.

Someone asked about my volumes. Compared to someone who does not reload at all I think I reload quite a bit. Compared to a competitive shooter I don't reload at all. For my pistol rounds -- 7.5 Swiss 1882 Ordnance, 38/200 (38 S&W), 7.62 Tokarev, 32 WSL (which is not a pistol round but is very much like one) -- I typically load 100 at a time. I'll go through at least a hundred of each when I take those guns out to the range, so I tend to reload in batches that size.

That batch size usually means one session for all the case prep work -- decapping, case inspection, sizing -- and then a couple of sessions for the actual loading. Power dispensing is either tricking up to weight on a scale or dropping close to weight with a Lee Perfect measure and then trickling up to weight. Trusting the press-mounted Auto Drum over trickling to weight is going to be a big step for me. I plan to thoroughly test the measure before I totally rely on it.

My sessions tend to be just two hours or so due to time constraints.

For rifle rounds -- 223, 308, 7.5 Swiss and others -- I usually load 20 to 100 at a time. I can easily get through 20 start to finish in a single session but I typically batch the case prep work and then the actual reloading. If the cases are already prepped, it's usually a couple of sessions to crank out 100 or so rounds.

Thanks again for your comments -- all are appreciated.
 
Some thoughts on your situation...

Press: If you get a progressive press, you will eventually want one for each caliber you reload because I have never seen one that was not an absolute PITA to switch calibers.
If you get one, I can recommend the L&L AP by Hornady. It is expandable to include a powered bullet feeder, case feeder and electronic load monitor.

Bullet sizing: I have the Lyman LubeSizer and love it. The setup is easy and you can size and lube all in one step. Hard lubes can be used if you heat the body of the unit. I use a heat gun on low temp setting and it only takes about 3 minutes before the lube in pliable enough to extrude.

I would buy the sizer first because you have to size and lube your bullets before you can load them...
 
I was going to suggest what Auggie D did. Get a turret press, which you did already. And eliminate the process that you hate, lubsizing, by powder coating. It works great, and is simple enough.
 
baldabe said:
I was going to suggest what Auggie D did. Get a turret press, which you did already. And eliminate the process that you hate, lubsizing, by powder coating. It works great, and is simple enough.
Click to expand...

I've looked into powder coating and have tried tumble coating. I've been disappointed with the results so far.

I first tried cast bullets tumbled by hand in a container with just the powder. The powder would not adhere to the bullets at all. I did not try to bake the coating on these.

I then tried cast bullets tumbled by hand in a container with powder and plastic air soft pellets. The powder adhered to the bullets in a very fine coat. I baked these at the temp and for the duration listed in the powder coat's instructions.

The coating seemed to pull into lumps on the bullets and did not bake in a smooth coat. The effect is similar to water beading on a waxed surface.

I tried multiple coats on the same bullets and that smoothed out the coating but it's not a particularly smooth coating overall. The bullets were baked standing up on their bases on a sheet; they were not just tossed in a basket or on a sheet.

Is this beading effect common? Is it due to the nature of the powder? Or might the bullet surfaces be contaminated? They were freshly cast -- should I have washed or degreased them first?

Can you get a smooth and even coating with tumbling or is an electrostatic gun really necessary?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom