Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Educate me on Turret presses

So what's the deal?

Leave your dies set up and less spinning them in and out?

Why not a Dillon 550?

Thanks.

I've got a Lyman turret press. I run two presses, an RCBS that is for resizing and priming, and the Lyman. I keep my bullet seating dies in the Lyman, with a bullet pulling die in there also.

I use Redding T7 with 4 or five different turrets. I load for my siblings and they each have different calibers. I have dies, sizing, neck, bump, seating set up for each caliber on a die. If I want to reload for a specific gun, I just swap a turret. Everything is set up for that gun.
I do deprime on a separate Lee press, just to keep the gunk off the Redding.

Higbean- exactly as you say.

I have a Lee (....sorry....I guess) and just bought a turret for each cartridge. A Lee turret costs all of $12. I leave a bullet puller in one turret. and just change it's collet depending on caliber.

For my 6mm I have two different seating dies in the turret, a Lee for 85 hpbt and a RCBS for 100 spt.

In another I have a neck sizer and a full length sizer because I was occasionally loading for a friends rifle. Having four hole turrets makes things SO convenient. Set and forget.

I reload 9mm and 40s&w likewise. KrakMT points to one thing the Lee is great at- de-priming and priming neatly.

I have really wanted a Redding T-7 for a while now. But........ I have two friends with Lyman turret presses, one has the T-Mag and the other the new 8-Station press. They both say they've had no problems with them and load ammo just as accurately as their Rockchuckers.

The Lyman 8-Station is a $100+ less than the Redding. Midway has the Lymans on sale right now. The savings could almost pay for three extra turrets and the cover a big chunk of the rifles I'm currently loading for.......

Decisions, decisions.........

10 years down the road, $100 will be like $10/year...

The Lyman turrets are lower priced than the T7 also.
I think the Lyman is pretty good.

The turret turns........

A few years ago I thought I'd give a turret press a try. Buddy of mine sold me his lightly used Lyman. I started out just doing handgun cartridges on it, now I'm loading my rifle cartridges, including the 375 H&H, on it with excellent results.

For most of my loading, I don't really want a progressive loader. It didn't take long though before I found that I was loading pistol & rifle cartridges quite a bit faster than I'd ever managed on my good old Rockchucker. I've still got the RCBS, but haven't loaded on it in over a year.

Somehow it's just a little faster, no problem. I use it like a single stage press, I think the speed improvement comes from the wide-open front, allowing fast access to the cartridge & ram. I dunno. Maybe.



Regards, Guy

Well then, I'll just put $10 a year into a jar and in 10 years I'll buy the T-7...............

I have a rcbs...love it. I’ll never go back.

The Redding is better imho

My first turret press was a Lyman, that I bought around 1970 or ‘71. Bought my second Lyman about 1990. I’ve never found anything to complain about, they seem to produce good, accurate reloads! memtb

I use my turret indexer when making 9mm and 40 cal pistol rounds but I remove the index rod ( so the turret does not spin) when making rifle ammo. I am typically tinkering loads or making a small number of rounds for each rifle. I weigh each charge separately for these and don't use a powder dump of any kind for this.

I say Dillon 550. I load all my precision ammo (6 Dasher, 260 Rem, .223, 224 Valkerie, etc) on my 550. I ditched the powder throw and replaced it with a funnel. Charges get weighed out on another piece of equipment. It's FAST. Every pull of the handle results in a finished round. My powder dispenser is fast, so by the time I check the last completed round for length and run the handle it has the next charge waiting for me. I'd estimate 10-12 seconds a round once I'm rolling.

To make a progressive really work, you need to trim (if necessary) before sizing. My process:

Clean brass
Anneal
Trim if necessary
Load
Clean finished rounds (I dump them back in the tumbler for 5 minutes to get the case lube off)

I'm getting velocity SD's of 3-4 with this process. Tolerance on length is typically plus minus 0.0015". Plenty good enough.

I have a Redding T-7 that I do all my rifle rounds on. I leave the dies set up and change heads. I can't see any difference, between rounds coming of the T-7, or the rock chucker. I have two rock chuckers set up one for pulling bullets and one for checking shoulder set-back. (Redding gauge). I load all my pistol stuff on a Dillon 650, it's a huge time saver.