The post whore thread.

[TheBelly]

In trade for that Shield 9, I'm goign to teach my friend how to reload. He just bought a Lee Turret press, 6 calibers worth of dies, a scale, a reloading manual and 4 turrets (meant to get 5).

He also told me about a store in a nearby town that does ammo reloading while you wait, and they sell their powder/primers to customers. He said they have lots of stuff, not sure on their prices but he said its more than the LGS which has very little powder/primers still.

Lee makes two kinds of turret presses. One is iron and steel, the other is steel and aluminum.

[BuffCyclist]

I'm not sure which he got, but he did say that he read a lot online about how that press has play in it, so when you setup your dies, you need to turn them in another 1/4-1/2 a turn. He said his didn't seem to have that much play so

[TheBelly]

Play in the turret head means that it tilts away from the ram as he pushes and tries to form a case. It also means that bullet concentricity issues may arise with loaded ammo.

[BuffCyclist]

Play in the turret head means that it tilts away from the ram as he pushes and tries to form a case. It also means that bullet concentricity issues may arise with loaded ammo.

So does this issue arise from the steel/aluminum press being weaker and therefore less rigid, due to a tolerance issue with the die plates, or something else entirely different?

[BuffCyclist]

Mmmm.... cheesy grits with two fried eggs on top. Delicious!

[TheBelly]

So does this issue arise from the steel/aluminum press being weaker and therefore less rigid, due to a tolerance issue with the die plates, or something else entirely different?

Tolerance issues with the play of the turret on its mounting point.

its easy to tell the two apart: iron and steel one comes with a ball head ram lever. Steel and aluminum comes with a roller handle ram lever.

the Lee presses CAN auto index, but I wouldn't. You can just take that lever out.

[BuffCyclist]

Awesome, thanks for the info Belly, I'll pass it along to him when we get together to set his stuff up.

[bogie]

Post a pic of the outside AND the table cooking all them bite sized goodness up

Dude the restaurant is different but they still taste like heaven!

No more glass separating me from the grill... and the building is brick instead of sheet metal...

[waxthis]

Yip...

[brutal]

Tolerance issues with the play of the turret on its mounting point.

its easy to tell the two apart: iron and steel one (CLASSIC) comes with a ball head ram lever. Steel and aluminum (DELUXE) comes with a roller handle ram lever.

the Lee presses CAN auto index, but I wouldn't. You can just take that lever out.

Either has a tiny bit of play in the turret, in fact, I measured .008 front and .002 rear on a press in the FL RCBS sizing/decapping die I have in the Classic for a combined .006 deviation.

There's two ways to overcome that tiny bit of deviation if it bothers you. Put o-rings on the die between the turret and lockring - Lee dies already have this - and/or A little blue tape on the back edge of the turret head to even things out. The o-ring on the die seems to be a well known trick for any die set to allow the die to float a bit in the head and align itself to the shellplate. Others have reported (on any press) a half seat on the bullet, twist 180 and then full seat to reduce run-out.

If you're that twisted up about loading precision benchrest loads, the Lee turret press is not for you as you're likely to have an arsenal of concentricity gauges, precision benchrest dies, and other precision instruments and unlikely to have purchased a Lee turret press to begin with.

I auto-index with the Lee and it works fine. One of them did require a little tweaking of the nut on the rod to properly index. Instructions are included.

Someday I'll grow up and get a Dillon 550B for bulk and probably pick up a Rock Chucker for handloads. For now, the Lee presses fill both roles.