Lee vs RCBS presses and equipment

[SidecarFlip]

Gary...

One of these days when you have time and the inclination, I'll take you on a mill tour. We can do the electric furnaces, the caster, the slab mill, rolling stands and then the processing end and the galvanizing and coating lines. I'm sure you would enjoy the mechanics of it.

I see it every day so it's sort of a 'take it for granted thing' for me but it is interesting and of course intensely mechanical. PPE required of course.

We use OTM (off track material) as pot additive in the mix, especially scrap track. The vintage stuff is light years better than the newer stuff but that tends to hold true for everything vintage, including us.......

We are opening a new facility in East Chicago shortly btw. Just getting ready to set the overhead cranes, Zenar's in 6 speed digital remote controls. Will be a process to finish goods facility.

IMO, every press from every maker is good, so long as you operate it within the design parameters.

 

[Kennibear]

Trickymissfit

Some of the information you have presented is somewhat askew.

Sidecarflip is correct in that rail steel contains Manganese. Molybdenum is very expensive and adds non-critical heat treating and toughness but not wear resistance to steel. The original FG42 had a Moly-steel receiver but the Germans came up with the Mk2 with a conventional steel receiver to save the precious Moly for critical material. The BAR had a Moly-steel receiver for toughness. Moly is not used in any cast iron alloys I am aware of. Manganese adds considerable wear resistance to steel and is really cheap. It is in the steel as a normal component from steel making. Anything over 3% is considered an alloy. Bucket teeth on earth moving equipment is Manganese Austinetic Steel because of its great wear resistance. It is very brittle until heat treated. More than 13% forms the earliest form of stainless steel originally patented in Germany. Not the steel for a press.

Cast iron and steel cross over at 1% carbon content. >1% is Iron, <1% is Steel (American Iron and Steel Institute). Mehenite is a patented heat treating process applied to plain cast iron to give it unique properties. Chrome is a waste on cast iron as there is so much carbon in iron (usually at least 5%) that it form chromium carbides at the grain boundaries and the alloy would be very brittle. Nickle added to iron forms malleable iron which is used in piston rings as it is tougher (flexible) than iron and has the excellent wear of cast iron. It is also used in cylinder sleeves.

Cast iron is used in heavy machinery because it has four characteristics: 1) Cheap as dirt. 2) Very stiff. 3) Since carbon absorbed in excess (>1%) in iron forms graphite naturally at the grain boundaries, cast iron is self-lubricating - up to a point. 4) The surface is porous and holds oil very well. Oil is in the iron but only on the steel. Cast iron frying pans properly seasoned don't rust because of the oil they have absorbed.

So good reloading presses are made of cast iron. Just like the steel valve stem riding in a cast iron valve guide the steel ram rides in the cast frame which retains the oil/grease and is self-lubricating so galling is all but eliminated. Cast iron is ridged so flex is eliminated. Iron is cheap so you can use enough of it to make a good press and not drive the cost through the roof. The new Summit press by RCBS looks to be all steel. It has a zerk fitting to grease it and costs a lot more, almost 2X as much as a iron press.


What knowledge I have of iron and steel is because our guns are made from it and I seek every ounce of knowledge I can find on them. When we start making guns out of unobtainium, I'll learn everything I can about it.

KB

 

[SidecarFlip]

KB:

I might add that we are not in the casting business unless you consider casting slabs for rolling to be a casting. Our company is in the business of flat rolled high strength alloy sheet.

I know the 'ingredients' added to the ladle, aluminum, copper, zinc, OTM such as sheared rail (interesting machine btw, chops the rail into 1 foot lengths) and other ingredients in proportion th achieve a particular melt depending on the ASTM grade dersired.

Myself, I'd never coinsider an aluminum framed press for anything other than bullet seating simply because of the inherent flex factor of aluminum, it's not as rigid as cast steel or cast iron, other than that, IMO (strictly) all the cast frame presses are fine so long as the frame is sufficiently robust and designed with strength enhancing ribs and they all are (far as I can ascertain)...

Different manufacturers offer different 'unique' designs, some appeal more to one individual than another but the basic structure remains unchanged, a device to loacate the moveable ram and keep that ram in alignment with the boss that engages the die when pressure is applied without deflection.

The 'wheel' has already been invented but certainly can be improved upon from the basic time tested design. Same applies to reloading presses.

 

[SidecarFlip]

.................."When we start making guns out of unobtainium"........

When you do, let me know, I want one and price is no object.

 

[Daveinjax]

My reliable source at Malaysia Airlines tells me that all unobtainium is being diverted to 7mm wsm case production.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Gary...

One of these days when you have time and the inclination, I'll take you on a mill tour. We can do the electric furnaces, the caster, the slab mill, rolling stands and then the processing end and the galvanizing and coating lines. I'm sure you would enjoy the mechanics of it.

I see it every day so it's sort of a 'take it for granted thing' for me but it is interesting and of course intensely mechanical. PPE required of course.

We use OTM (off track material) as pot additive in the mix, especially scrap track. The vintage stuff is light years better than the newer stuff but that tends to hold true for everything vintage, including us.......

We are opening a new facility in East Chicago shortly btw. Just getting ready to set the overhead cranes, Zenar's in 6 speed digital remote controls. Will be a process to finish goods facility.

IMO, every press from every maker is good, so long as you operate it within the design parameters.

I can't say that I've ever seen a Zenar crane. Most of the heavy cranes I was around were DeMags. Of course in a steel mill the crane is probably bigger than any I've worked with.

I did my final theses on the study of cast irons and cast steels. Looked pretty simple at the start, but opened up a whole new world for me. I always thought that there was basically two kinds of cast iron, and most were pretty much the same. I ended up with a term paper that was over a hundred pages, and a bibliography that was probably ten pages itself. My wife typed it up and bitched for a month! But I got an A+, and they used it as a study guide years later. Vito Mitkus was the instructor, and he later told me he learned from it!

I'd love to see the insides of that steel mill!
gary

 

[Kennibear]

If Sidecarflip is arranging steel mill tours, I need four tickets.



Do they serve lunch?.....

KB

 

[SidecarFlip]

I can't say that I've ever seen a Zenar crane. Most of the heavy cranes I was around were DeMags. Of course in a steel mill the crane is probably bigger than any I've worked with.

I did my final theses on the study of cast irons and cast steels. Looked pretty simple at the start, but opened up a whole new world for me. I always thought that there was basically two kinds of cast iron, and most were pretty much the same. I ended up with a term paper that was over a hundred pages, and a bibliography that was probably ten pages itself. My wife typed it up and bitched for a month! But I got an A+, and they used it as a study guide years later. Vito Mitkus was the instructor, and he later told me he learned from it!

I'd love to see the insides of that steel mill!
gary

DeMag and Zenar are the same entity Gary. I've always been partial to Cleveland Tramrail but they went tits up 30 years ago. You can still find their distinctive arched cutout in I beams in plants, including ours.

If Sidecarflip is arranging steel mill tours, I need four tickets.



Do they serve lunch?.....

KB

Be a helluva long drive considering we are east of the Mississppi by a long shot. Sort of like me going out west to hunt I guess.

Not sure about lunch, we do have an employee's cafeteria.... and the uual hoagy wagons.....

Everyday stuff for me (the mill). I'm one of the head knockers for our transportation division. We have out own in house trucking company that delivers our products.

Have no doubt, it's a dangerous place to work. Mandatory PPE, Hard hats, safety glasses or goggles or face shields, kevlar oversleeves, boots with safety toes or metatarsal protection and fire retardant coveralls in the hot places.......

 

[Trickymissfit]

DeMag and Zenar are the same entity Gary. I've always been partial to Cleveland Tramrail but they went tits up 30 years ago. You can still find their distinctive arched cutout in I beams in plants, including ours.



Be a helluva long drive considering we are east of the Mississppi by a long shot. Sort of like me going out west to hunt I guess.

Not sure about lunch, we do have an employee's cafeteria.... and the uual hoagy wagons.....

Everyday stuff for me (the mill). I'm one of the head knockers for our transportation division. We have out own in house trucking company that delivers our products.

Have no doubt, it's a dangerous place to work. Mandatory PPE, Hard hats, safety glasses or goggles or face shields, kevlar oversleeves, boots with safety toes or metatarsal protection and fire retardant coveralls in the hot places.......

I know Cleveland! We had a 30 ton crane in an old press bay that I used to rebuild machine centers in. Used to have to ride in the top of it. We had another crane bay with an even bigger Cleveland in it for off loading steel from flat bed trucks (and machines). I liked the DeMags, but always felt the operated a little too fast. When using it to set a slide or load a big chunk of iron you want a very slow creep. DeMag did modify one 30 ton crane we had over a very large FMS system, and it was a pleasure to use. Split many a G&L MC with it, and went back together effortlessly. The crane part is easy, it's the rigging that follows. That's what gets a lot of folks killed
gary

 

[Sully2]

And what properties does "hipping" give to the parent material and when needed what will transitional welding do for you.??

 

[Trickymissfit]

Trickymissfit

Some of the information you have presented is somewhat askew.

Sidecarflip is correct in that rail steel contains Manganese. Molybdenum is very expensive and adds non-critical heat treating and toughness but not wear resistance to steel. The original FG42 had a Moly-steel receiver but the Germans came up with the Mk2 with a conventional steel receiver to save the precious Moly for critical material. The BAR had a Moly-steel receiver for toughness. Moly is not used in any cast iron alloys I am aware of. Manganese adds considerable wear resistance to steel and is really cheap. It is in the steel as a normal component from steel making. Anything over 3% is considered an alloy. Bucket teeth on earth moving equipment is Manganese Austinetic Steel because of its great wear resistance. It is very brittle until heat treated. More than 13% forms the earliest form of stainless steel originally patented in Germany. Not the steel for a press.

Cast iron and steel cross over at 1% carbon content. >1% is Iron, <1% is Steel (American Iron and Steel Institute). Mehenite is a patented heat treating process applied to plain cast iron to give it unique properties. Chrome is a waste on cast iron as there is so much carbon in iron (usually at least 5%) that it form chromium carbides at the grain boundaries and the alloy would be very brittle. Nickle added to iron forms malleable iron which is used in piston rings as it is tougher (flexible) than iron and has the excellent wear of cast iron. It is also used in cylinder sleeves.

** Back in the 1950's at least one auto manufacture used chrome and nickel in their engine blocks. Blocks were very hard to rebore, but honed like a dream come true. Mehenite may have been patented at one time; I don't know for sure. Yet you can buy it to this very day from many good suppliers. You don't buy it because it's just a good grade of cast iron. You buy it because it's very stable, and changes little as it seasons thru the years. In my stash I have a pair of Mehenite angle plates that were hand scraped to less than lab grade specs. The were cut and scraped in the early 1950's, and were so close that I could use them as masters (except I didn't have three of them). I did a recheck of them around 2000, and they were within an arc second. ( used a Lietz auto collimator on a master surface plate with a series of mirrors) That's extremely stable! On the otherhand I have a set of five angle plates that I scraped and mastered to each other around 1988. They were within .000050" all over when I did them. Checked them at the sametime, and they were out of spec by about .00025". Froze them for about a month, and then put them on the roof in the hot summer sun for about six to eight weeks. Then rescraped them again. A guy machining a good aged chunk of Mehenite will know the difference in five minutes!


Cast iron is used in heavy machinery because it has four characteristics: 1) Cheap as dirt. 2) Very stiff. 3) Since carbon absorbed in excess (>1%) in iron forms graphite naturally at the grain boundaries, cast iron is self-lubricating - up to a point. 4) The surface is porous and holds oil very well. Oil is in the iron but only on the steel. Cast iron frying pans properly seasoned don't rust because of the oil they have absorbed.

** kind of reminds of when I helped to order in a Devlieg "K" model horizontal jig bore a few years back. Built off the same frame as the "J" model. Devlieg put a $100,000 sir charge for the cast iron framed machine! Still used the same ball screws and scales as the J machine. Same hardened ways and Tyco way roller bearings.

On a machine run off at G&L (also K&T) I asked them about buying MM2300's with a cast iron frame. They simply said you couldn't afford it! But moving on to lathes. Most use a welded construction frame these days because they are cheap. Flex all over the map. Machine frames are either flexable, or extremely rigid. The ones that flex are almost always welded steel. Doesn't make the steel ones bad, but you have to learn to deal with them. Yet I've never seen a single machine that could be had with a cast frame or a steel frame work as accurately as the cast iron frame.

Cast iron is porous, and will readily absorb oils into the granular structure. Typically a ground finished piece of steel doesn't (it does to a very small extent). That's why most of the time you see the maitting piece made of cast iron, or will have a synthetic coating (Turcite, Rulon, or Moglice). Stainless steel and aluminum are even worse. Typically (modern eras) all steel frames have hardened steel ways that are ground. They do this to save money and also scrapping mild steel is a bitch! (I know this for sure). Cast steel is not much better; I might add. Today most machines use a ground way system, but this is due to a cost factor and the lack of knowledge.


So good reloading presses are made of cast iron. Just like the steel valve stem riding in a cast iron valve guide the steel ram rides in the cast frame which retains the oil/grease and is self-lubricating so galling is all but eliminated. Cast iron is ridged so flex is eliminated. Iron is cheap so you can use enough of it to make a good press and not drive the cost through the roof. The new Summit press by RCBS looks to be all steel. It has a zerk fitting to grease it and costs a lot more, almost 2X as much as a iron press.


What knowledge I have of iron and steel is because our guns are made from it and I seek every ounce of knowledge I can find on them. When we start making guns out of unobtainium, I'll learn everything I can about it.

KB

One issue that was not cuss or discussed if the foundry itself. These foundries are getting harder to find daily. Intricate castings come at a premium. You say "but it's just a reloading press!" Remember you might make 300 presses at the max per year.
gary

 

[Sully2]

More and more you'll find items made "overseas"... Any idea what the cost is for a foundry....from property to salarys to...etc..etc. One hell of a lot less $$ to get it made"overseas" and bring it here to have the bore of it machines to make sure its 100% and go from there.

 

[Trickymissfit]

More and more you'll find items made "overseas"... Any idea what the cost is for a foundry....from property to salarys to...etc..etc. One hell of a lot less $$ to get it made"overseas" and bring it here to have the bore of it machines to make sure its 100% and go from there.

with over three million people out of work in this country, I look for something made in the USA
gary

 

[Daveinjax]

with over three million people out of work in this country, I look for something made in the USA
gary

This ^
If there is a competitive product I'll spend a little more money for Made in the USA. Sometimes I'll spend a lot more. When it comes to reloading tools and guns there is no reason to buy foreign made goods. When I do buy foreign made goods I prioritize by how good of an ally they are and how much their values match ours. Canada , United Kingdom , France , and the rest of western Europe at the top and China , Vietnam , middle Eastern countries last.