Re: Cadillac of the Turret Presses?
<span style="font-style: italic">Fuzzball, arent Lee presses pot metal?... Ive always concidered Lee a bottom of the barrel reloading mfg, but they do have alot of fallowers..."</span>
Well, Waldo, it matters a good bit what you term 'pot metal' but a lot of people do make that claim. What they really are is a very high grade alum alloy which is, pound for pound, stronger and MUCH more rigid than cast iron. If that's 'pot metal' you really won't much care for any current scope tubes, most rifle's bottom metal and magazines, some very high grade handguns and the ARs, nor auto and marine engine blocks and most of the airplanes flying today. But, in all due respect to them, if you think all that's some pretty good stuff then the dofuses who call that alloy 'pot metal' must be mindlessly full of crap and really don't know what they're talking about. And Lee's Classic Cast and Classic turret presses are iron and steel. ??
I have the highly aclaimed 'rigid' Rock Chucker, a Lyman turret and two of Lee's "Reloader" C frame presses on my bench. I'm a hobbiest 'machinest' as well as gunner/reloader so I do have the right tools to measure press flex (and cartridge concentricity). I've measured the spring of all three single stage presses while FL sizing cases from the same box of .30-06 and using the same dies/shell holder in each press to achieve the same measured shoulder set back. The RC springs almost 3 thou, consistantly. Neither of the supposed tiny and 'weak' pot metal C frame Lee presses moved the dial indicator enough to take a reading! Meaning, within their obvious yield strength limits, the 'pot metal' C presses are MORE rigid than my massive iron press!
I didn't bother measuring the spring/flex on my Lyman turret press, that would surely burn my eyes. But with proper loading methods (aka, 'knowing what the hell I'm doing'), I can load the same quality ammo on all four of my presses so I wonder why so many people credit their press for making 'concentric' cartridges. IME concentricity comes from the dies and cases and skill, not the press. I do find it less <span style="text-decoration: underline">demanding</span> to load well on a truly rigid press but press spring is NOT an automatic limitation, as proven by those who load quite well on turret presses.
Saying the T-7 press has a support on the back of the turret is meaningless; all conventional turret presses have such a support to reduce the head lifting too massively. Lee's turret press is NOT conventional but I haven't had the oportunity to put my dial indicator on one. I would like to tho, because I'd bet it does pretty well.
My experiments with conventional dies by all makers show there is as much variation in the results from dies by the same maker as between makers. I have two 'identical' die sets in green boxes, one is quite good and the other barely meets SAMMI specs. I get similar results from other color boxes. It seems anyone obtaining excellant results with one set of one brand and less good results from another set by a different brand is only seeing the effects of normal manufactoring tolerances, not a predictable difference between the brands.
For chooshing dies, IMHO and on average, there are two brands tied for 'best'; Forster and Redding. ALL others are, on average, tied for third place no matter how much they vary in cost. Even then, on average, there isn't a massive difference. And if we luck onto a third place set in which everything works perfectly - not common - we really can load as accurate/concentric as we could with a much more costly first place set.
(Keep an eye out for my grand-son-in law Cpl. Kirby Morris on base, he's a grunt. And be kind to him if you find him, I'm quite proud of him. He's pulled tuff tours in both Afganistan and Iraq and is looking at moving into the "security force"!)
