Sully2
Well-Known Member
IF thats "all" you use your RCBS press for....then its evident you dont know a thing about using good equipment...and I'll leave it at that. Adios!
Which press?
- Thread starter Coues Sniper
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805_Sniper
Well-Known Member
I've never seen so much talk over a press in my life! Who cares what press one thinks is better than another. The real question is can you shoot?! You can make the most consistent loads in the world, but if you can't shoot, you have worse issues! Most older folk can't compete with the younger generation due to the fact that you guys shake to much, are out of shape and breathe to hard, and your eyesight is out of wack... So Use your 15 presses and I'll see you at the range!!!
Sully2
Well-Known Member
Mall Ninja...Since this smacks as a post from some 20yr old...I'll reply as such. WRONG! The OP didnt say what his proficiency is / was and the rest of us dont care what it is. He asked about RELOADERS.
As far as ..."Most older folk can't compete with the younger generation due to the fact that you guys shake to much, are out of shape and breathe to hard, and your eyesight is out of wack" goes....I dont shake because I dont have the energy to do so...
.."out of shape"...well Ive got a lot of loot in this belly of mine...typically beer and T-Bones...."breathing too hard" comes from more than 40 years of smoking of which Ive been smoke free for 7 months now...and "your eyesight is out of wack"...after 2 cataract operations my own eye sight is 20/12. I cant quite see the birth of bacteria on a table top...but I can see the moon at night...so thats good enough for me.Coy Franks
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OK, I'll be the oddball, I really like my Dillon 550. I load ten different calibers and I like the convience of the tool heads. The powder measure is 99% of the time on the money ( I weight each rifle load to be sure ) and you can remove and replace any shell in any stage with no trouble. I shoot pistols as well and the Dillon works flawless with the short brass. My 7 year old grandson and 8 year old granddaughter run it for me and they have no trouble at all cranking out 500 rounds of 10 mm per hour. I don't know if its the best out there but it is the best I've ever used.
Coy Franks
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"I cant quite see the birth of bacteria on a table top...but I can see the moon at night...so thats good enough for me. "
Now, that's funny right there!!! I've got to remember that. LOL!
Now, that's funny right there!!! I've got to remember that. LOL!
I use a Lee Load Master not the fastest but works good enough for me. I don't need to turn tons of ammo at a time. I can run about 50 to 75 rounds of .308 and hour which is good enough for as often as I get to shoot. I load for all the rounds I shoot which is 10. So maybe some day I may need a bigger press till then the Loadmaster works for me.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
as long as you have a job it will be nice. I use nothing but made in America stuff
gary
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
If a man were reloading a bunch of big case magnums and full length resizing them, that Lee press would have a life span measured in hours..
most presses die an early death when fed a continouis diet of long strait walled cases. The pressure stack up is really hard on them. I size my strait walled stuff with two fingers, and it actually takes more energy to release the case from the die than the actual sizing operation
gary
If a man were reloading a bunch of big case magnums and full length resizing them, that Lee press would have a life span measured in hours..
Lee recently came out with the Classic cast...I don't think you will wear one out. The have a model made to load 50BMG all the time. 1 1/8" ram diameter.
I have a Lee Challenger aluminum frame that has loaded a lot of ammo including quite a bit of magnum. I have broken 2 sets of aluminum toggles but the press itself is fine.
I have the Classic Cast breechlock and really like it so far.
https://factorysales.com/html/xcart/catalog/breechlockclassic.html
I have a Dillon 450 that works pretty well but I don't use it as a progressive press.
I will eventually own a Forster(bonanza).
I got two RCBS Rockchuckers in 1979 to replace my old RCBS Jr. press I've had since 1966. Both have been used wearing out a dozen or more barrels in .308 Win. and two 30 caliber magnums. A couple of weeks ago at a local sporting goods store, I was looking at another Rockchucker and checked its ram out for wiggle room pressing it sideways as well as back and forth with my hand.
The top of the new Rockchucker's ram at the top of its stroke moved about 1/16th inch (visibly) in all directions.
As soon as I got home I put a dial indicator on both my Rockchuckers, raised the ram and measured their wiggle room. Measured about 8/1000ths on both. There's quite a difference between the new presses' 62/1000ths (approx.) and my old, well used ones at 8/1000ths or less.
I don't' know how much ram position slop at the top of its stroke is too much. I think it may not matter very much. Maybe it does.
The top of the new Rockchucker's ram at the top of its stroke moved about 1/16th inch (visibly) in all directions.
As soon as I got home I put a dial indicator on both my Rockchuckers, raised the ram and measured their wiggle room. Measured about 8/1000ths on both. There's quite a difference between the new presses' 62/1000ths (approx.) and my old, well used ones at 8/1000ths or less.
I don't' know how much ram position slop at the top of its stroke is too much. I think it may not matter very much. Maybe it does.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
you should do the same test at the bottom of the stroke as well. This will give you a hint as to how square the press is. Another check few folks ever do, is to check to see if the end of the ram is square with it's travel. I've seen them all over the place, and .0015" of error triangulates into a bunch on a 3.25" long round.
gary
Never heard of such a check. What's the press axis and surface one measures to see if one's perpendicular/square with the other?
I'd rather see if the shell holder flat's square with a mounted die axis. That's what's directly comparable to the bolt face being perpendicular to the chamber axis and parallel with the receiver face; the part that counts. I've done this with an optically flat round mirror. about 47/100ths and 53/100ths inch in diameter. Everything's square 'cause my bolt faces are squared up with the chamber axis and parallel with the receiver face. Much better than squaring bolt faces with the bolt axis 'cause rarely is the bolt axis on a loaded round aligned with the chamber/bore axis. A couple of my receivers' bolt axis may be a tiny bit out of alignment with the chamber axis, but that's not important as far as I'm concerned. Whatever it is stays constant for each shot.
Where would ".0015 inch of error" exist on the ram's top? This also's something new to me.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
I rebuilt a couple presses for my brother and the guy I used to work for, and that was the first time I ever thought about it to be honest with you. One press was a Pacific (their biggest cast iron framed press) and the other was a Rockchucker. At my brother's I had the choice of four different presses (one was a Rockchucker by the way). After breaking both presses down I check the bores with a dial bore gauge, and saw the tightest place to be in the center of the bore length, and the I.D. grew at each end. Both rams had some taper, but not a large amount (seems like five or six thousandths). I ran the rams accross a Studer grinder for less than .0003" taper in the full length (note: I made a new ram for my boss as well, as something just didn't look right). I noticed that when I ground the centers on both rams that they didn't clean up evenly; yet were pretty much dead center (very close). I then clamped them in a hand scraped vee block and checked the end where the case holder fits. Both were out over .003", but I expected them to be out a thousandth or so. Cleaned both rams up square on a jig grinder (took about a half hour for each one). Seems like I made over sized step pins out of A2, and new links out of 4150. I do know my brothers uses self aligning bearings in his, and suspect that Chuckies does as well. The other ram (which Chuck still has) is made from 4150 pretreat steel, and gas nitrided for a .035" case. I did regrind the new ram after nitride about .004"
The frames were done with Ampco 18 bronze bushings(2). Ram to bushing fit was about .0015". I did try a similar setup with hard steel bushings, and didn't really like them. Both rams were reground to fit the bores (about .003"). I made an indicator adapter to check the press for squareness in travel, and we were all happy. After that I set the frames back up and drilled and tapped a new plug for the die (red loctited in place).
My brother and Chuck shoot a lot of long strait walled cases (like 50-110), and they said they never saw better cases ever. I did have another ram design that I think would fix about 75% of the ram torquing, but just never got the time to build one. It used heavy duty roller bearings in a toggle affair much like Bullard used for their turret lockup. Actual travel was an issue that still had to be resolved with the linkage. I suspect it would have been twice as powerfull at the minimum with an absolute dead stop at the max travel.
love to experiment
gary
Lots of technical mumbo jumbo but no answers to my questions. But I know some folks like explaining their perfect path to precise precision by endless exactness. I doubt reloading presses need to be made with tolerances to 4 places for three reasons:
One is there's enough sideways slop between shell holder and case head that any misalignment up to several thouandths between the ram/shellholder centers to the die centers is a non issue.
Second, No case is perfectly centered along its entire axis with the chamber when its fired. The back end's usually pressed against the chamber wall opposite the extractor with a tiny bit of clearance to the chamber wall opposite that contact point. An exception's when the case is banana shaped enough to touch the chamber wall near midpoint between the case extractor groove and shoulder-neck edge; the front end's well centered in the chamber shoulder and the back end's got a tiny bit of clearance all the way around.
Third, cases don't have to be perfectly straight on an axis between the bullet tip and the center of the case head. All cases are a tiny bit out of round and swell perfectly evenly against the slightly out of round chamber walls long before the bullet's out the muzzle each time they're fired. At peak pressure, the case is always perfectly centered in the chamber but by then the bullet's some distance down the bore.
