Lee Classic Turret Ram to Die Alignment

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Hi everyone I'm new here.
I've have perused the site often but this is my first post.

In November of 2010 I purchased a new Lee Classic Cast Turret press. I loaded a couple hundred .223 and .45acp's before stopping for the winter. I noticed while loading those few hundred rounds that I needed to push the top of the cartridge case in toward the center of the press otherwise it would not go into the resize die. At the time it annoyed me a bit but and I forgot about it till the other night. I'm getting ready to load some ammo for the upcoming nice weather and have decided this is more than an annoyance.

I took the turret off removed all the dies and reset it up, thinking that maybe this would work. No such luck. When I get low and look up into the bottom of the turret I can clearly see that the cases are spaced too far out for it to go up into the resizing die. This is not an indexing, left/right issue, this is an in and out issue. When I push the top of the case in toward the middle of the press to make it enter the die it is at about a 10 degree angle. This angle persists while it is in the die, the case does not straighten out in the shell holder and self center/right itself before entering the die. This can't be right. Same thing happens with .45acp and .223.

I then noticed that if I rotate the shell holder to different orientations the amount of misalignment varies based on the orientation. This can't be right either.

I have a Lyman Crusher II and use the same dies, the cases go straight up with no alignment issues at all.

So, can it be possible that the ram on my Lee Classic Turret is drilled too far in by about an 1/8 inch? Any other ideas that any one may have will be welcomed.

I've been reloading for about three years and have always thought that a case should move straight up and in, any cocked angle will possibly effect run out.

Thanks in advance.

AOD
 
My Classic Turret works great, but I had purchased the Lee hand primer and a set of shellholders for it a few months ago. I could not get the 9mm or the 45 Colt cases in the shellholder. The 41 Mag worked OK.
I e-mailed Lee and got an asinine response from bill. He said that the case manufacturers had all changed their case head dimensions and there was nothing they could do about it. I e-mailed him back at told him these were new cases I had bought in 1970, so I didn't think that would be the problem. Basically he came back with a non reply. I then contacted, I believe Midway, and they sent me a new set that worked OK.
 
It is probably a compounded problem with several parts that are machined a few thousands off of each other.
I have reloaded many thousand's of all different calibers on a Lee Turret Press over the last 20+ years,and I have a couple turrets/dies/shell holders that also cant the shell casing toward the front of the press.While it maybe a little annoying,I haven't experienced any problems with the groups that my reloads shoot.
I have many rifle loads for 223/25-06/308/30-06/300WM that will shoot under .5 moa,when I'm on my game.

I guess if I was a match/benchrest shooter,I'd probably buy a better quality press,but for all of my needs the Lee Turret Press has served me well.

I have a big variety of different mfg's dies,so I would say the problem is in the Shell holder,or Turret plate.I only notice it when I load my 223,and 300WM cases,and 45 LC pistol cases.
 
I called Lee today and spoke to Bill.

I explained everything written above, he said I need to check to make sure the shell holder is pushed all the way in. If this isn't the problem then I need to loosen the three bolts that attach the turret ring to the three steel columns. So my shell holder was inserted all the way in and was not being obstructed.

The next step is to loosen the bolts, he told me to put a case in the shell holder and run it up into the resizer to act as centering locator while the bolts are loose. Once I loosened the bolts there was definitely some play as to where this thing could be located. I pushed it out and tightened the bolts. The problem is solved but I'm not impressed. It still depends on the position of the shell holder. It has to be at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock or it will still hit. 9 o'clock is better for convenience but what happens now is the center of the die, shell holder and ram are not centered, but the out of whackedness is now in such a manner that the case will self center in the shell holder as it goes into the resizing die. It just happens that the case moves toward the 9 o'clock position as the case enters the die, it's self centering now rather than entering and staying cocked as before.

Problem is, now the primer hole in the shell holder and case are out of alignment by an 1/8" or so. I would constantly have to be pushing the case back in to seat a primer. I discovered that at 10 o'clock the case would still self center and not move away from the primer hole so much as to make seating a primer a pain.

The link to the Firing Line forum addressed this but included some hole drilling. I think Lee needs to counter sink the bolt holes on the turret ring to positively locate it in the absolute correct position on top of the columns. The way it is now it can be moved around way too much and bolted down in the wrong position.

I asked him if I was correct in assuming that shell holder rotation should not effect this if everything was concentric, ram, shell holder and die. He said if it was built correctly the shell holder position should make no difference because everything is centered.

Thanks for the help.

AOD
 
Interesting, I'm having the exact issues with my .223 and .45's on my turret. I just hadn't called Lee yet. Thanks for the links and info guys.
 
psyshack,

How exactly do I align the ram to the turret? Are you speaking of rotating the nut on the top of the rod?

The way I understand the directions is, if the turret head locks into place when it ratchets around then it is aligned correctly.

AOD
 
No,,, use the play you found in the three supports to rotate the turret frame where you need it. Then make sure the the turret is stopping in the proper place with the index rod adjustment.

Mine was out also when I got it. Shipping and handling can knock all sorts of stuff out of alignment. But I just set to work on mine and had it running right in a few min's. Also put a washer under the primer bracket. It's all smooth as silk now. And for the record. A tad of self centering is good in my book. BUT being out of whack when it comes to setting the primer is bad.

Keep playing with it. You are not going to break it. And once set it will be smooth.
 
Now me. My 1st foray into a non-single stage press and the alignment is off. I loosened the bolts but there isn't enough play to align it correctly. This is the same for a few different shell holders. It is as if either the turret is too far back or the shell holder cutout isn't cut deep enough into the ram.
 
I used my old three hole turret for years by guiding the cases into the die by hand.I had tried all the adjusting stuff nothing helped.I updated to a four hole everything lines up fine now.My three hole turret ring was out of spec
 
IMO the bottom line is, if the adjkustment they gave you didn't offer a solid fix, they need to replace it...and I bet they will.

You shouldn't have to waste a bunch of time tinkering with your press.
 
I had this same thing with my four hole turret reloaded on it for years just giving a little push on the case to align but it only happened with the depriming stations. My dad came to visit last summer we enjoyed some reloading together and he takes and puts a level on my reloading table and sure enough it is leaning forward just a hair, not visible to the eye. We level the table and what do you know everything lines up as it should be. I could not believe it was so simple.
 
I had the same problem with mine and could never get it 100%. I am not impressed with Lee stuff there is too much tweaking that you need to do to it to make it work. I had a tuirret that was not machined properly and would not fit on the indexing rod. I called lee and they sent me another one and it did the exact same thing with a little filling I got them to work but I should not have to file a new part
 
My old 3 hole although perfect level had same problem so I used JB weld compound on shell holder just a small amount to cause a slight bump shell slips in easy and yet holds shell aligned so it meets up with die as its raised. Use very small amount and add (JB) if necessary easier to add then subtract.:D

Another way is to purchase an rcbs shell holder I'm told they work fine, I had so many lee holders I experimented with the JB
 
How do you adjust the index rod? Do you just turn the square nut?
Click to expand...

Lee has a very short video on it, but what I remember about it was simply putting a small adjustable wrench on the rod and turning it a little bit at a time until the turret indexes to the stops properly. I guess same as turning on the nut, but without having to remove the turret each time to do so.

Link?
Click to expand...

OK, I spent almost 45 seconds looking for the right page. ;) Many good short videos on this page
 
Last edited:
Lee has a very short video on it, but what I remember about it was simply putting a small adjustable wrench on the rod and turning it a little bit at a time until the turret indexes to the stops properly. I guess same as turning on the nut, but without having to remove the turret each time to do so.
Click to expand...

Link?
 
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