Well with powder (Power Pistol) and bullets (Berry's Plated 155gr.) and a bunch of sized, cleaned and primed .40 shells I began to make use of this press. For the way I load I make use of the three hole plate by using the bell/charge die followed by the seater and then a factory taper crimp die. This caused a bit of a challenge since the connection to the charge return chain wasn't in the right spot. No big deal.
I spent a lot of time last night fiddling with the factory setup to get the bell less and to understand the Pro Powder Disk. I went for .53, and then .57 to make a roughly 6.2-6.4 grains charge for the Barrys (all I am looking for is a light range load). Only generated about six rounds to chrono this morning. About 45 minutes invested in tweaking.
The velocities were light on my chrono at about 612fps. The Beretta 96 Brigadeer functioned fine though.
When I got back I upped the disk to .61 which gave me 6.6-6.8 grains of Power Pistol. The 6.8 number was the max recommended by Ben at Alliant. I started loading and lost about five rounds total to not having the bell large enough. I loaded fifty rounds, for now applying tension to the Powder Disk return lever manually, in about thirty minutes. I was quite pleased at the end when I did the last batch of fifteen in about five minutes. I mic'd them all and weighed them all and looked over the crimp. I expect that they will all shoot fine and if I need to kick things up a bit I'll go to the next level.
Overall this is fine as a totally dedicated press to one caliber and one load. The three hole makes getting the bullet on the shell a tight fit, especially the way I'm using it. Finally, once it is set I don't expect much to change and I will pick up speed as I gain confidence. I really like the shell feed and the collator. Worked perfect. I need to apply a spring to the return lever of the Powder Disk, but that's really the only thing I need to do. I believe this was the best $177 I could have spent on a progressive press for what I do. Great value here!
I spent a lot of time last night fiddling with the factory setup to get the bell less and to understand the Pro Powder Disk. I went for .53, and then .57 to make a roughly 6.2-6.4 grains charge for the Barrys (all I am looking for is a light range load). Only generated about six rounds to chrono this morning. About 45 minutes invested in tweaking.
The velocities were light on my chrono at about 612fps. The Beretta 96 Brigadeer functioned fine though.
When I got back I upped the disk to .61 which gave me 6.6-6.8 grains of Power Pistol. The 6.8 number was the max recommended by Ben at Alliant. I started loading and lost about five rounds total to not having the bell large enough. I loaded fifty rounds, for now applying tension to the Powder Disk return lever manually, in about thirty minutes. I was quite pleased at the end when I did the last batch of fifteen in about five minutes. I mic'd them all and weighed them all and looked over the crimp. I expect that they will all shoot fine and if I need to kick things up a bit I'll go to the next level.
Overall this is fine as a totally dedicated press to one caliber and one load. The three hole makes getting the bullet on the shell a tight fit, especially the way I'm using it. Finally, once it is set I don't expect much to change and I will pick up speed as I gain confidence. I really like the shell feed and the collator. Worked perfect. I need to apply a spring to the return lever of the Powder Disk, but that's really the only thing I need to do. I believe this was the best $177 I could have spent on a progressive press for what I do. Great value here!
