The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

When you change from a de-capping/sizing die to the bullet seater die which you have set up previously, do you have to set the die position up every time or does it lock the adjustment.

I haven't got a press yet, but am trying to decide on whether to spend the extra on a progressive press.

Mark

if the height locking ring is locked to the body of the die and the seating depth adjustment hasnt moved... no but i'd double check it before bashing them all out

personally i went with a lee 4 hole turret press and am very impressed. it can function like a single stage if i want it to by taking the turn bar out. and that way i can have all 4 dies for that caliber set and ready, go and do all the single stage functions and instead of changing the dies in and out, when i'm ready to go from priming to seating, i just manually turn the turret.

or if i when it is all set and ready to go, and im happy with the powder measure is set right, i can just pop in the turn bar, and off i go.... one pull for each task, get a nice rhythm going and start turning out some nice ammo. no more carefully lined up cases full of powder to accidently bump or knock over

i've been talked out of progressive presses due to all the set up on them, plus the fact i am not making that much ammo....

Get a good single stage. Learn how to reload by putting theory into practice, then, consider a progressive press...

My advice for what it is worth is to buy the best single station press you can afford ideally a Lyman crusher or a RCBS rock chucker or the Lee cast single station press. Buy second hand if you can. Then learn how to reload on them. Any one of them will last you a lifetime. Iv been reloading over 20 years and my go to press is my Lyman single station press. All my load development is done on this press. If I could only ever own two presses they would be my Lyman crusher and a Warmadet Im still trying to get my hands on the Warmadet but I live in hope. (The spelling might be wrong.)

I have a lee 4 hole turret which I run as a single stage, manually indexing as required - nice thing with them other than price is, having set up dies for a given calibre, the turret can be removed and set aside and replaced without altering settings. I load for several calibres and keep my dies set up on seperate turrets which makes life a little simpler for me.

YMMV

I bought a Lee breechlock press that has the quick change bushing arrangement and it's easy to swap over and is usually spot on for repeatable results.

Alan

Same here, my single stage is the Cast version of the Lee Breechlock, the quick swap bushings are excellent.

I use fixed lock rings on all of my dies so in theory they always return to the same position however I feel it is important to check the first couple of loaded rounds off the press to be absolutely confident the die has been accurately returned to position. This is where the breech lock type inserts come in as they offer a means of ensuring accurate return to position every single time.

You can also add witness marks to the dies and I use this method on a Lee die that is permanently set to seat 7,62x51 bullets. I leave the seater in place however I have also painted a white blob of tip-ex between the die and press with a fine line marked across so I know the die has not been moved, same goes for the adjuster at the top.

I run a Lee 3 hole turret press and use it like a single stage. With a couple of extra turret plates it is so easy to swap calibres as each die is already set up in its turret plate.

Alpha1 wrote:My advice for what it is worth is to buy the best single station press you can afford ideally a Lyman crusher or a RCBS rock chucker or the Lee cast single station press. Buy second hand if you can. Then learn how to reload on them. Any one of them will last you a lifetime. Iv been reloading over 20 years and my go to press is my Lyman single station press. All my load development is done on this press. If I could only ever own two presses they would be my Lyman crusher and a Warmadet Im still trying to get my hands on the Warmadet but I live in hope. (The spelling might be wrong.)

+1 on that.

P.S. Yes you're quite right you have got the spelling slightly wrong, there is no r in Wamadet.