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Have you ever seen one of these?
Well this is the only one I’ve ever seen. No pics on the web that I can locate. I’m assuming from the artwork, styling, and price on the box that this is a late 40’s or early 50’s unit from when Redding first started up.

It was given to me years ago and is brand new in the box with all of its paperwork. The handle has never even been mounted and there’s still a little overspray of the “attractive wrinkle finish”, as the brochure calls it, in the die threads. When it was passed onto me it came with the comment that nobody else would want it because it uses some old bastard shell holders. It has one of said shell holders, cut for the standard.473 rimless size used by the 30/06, 308, etc.

I ran across it in my shop the other day, forgotten on a shelf for 6-7 years since the last move and it got me to thinking. You know what else uses a bastard shell holder? A cartridge I love but is a little bit of a pain to load because it won’t fit my hand priming tools, the 45 Auto Rim. So what better way to make a bastard unwanted press usable than to spend a bunch of time machining a shell holder for a bastard cartridge.

I started by turning and threading a chunk of dowel pin from the scrap bin at work to the outside dimensions of the Redding shell holder.

When that was done I flipped it around in the chuck and used a 7/16” endmill in the tail stock chuck to plunge cut the recess to within.010” of finished depth. Then used a little hooked tool to make a finishing cut across the bottom of the recess and open the ID up to .475”. I took an old Woodruff key seat cutter and ground it down to the proper .085” width and removed all but two of the teeth while grinding relief all the way around where the old teeth used to be. It was then chucked in the tool post and used as a form turning boring bar to cut the proper sized rim recess.

It then went into the vise on my milling machine where I used a 1/2” endmill to remove about 1/3 of the top. I followed up by putting the modified key seat cutter in the mill and cutting the radius out of the rim recess on the open side to allow the shell to slide into the holder. In hindsight this process is likely done with a specially ground endmill that cuts the whole thing at once but I’m not a production shop so I make do however I can.
In the end it’s still a funky little press that uses unavailable bastard shell holders. And I spent to most people more time than it’s worth to make it usable. But with the priming setup it has being usable for the Auto Rim I plan to put it on it’s own corner of the bench and use it as a one trick pony for the times I need to run off a box of 45s for my 625.

Projects like this warm my heart. Good job. It's nice to see there's capable men around.

You done good.

Well done. Makes me really want to have a lathe and a mill at home

This evening I built a little riser for it to sit on, bolted it up and gave it a whirl. Takes some slightly different adjustment just due to the design of the linkage but in the end it was a success. I’ll leave one set of 45 dies set up and with it and it’ll have it’s permanent job.

More winning!

Excellent job of work!

Did you investigate altering the old Redding system to adapt it to "modern" shell holder use? I think I can see how if an adapter is added to the top of the old shell holder then height capacity under the die would be lessened, limiting length of ammo that it'll accommodate but adding to the versatility nonetheless.

I had thought of making an adapter to couple it to modern shell holders but I’m pretty sure the added length would disable use of the priming stem. Plus I have a good RCBS single stage so I decided to just adapt it to the Auto Rim and say good enough. Although with the original holder I could use the same setup to load 45 ACP.

It would probably make a nice little compact press for a guy who wanted to load at the range. It’s small and has the little single feed priming stem. I don’t think it’s the best unit for full length sizing rifle cartridges but would do fine for neck sizing.

In my experience, many manufacturers who ultimately became a big “name brand,” started out making an innovative product in the most precise way possible, exhibiting fine detail of design and execution, in order to build their reputation before eliminating some refinements in the typical streamlining of manufacturing processes to increase volume as they hit the big time.

So, that early Redding tool, though now obsolete, is still a pleasure to use, I’m betting.

just not many folks that can do that sort of project. A tip of the old chapeau for your skill!

A hell of a lot better (and neater) than what I ended up doing to prime AutoRims.

Also, making the old, like new Redding useful definitely wins some kind of 2nd Amendment stewardship kudos!

I made a shell holder for my Metal-matic Ponsness Warren press that allowed me to load .44 Special and .44 Magnum without adjusting the dies. Just changed the shell holder which was .110" taller. I drilled a 1/16" hole in the back side and used wire EDM to machine the undercut for the rim. Worked great and saved re-adjusting the dies when switching calibers. Another worthwhile project was an adapter that used Hornady L-N-L bushings to connect an RCBS Little Dandy powder measure to my powder thru expander die. This way when a reloading session was over all I had to do is give the powder measure a 1/4 turn to disconnect it from the die to dump the powder. Being a Jouneyman Tool & Die Maker and Manufacturing Engineer I design and build lots of my own reloading equipment. Other projects include my own design powder measures and a motorized loading press.