Home Forums Hunting & Shooting BPCR Turret press for loading BP cartridges

As I said in my other post I am a totally new to black powder cartridge. I have been loading smokeless for over 40 years. I went to a fellow bpcr shooters house on Monday and he gave me some very in depth lessons on loading BP cartridges and I loaded my first rounds for my 38-55. In an effort to streamline the process I thought it would save time to have all the various dies mounted on a turret press. Do any of you do this and if so what press do you use?

I use a Redding turret press to load 45-90, 45-70, 40-50 BN and 38-56 BN. My turret head has neck/bushing dies, powder compression plugs and neck expander plugs. I do not use full length dies or seating dies for these single shot rifles.

The Redding T7 works great for me. I don't deprime or prime with it that is done with separate hand held tools.

T7 here too. Does fine. 45-70, 40-65 and 50-70

Same here. I use it much like a single stage, processing 40 or 50 rounds at one die station, then rotating the turret to the next die for all rounds. Is that "batch loading"? Whatever, it gives good results and minimizes the wear and tear on the bearing surfaces. I wind up with a box full of uniform rounds, especially good for my 38-55, using BP or smokeless.

What I do is prep how ever many cases I'm going to load at a session. Put the sizing, expanding and compression die in order. Size and expand the cases doing both operations by swiveling the turret back and forth. Then the powder thrower starts its work. Charge a case, and while the next charge is metering out, compress, set the wads using the compression die in single stage. Seat the bullet and into the box it goes. By that time the next charge is ready, and off we go.
Takes about an hour to load a batch of 50, and you only have to put the dies in the turret once.

I use the T7 as well. I found a good deal on extra turret heads a couple years ago and have one set up for the 32-40, one for the 38-55, and one for the 40-65. I use a universal decapping die in the press to deprime and a hand held priming tool to prime cases.

Thanks for the input, I purchased a Lyman all american 8 turret press

Once you catch on to using the benefits of the turret press, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

I never thought about it since I don’t resize them but I wonder if I could load .50-90 on my Dillon 750?

My RCBS Rock Chucker is mostly used for de priming rifle brass now and the Dillon 550B takes care of handgun and straight walled cases like the 45-70 and the 5.56/223 for the AR.

The Redding T7 does every thing else for my .338 Winny, 30-06 and 6.5 Creedmoor, 356 Win. and .348 Ackley Improved.

If I could only have one press, it would be the Dillon, since I shoot handguns more often then rifles and it will load every thing once its set up. Other wise it would be the Redding T7.

Interesting, to me 'anything' to do with BPCR/Sharps rifles means slow down and enjoy, enjoy the sounds and motion of driving a stick shift vs sitting back with an automatic trans set on cruise control with cell phone speaker blaring and a glass of cold tea in the cup holder , i load them one at a time in a single stage press enjoying the time spent, single cast, weigh and visually inspect every bullet, i also wont take them up in a damn tree or store bought ground blind.

I guess it depends on the type and amount of shooting a person does. If you shoot a lot of matches that will require somewhere between 100 and 350 rounds per, the turret presses are handy.

Yep, just a hunter here, no match shooter, that said, i have shop heater on, will grab a bite of lunch and head out to compress 180 sticks of 45-70 Starline brass with 75gr KIK 2F and playing card wad, the brass is a mix i had and 100 rounds given to me by Mr. Bagwell, i annealed all brass, full length sized it, trimmed to max length, de-burred cases, they'll be stored compressed with wad and used when needed, doesn't take long to pop in a grease cookie with another wad then finger seat paper patch bullet and give a little taper crimp to hold in place for hunting.

These cases will never see a size die again after being fired in this rifle, range tooled, soapy hot water soak, rinse and dry, tumble clean, reload, taper crimp case mouth, GTG.

I own a single stages (Lee classic cast & a new APP), a turret press (Redding T7), and a progressive (Dillon 550)
I can load quality ammunition on all of them (the APP is just for depriming and swaging right now).

As others above have stated, I use the Turret press as a single stage - that already has my dies set up. I like to load in large batches....so I'll do all my brass prep and have a large box of primed brass ready to go for reloads.
I typically use my T7 for my slow fire match ammunition. I can and have loaded really good ammo on my Dillon 550, but is just easier to leave that set up for rapid fire loads and practice ammo.

I haven't owned the Lyman turret press, but it looks like a good option as well. Or you could sell a kidney and get an Area419 Zero press.

Plenty of options. Also, there is currently a market for used presses, so if you try it and don't like it, you can sell it easily (my Redding T7 was bought second hand).
Good Luck,
Ross

Great info fellas.. I have a T7 and a Forster COAX on the bench. Looking forward to monkeying with the 50-90 soon!