Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Upgrade

I've been loading everything, both rifle and pistol, for two decades on a single stage press.  My current press is a Lee Classic Cast press, and by any standards it is a magnificent single stage press.  It's heavy, large, and overly strong for any single-stage work, to include sizing brass, or re-working brass.  If I can' t get it done on the Lee Classic, it's time for a machine shop.

However, I've been jonesing for something just a little faster for repetitive tasks like pistol ammunition.  I don't need match-grade pistol ammo and making match-grade pistol ammo is simply too time consuming.  So, I decided to step up to the 1970s and buy a turret press.  The boys at Lee Precision sell a nice one, so I pulled the pin last week and ordered one of their turret presses.  The brown truck of happiness brought it today.


There's a lot of stuff in there that I don't need, because I've already got all that stuff, but I'm happy to share wit my sons, who are beginning to reload.  I'll be setting this up over the next several days, and go from batch processing of pistol ammo to linear processing of same ammo.  I'm sure that it will speed up production considerably.

8 comments:

Rivrdog said...

Pardon my disillusionment, mon frere, but won't that new press just get you to the end of your reloading supplies faster?

Gerry N. said...

RD, that's the point. Paw Paw, I've had one of those Lee turret presses since two Christmasses ago (Thanks to Da Missus). If you have anywhere near the luck with yours, that I've had with mine, you're gonna love it. One little thing, it takes a little messing with before you will attain full familiarity, the time is well spent.

Lee has good engineers and designers.

Gerry N.

Termite said...

Color me jealous........

Pawpaw said...

Exactly, old Dog. The idea isn't to hoard supplies, the idea is to shoot the ammo.

Ed Jones said...

Reloading does not save money, it just lets you shoot 3 to 4 times as much. You will need it now that you have the USPSA bug.

Old NFO said...

Nice! :-) Enjoy!!!

BobM said...

I've made a lot of pistol ammo with one of those, it'll serve you well.

Anonymous said...

Been using one of those since the late '80s.
Made plinking ammmo, deer hunting ammo, and match pistol ammo on it.

I broke the bench it was on this winter but the press is still cranking right along.