Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Turret Press vs Lock-N-Load bushings

I see a lot of praise for turret presses on here. I've been a single-stage guy (for rifle cartridges anyway) for the 10 years that I've been reloading, and every time I consider upgrading to a turret press, I can't justify it on paper.

I use Hornady's Lock-N-Load bushing system on all my dies, with their conversion kit in my RockChucker. It takes about 5 seconds to switch out dies, and they're always "set up" so no need to fiddle with them.

Prices have gone up lately, but I think I've paid an average of $4-5 apiece for them over the years. Adds up to a lot, but still seems more economical than buying a bunch of turrets ($100 for 7 holes with Redding, $65 for 8 holes for Lyman).

Am I missing something? How many of you use the LNL bushings? Anyone switched from them to a turret press and feel they made the right choice?

I love the bushings, been using them in a rockchucker for years. I think they float a bit and can make really straight ammo too.

Never used a turret press, never really saw the benefit in how I load. Now my kid is getting into shooting I’m setting up an old RL450 to speed up production a bit and get her doing her own. So will be going back to lock rings for some stuff I guess.

I ditched the LnL bushing fast.

Those five seconds aren't worth $300 worth of those bushings for my dies

I took the insert out of my Hornady press and fixed it back to 7/8ths

Whatever blows your skirt up; if you're willing to move that slow and repeat that many adjustments, more power to you. I'm not that patient. My post was more about the relative virtues of the LNL bushings and turret presses.

To invest $300 in bushings, you'd have about 60 dies (at $5 apiece). To have enough turrets for those 60 dies, you'd need 9 Redding 7-hole turrets ($900) or 8 Lyman 8-hole turrets ($520). So, considerably more than $300.

Turret presses (Redding T7 etc) are single stage presses.

Forster Co-Ax

I’d probably go this route if I was starting over from scratch.

For low volume loading (hunting), I use a single stage.

For high volume rifle (5.56) & pistol, with a light collet crimp, I use a turret, with priming & powder drop off line...................it's all about how many times you have to handle a given case.

I like to feel my primers seat with all auto's & I always want to verify that my cases are charged with the right powder volume.............hence I do those off line of the turret press.

MM