Toprudder
Member
I don't think I want a turret press. Here's why. I decap prior to tumbling and a turret doesn't help with that.
I got rid of my Lee Challenger press, and bought a Lee Classic Turret instead. One of the major reasons was so I could use it to decap before tumbling. The LCT handles the spent primers far superior to many other presses, IMHO. I decap ALL my brass, right after I get back from the range. I would not be surprised if I have decapped 50k pieces on that press.
Thanks so much for sharing that! One of the best reads I've had in a while.My Dad ran a Jr. Rifle Club for about 20 years. The competition teams he developed were quite successful, numerous multi-state individual and team champions, college scholarship winners, an appointment to West Point. I can go on and on. I have 3 older sisters and two younger brothers, all can and do shoot still to this day. One of my brothers has been to Camp Perry about 25 times and had a full NCAA 4 year college ticket.
When I think back on my days as a kid there was a time when on Friday evenings a bunch of older (and really cool) kids would show up at our house and get into our car and go shooting while I watched them leave from my bedroom window, in my PJs. That was just the way it was. Then on May 6, 1967 (in 3 days it will be 51 years ago) things changed. The cool kids came over a little bit earlier than usual, they watched me blow out the candles on my birthday cake, ate some of it then all cheered when my Dad made the announcement, "Tom, get into the car, lets go shooting!" It was my 9th birthday and it happened to be on a Friday. My Mom told me years later that my brother who was 15 months younger than me, cried and cried that night, he wanted to go too! My Dad actually kept me home later than he wanted knowing my brother would be unhappy so 3 months later, on his 8th birthday, he joined us every Friday night. The whole thing (shooting rifles) was to us, normal.
Over the years I have accumulated a lot of stuff and had a lot of fun. I have 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of inventory. As a kid there was never a time when you needed something shooting related where you went to the local store and it was sitting on the shelf. Those who compete learn early on that the tackle we use is specialized, has to be ordered and cost a ton of money. The Leslie Edelman catalog was a permanent fixture on our living room lamp table.
So when I decided to finally get busy and start handloading it took me about 3 seconds to decide that I wanted both quality and speed and that translates into money. I did not put everything I have today on my bench the first week and I have made a few purchase mistakes. But I find myself on the firing line at least 2 times/week, dry fire the rest of the days and if I were to calculate the cost of what is in my main handgun range bag, what I drag to the range normally, the cost would be +/- $5K so an extra 1 or 2 hundred dollars isn't going to change the course of my life that much. Right now I belong to 4 private gun clubs! It's in the genes and the blood so I have learned to deal with it. I'm to the point in my life where I shoot strictly for fun, I compete all the time but my eyesight isn't good so I'm a middle of the pack shooter but it's what I do.
I absolutely agree with you! I actually started with a progressive (Dillon 550) and don't regret it, but I only load my high-volume semi-auto rounds on it (380, 9, 40, 45acp, and just recently added 223). But all my other ammo - rifle and revolver - are done on the LCT. And I do all my decapping on it as well. I use the LCT far more than I do my Dillon. I think I have 15 turrets for it now. If I could only have one press, it would be the LCT.I’ve said it before, but that LCT press is an excellent press to start with for the money. Sure it’s not a progressive but if you’re not cranking out large amounts of ammo it’ll work well and allow you to work up to some decent amount while deciding if a progressive is a good upgrade.
Most of the time, I use the LCT without the auto-index. Occasionally I will use the auto-index to crank out some 357mag in larger batches (100 or more).
Reloading is therapeutic to me, and I don't look at it for the cost savings (I gave up on that notion a long time ago). It is a hobby, as others have stated.
My first hobby was shooting. Then I got into reloading, and that became my hobby. Then I started wet tumbling, and making dirty brass shiny again became my hobby - shooting and reloading are just means to that end. I spend half my time at the range bending over and picking up brass - that is how I get my exercise. I pick up everything, even calibers I don't have a gun for. When I reach a critical mass for a given caliber, I go out and buy a gun, dies, etc for it.