Travel Press

Rocketboy

Private
Minuteman
Oct 5, 2020
62
21
So I’m doing a lot of traveling for work right now. Found a place to shoot where I’m going on weekends… my question, does anybody know a good press for travel and precision reloading? I have a good scale, looking for a good travel press. Not looking to lug my home unit every time I travel. Don’t know if the lee hand reloading tool is worth a crap. Thanks in advance.
 
A buddy of mine, his dad travels a lot and this is his set up. It gets the job done and proof of concept.

he is an older, pragmatic gentleman.

Box is 20 wide 14 deep and 18 high.

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You will see a lot of boxes like that among the benchrest crowd. I used to know a guy who had a larger one with a Dillon 550.
Arbor presses do tend to dominate for "portable" though.

it sure would make load development that much easier if I could bring the reloading bench to the range with me.
 
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… my question, does anybody know a good press for travel and precision reloading?
Arbor press
or this

with this
 
I’m in for more pictures of these setups.
Also, what is everyone using for scales? Battery powered electronic?
 
I have a old Black & Decker Work Mate that I use for reloading on the go. I have a 3/4" piece of plywood 4'x6' with a 2"x4"x4' long screwed to the middle of the plywood, I clamp that into the Work Mate. Mount the old RCBS Rock Chucker onto it (Predrilled holes with bolts), old RCBS 5-0-5 scale, dies, Lee priming tool, powder funnel, powder scoops, lube, trickler, and powder measure, and everything else in a Pelican 1600 case.

It use to be my apartment rig, when I was starting out, now I use it when I want to load and fine tune for rifles on the range or field.

It use to be cardboard and hand made wooden boxes, but it graduated up to a used beat up Pelican case I found in the trash pile at work.
 
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I have a old Black & Decker Work Mate that I use for reloading on the go. I have a 3/4" piece of plywood 4'x6' with a 2"x4"x4' long screwed to the middle of the plywood, I clamp that into the Work Mate. Mount the old RCBS Rock Chucker onto it (Predrilled holes with bolts), old RCBS 5-0-5 scale, dies, Lee priming tool, powder funnel, powder scoops, lube, trickler, and powder measure, and everything else in a Pelican 1600 case.

It use to be my apartment rig, when I was starting out, now I use it when I want to load and fine tune for rifles on the range or field.

It use to be cardboard and hand made wooden boxes, but it graduated up to a used beat up Pelican case I found in the trash pile at work.
This is similar to what I did for many years. I was a school teacher in Alaska and quite transient. My buddy was a jetboat outifitter in Idaho in the Hell's Canyon. I spent summers taking care of clients in an extremely remote place and the school year in a place maybe even more remote but I did have reliable 110AC there. I needed (I felt) my stuff everywhere I went.
So...I had a piece of 1-1/8" plywood about 2'x2' with a 2x6 I screwed and glued to it. Clamped that in the Workmate.
I mounted my Rockchucker press to it with blind nuts and then mounted my case trimmer to a piece of 1/2" with the same bolt pattern. I used a rotary tumbler with a crank mounted to it to clean brass without electricity...I even got all Gilligans Island with that and a discarded bicycle I found. It was about a 10 mile ride to polish brass. I had an RCBS charge thrower mounted with blind nuts (forget the model) and the standard OG RCBS scale.
I can honestly say that those loads were not less accurate than what I am doing now with several thousand more dollars invested and an entire room dedicated to the endeavor but the caveat is that I'm MUCH older and probably not as good of a shooter. For certain, I killed WAAAAAAY more animals then.
 
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All brass prepped the night before, Arbor press as people here are saying. Wwaaaaay more convenient than any other method I tried.

I set the seating die to what I want the night before, so I'm fully ready to go. I still take a oal gauge to measure if I want to mess.with seating depth.
 
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I do it for load dev. I'll prep 100 cases, maybe have 10 pre loaded for sighters, go from there. Find a velo spot I like, load a few on that charge to ensure velo is solid, then play with seating depth, which my le Wilson micro seater Arbor die does. Can do load Dev in one session.