Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Lee Turret Press ?

My take on reloading is that it is much like house painting. Your time is mainly consumed on preparation. And without adequate preparation the paintjob is ultimately [bleep].

Looks like you have the following stages:

• You prime them
• You resize them
• You flare them
• You charge them
• You seat them (and possibly crimp in one step)
• Possibly you crimp in a separate step

So 200 cartridges in an hour? Hmmmm, lets imagine 5 seconds per. That would be 200x5/60 = 16.7minutes per stage. There are 5 possibly 6 stages, so either 5x16.7= 83 minutes, or 6*16.7 = 100 minutes.

Waiting for the Brown truck right now with my package should be here any minute now

The eagle has landed

Thanks for your time analysis estimate...you got me curious and that's a dangerous thing. Your time estimates sound reasonable, so you have given the process some careful thought, but my process is different, and your estimates are only partially correct.

With just an average pace and not pushing it.

Just sitting at the bench, starting with clean brass I am sizing about 26/min, so that's a little faster than 5 sec.

Priming is slower, looks like about 20/min, but that's not counting filling the primer tube.

So, I don't do it this way, but theoretically, I could grab a piece of brass, size and decap it in one stroke.

The next round is flaring at the same rate, but then I can move that case straight into the priming station, prime it, and then set it into the loading block when done all in one smooth handling motion. That saves a few handlings and more seconds overall doing it that way.

With ball powder, charging takes around 2 minutes/block of 50, but then I take a few seconds to inspect every block afterward. That doesn't take very long really, you can instantly see any high or low charge levels even at a quick glance, but I usually double check my work... that's what the charge alarm does on the progressive.

That process all goes pretty fast and smooth, but fast or slow, I wouldn't choose a single stage if my goal was maximum rounds/hour. I can crank out rounds pretty fast, but speed-loading really isn't my goal.

Now, some of my friends just collect up their range brass in a bucket and dump it into their 1050s and load 800 rds or so an hour...their attitude is shiny and clean or dirty their guns can't tell the difference.

While that's true, I'm a little more obsessive than most, and I like clean brass. My loaded rounds come out looking like brand new factory rounds.

Does that extra effort take more time?...yes. Is all that attention to detail necessary?...no.

If I wanted to load a few thousand rounds a bunch faster, I wouldn't use a single stage process, I would automate the process on the progressives. One of the benefits of progressive presses is that they enable the operator to direct his concentration on other aspects of the process rather than component handling.

I have faster tools and I'll readily use them to automate and make the process easier, but I probably wouldn't save a lot of time using a progressive for 200 rounds.

A lot of the process is brass prep and that is done off the machines, more so with rifle ammo.

I use-up even more time in inspection and taking measurements, my calipers are one of my most valuable tools on the bench...but that's how commercial loading plants do it, they just have lasers, scales, computers and other machines automating the inspection process.

My personality type is that whenever I do something, (pretty much anything), my goal is to do it as well as I possibly can, so that's what I'm stuck with.

And, while that burdens me sometimes, and this is just my offhand opinion here, I think if a person is one of those opposite personality types that are always in a rush and have little free time and no patience or aptitude to do something correctly, reloading as a hobby may not be for them.

Safety trumps speed...always.

Talk about fast...if you have brass, primers and powder...you're all set.

Powder is the glitch but I have some to get me started and hopefully Hogdon truck shows at my dealer tomorrow with something I need
I have Power pistol,Lil Gun and Silhouette on hand

You know, the little Lee disc powder measure is a very good little measure. You dont get infinite settings but you font need it either, its very accurate and pretty much cant over-charge. Down sides is that it's pretty much a handgun affair, and the powder hopper is too small. Use it with Lee dies (which are the best in the biz) and you can drop powder through the expander. Quick and easy.

I'll just be using this set up for hand gun , rifle will still get loaded on the Rockchucker

OK, after reading this post just for [bleep] and grins I went into the reloading room, started the stopwatch, and mounted my Lee Classic Turret press on the bench. It had the 455 Webley toolhead on it, so I switched out to the next one down the line, 45 Colt.

I unscrewed the Lee Autodisk from the toolhead, changed the disk to the 1.57cc setting, poured in some powder. (This is a known load for me, I use it a lot, but don't advertise it on the innanet as it's a bit hot in the 45 Colt.) Grabbed an Acro bin full of tumbled/cleaned 45 Colt brass, another small Acro bin full of my cast 262 gr cast RNFP's, tipped some WW Large Pistol primers onto my primer pad, and started loading. When I hit 100 rounds the elapsed time was 27 minutes and 14 seconds, and I wasn't working particularly fast.

Point is, if you have all your stuff in a state of preparation on a routine basis, this press can put rounds out for you in a very short time frame.

Yeah, I think it's a damn good press for what you pay. I'd like to have one myself, but I don't much reload anymore. It's not going to take the place of a progressive, but it's a very convenient way to load single stage.

Someone mentioned they won't use it for rifle, they'll use their Rockchucker. Hey, the Rockchucker is the benchmark standard for single stage presses. But I don't care what I'm loading, if I have a turret press available, I'm not going to be using a Rockchucker. Maybe for something REALLY hard to resize (.300 H&H, .375 H&H, .30 Carbine). But for anything else, I'd use the Lee Cast Turett over the Rockchucker.

That's smokin' DocRocket

The fastest I do is 50 in half an hour but that is w/out the primer feeder, putting each primer in the primer seater by hand once I stroke up for the sizer decapper. Maybe that's why I have no problem priming I prefer loading at the leisurely speed of 50 in about 45 minutes.

aluk, it's not smokin' at all... point is, as ethanedwards has pointed out, the devil is in the details... i.e., havin' yer poop figgered out ahead of time.

My brass is cleaned and prepped. My bullets is cast and lubed. My dies are in the 4-hole turret. And I'd had a beer before I even contemplated startin' the whole thing.

It's just a matter of havin' yer poop in a group. And in my reloading room, I got my poop in a group.

I like the looks of that, especially the eagle and "Made in USA" sticker. You'll have to report how it goes. Best of luck. I'm interested in how that stand works. I've got a whole corner of the basement dedicated to reloading, but I always think the compact stuff looks cool. I've got the original hardwood box that my Turret Press came in. You could bolt or clamp the thing to the box and use it on your dining table. I liked mine bolted to something more stable, but it did work.

I own both...and for rifle...its the Rockchucker. One pass in the Lee Turrent and you'll know why...and it has nothing to do with "really hard to size."

I've been using an RCBS Turret for 14yrs and love it. It is absolutely faster and more convenient than a single stage. With six stations, I keep two sets of pistol dies or three sets of rifle dies loaded in a turret head. Anyone who says they are not faster than a single stage has either not used one or didn't take the time to become proficient with it. It takes time to switch dies and there is nowhere to make up for that. Not to mention being able to quickly switch from one stage to the next on the turret by just turning the head.

Just loaded the 1st rounds with the Lee Classic turret. I'm quit please with it ran flawlessly and is much easier and quicker than loading handgun ammo on my single stage set up. I ran a quick 50 rounds off and I went slower than normal checking powder weight( which was damn consistent) and measuring rounds just to make sure every thing was to snuff.

I'm glad to hear you're happy with it. I hope it continues to work out for you.

Awesome revolver!! Custom grips? Bisley frame?

Yes and yes