Turret? Progressive? Single Stage? Reloading Press for Beginner
- Thread starter M_User
- Start date
It really REALLY depends on what powder you use. Ball, or flattened-ball powders - I bet'cha you'd see very little difference between a charge thrower or trickling them individually. Even Trail Boss, which are big rounded flakes with holes in them; the charge thrower on the LnL has no trouble cutting them in half if they "don't quite fit". Rod powders though - they can bring the LnL charge thrower to a slamming dead-stop; and if you try forcing them, remember that the case mouth is what's passing the ram's force to the thrower, and the thrower can collapse cases (says the voice of experience...) Ball powders though, the charge thrower ignores them.
Hope I'm not derailing this thread but the OP seems to have made his decisions already. Powder and powder droppers aside because we can measure (using equally accurate scales) and drop powder on any type of press (just need e.g. a powder through die), it seems to me that the only parameters that a specific type of press would affect would be: a) consistency of sizing length (due to differences in rigidity), b) consistency of seating depth, and c) concentricity.
Given the tolerances for mechanical devices using cast parts and large moving linkage designs, I'd think that the result on the cartridges from different press designs would be difficult to discern. It would be interesting to hear if there is any data that shows what effect press design/type might have on the quality of ammo.
I can give you one example from personal experience: on my progressive press (Hornady LnL), the seating depth of the bullet varies by about 0.005" depending on whether there is just one case on the shell plate or there is a full set of cases in every positions. By definition, this variance cannot happen on a single-stage press (turret or not). I use ball powders (CFE Pistol and H110 at this time) and my balance scale tells me the charges thrown are identical within at 0.1gr.
That's interesting. Similarly I've noticed on certain loads on my turret press where the neck tension is very low, I get inconsistent seating depths (5 thou + variances) due I think to the fact that all of the slop is not being taken out of the turret head during seating. Using tighter necks, I haven't seen the same issue and am getting OALs +/- 1 thousandth.
Anyone seeing runout differences?
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
A progressive is definitely nice for pistol, but with a good single stage setup, you can crank out over 200/hour. I'm lucky enough to have access to 2 single stage presses, so when reloading rifle or pistol rounds, I can do 2 stages back to back for my lot of ammunition (i.e. resize and expand pistol brass, or seat and factory crimp rifle rounds, and combined with a good powder dispenser, you get fairly fast).
hometownhero
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Toon Town, Sk
200 an hour is motoring. I do about 100-150 at a good pace and make sure that I weigh every 3-4 powder drops. Inspect all charged cases and measure any that look off. Could I do more ya probably. But when it takes 10 min or less to shoot an hours work it sucks. Load for 8 hours and shoot for 30-40 min.
- Location
- Central AB
200 per Hour on a single stage!!! You must have the reflexes of a mongoose. I would bet the average person would get more like 100 per hour. Lee Precision quotes production rates for their turret press as 250 per hour, and that is quite accurate in my experience. On my Pro 1000 progressive, I average about 350 per hour.
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
I have 2 single stage presses set up next to each other, so I can resize and run through the expander die back to back, then prime and use my powder dispenser, then seat/crimp. I timed myself and going from primed brass, I can dispense my powder charge and seat/crimp 9 rounds/minute when I get in to my groove. This means in about 30 min (including setup), from prepped/primed brass, I can do my 200 rounds. I also tend to do things in large batches. For example, I may spend a few weeks preparing 500 brass, then spend an evening doing all my loading. I use a hand priming tool so I'll usually do that while watching a movie or something. I also prefer the hand priming tool because I can feel when the primer gets to the right depth.
- Location
- Haliburton County, Central Ontario
^^ This. And if you shoot anything chambered in .270 WSM you will know what I mean. I have a separate loading station, with a single stage 'C' press, just to handle the finicky resizing operation for this cartridge.
mmcintyre1220
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Tillsonburg, Ontario
I would personally suggest going with a turret as your first press. Single stages are useful too but they a dam slow. With a turret press you are still only dealing with one round at a time so you can pay full attention as a new reloaded but your production will not be as slow. My first press was a turret press and once I learned a bit my speed picked up to around 300 rounds an hour which isn't bad. I then bought a single stage press for precision rifle and a few turret presses for volume pistol loading.
- Location
- Central AB
Oh, so you are not including the time to resize and prime the brass. That would explain the times. Normally the time to do those functions would be included in the "rounds per hour" . Including that time would bring your production rate down to 100+ per hour, which would be more normal for single stage.
I have seen other reloaders not include the time to prime cases when quoting production on progressive presses as well. But it offers a skewed picture of realistic production rates for newbies that are just getting started, and/or just choosing equipment. Not that one way is right or wrong, but just to make sure we are talking apples and apples.
All that aside, there is no doubt a reloader can make a fair amount of ammo with a single stage with enough patience and determination. Keep cranking em out.
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If all you are going to reload is rifle and you are sure of that, get an RCBS Rockchucker and put it in your will. If you have been around guns a lot and know the ins and outs of basic reloading than there is nothing wrong with going Progressive. A Dillon 550 is a great press that will last you a lifetime. If you shoot much pistol at all than a Progressive press just makes a lot of sense. Loading pistol on a single stage gets old real quick if you like shooting any volumes. Aside from .223 where folks load as much .233 as they do for their pistols, I would stick to a single stage for rifle where volume loading is not often the case.
Buy quality, quality presses hold their value and both the Rockchucker and Dillon presses are as good as presses get IMHO.
Take Care
Bob
Buy quality, quality presses hold their value and both the Rockchucker and Dillon presses are as good as presses get IMHO.
Take Care
Bob
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
No, I'm including that. It only takes me about half an hour to do all those as well.
I don't shoot too much .38, maybe 2000 rounds a year, so going to a progressive just for that doesn't make much sense for me. I can get 9mm really cheap through work (only $6/100 more than reloading), so cranking out those, even on a progressive, would only be of marginal savings. For my .223/308, I want as much precision as possible as I load either Hornady A-max/HPBT or SMK's, and I prefer to use Varget so it doesn't meter very well from a volumetric dispenser.
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- Location
- Central AB
Yes, for those volumes of 38, a progressive is probably overkill. Nice to have, but certainly not necessarily.
I'm a big Varget user myself. A cheap solution to getting it (and other course powders) to meter well is the new Lee Rotary Powder Measure. I think they are only $55 or so, and do really well with Varget. I still use my RCBS Charge master when I want more precision, but the rotary measure is impressive. Saw some tests of it against much more expensive measures, and it was by far the most accurate with course powders. Really has helped speed up a lot of my reloading.
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
I do like the electronic powder dispensers. I have a Lyman Gen 6 one myself, cuts a lot of time off measuring charges, and is quite precise. I also have a Lyman Model 55 powder measure.
I just checked my timing on loading the pistol cartridges, did 100 from once fired brass to fully loaded in about 40 mins, and this includes setup and tear down time, and they were polished in a media tumbler (tumble time not included). When doing larger batches, you save 5-10 minutes for setup/die swap, so I was pretty close on my 200/hour estimate.
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- Location
- Central AB
That's really fast. I don't possess the greatest manual dexterity, so couldn't come close to that. You've obviously been successful at refining your movements to optimize your production rate. Pretty impressive.
Do you think you could maintain that speed over a couple of hours? Not that you would need to, but I'm just wondering if that speed would be too exhausting in an extended setting?
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
The most I've tried is 300 at a time. It's a large amount of highly precise and quick movements to it is quite taxing. To attain this, you basically need both hands always doing something. For example, when resizing, when my right hand is cranking the press, my left hand is returning a sized case to its designated space and grabbing a fresh case, I then swap the fresh case with the sized one using only my left hand, keeping my right on the press to crank it again as soon as the case is in place. I use this same process for the expander die. For loading the cartridges after they have been primed, I grab the primed case in my left hand, and place the powder funnel in the left hand, I then put it under the dispenser, release the powder charge, then as I put the funnel down with my right hand, I also grab a bullet, placing it in the case, and as I get the cartridge in to position I move my right hand to the press and get ready to seat the bullet. When I remove the loaded cartridge from the press, as my left hand is placing the loaded cartridge in its designated place, I am grabbing the powder funnel with my right hand, so that as soon as my left hand has grabbed a fresh case, I'm ready to place them together and dispense my next powder charge. I can do this entire loading process in about 6-7 seconds. It does require a good amount of dexterity.
