Where to go from Herters No 3 Press

[OldStumps]

I have loaded many thousands of rounds using an old Herters No 3 C Press, Herters Powder Throw, Herters Scale, Case Trimmer (my dad was from Minnesota and loved Herters. I got all his stuff). That was over twenty years ago. I am now shooting much more often and going through a lot of ammo. Primarily pistol calibers .45ACP, .40 S&W, .380, and .45LC and .454 Casull. To round out the calibers I haven't loaded before I got an adaptor (RCBS) for my Herters press to hold new shell holders. And I am adding dies for those calibers again not loaded before. Haven't loaded round one yet, but have already started looking at a new press that brings the efficiency way up so that I can see an order of magnitude improvement in numbers.

I have already received good comments on .45LC range loads and will start with that caliber. However before I buy anymore dies I really wanted to make sure that any press I purchase will go with the dies.

I get the Dillon catalog and Cabellas large catalog and stuff from Natchez and MidwayUSA. Lots of choices, and I know lots of opinions here. Have been partial to RCBS stuff in the past, But no real issues with brand as long as it is well made and easy to use. What have you all settled on as a good basic progressive press? I would like to load 250 to 500 rounds in a sitting of one caliber when I get fully operational. I want to add a digital scale. And in the past have never worried about case lube or tumbling cases to clean and polish so want to address those issues (dies are carbide). Finally I want to be out the door for this stuff at about $500.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[onebigelf]

The Dillon 550 is awfully hard to beat.

John

 

[Jim Watson]

Finally I want to be out the door for this stuff at about $500

As Grandma said, your wants won't hurt you. It would be difficult to set up progressive and all the extras for $500 unless you bought Lee, which I do not use and will not comment on.

The Hornady is at present on sale for $400 and is generally a bit less expensive than the Dillon I use.
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/default.aspx?productNumber=679228

It takes regular 7/8x14 dies but requires its own rotary shellplates.

A digital scale is a convenient gimmick but not really necessary. A balance beam will do just fine to adjust the powder measure to whatever you want for the next 500 rounds.

A tumbler and separator are very nice to have. Maybe you can budget for one before too long.

 

[lightman]

A newer "O" frame press with compound linkage will be easier to use than your Herters press.The compound linkage will make sizing much easier,and a little faster.If more speed is wanted,go progressive.I have been happy with my Dillon 550.Be advised,the Dillon powder meausure doe's not like stick powder,a ball or flake powder will be needed.Not to slight Dillon,most powder meausures have trouble with stick powders.By the way,I started loading on Herters equipment. Lightman

 

[OldStumps]

Thank you all. I watched a five part Youtube video on setting up and loading with a 550B. Looks pretty straightforward. I'll check on the Hornady on sale at Midway. On the other side I mounted my Herters No 3 on the workbench today and tried out the RCBS Herters shell holder adaptor. Made initial adjustments to start loading the .45LC. Powder will be the next buy and primers of course. The 500 hard cast 250gr LFP arrived with the shell holders. Still have to find and set up my powder throw. Yowza!

 

[ranger335v]

A single stage press shines on low volumes of ammo. Progressives shine on masses of the same cartridge, day in and day out, but it's typically a PITA to swap cartridges. Common turrets are really little better than single stages.

Lee's Classic Turret press is both strong (cast iron body and steel lever linkages) and quite flexible to use. It has excellant user features, a good spent primer catcher and a unique auto-indexing head rotation system that makes it much faster to load with than any single stage. And, perhaps best of all for a muti-caliber guy, you can change calibers in seconds by swapping the shell holders and inexpensive pre-loaded turrets, all without tools.

Lee's small and inexpensive powder measures work well so you can actually have one set up in each turret head, all preset for the charges you wish to drop; that way you can make a complete cartridge change quickly. It's worth your consideration and the total price would be within your stated range, especially if you already have all those dies!

 

[Seedtick]

OldStumps,

Look around a while at Ultimate Reloader and watch some of the videos. It will give you a good feel for what tools are available to help meet your specific goals. Gavin has a topnotch website.

Seedtick

 

[Lost Sheep]

5 calibers under $500 100-250 rounds per hour, 1 minute caliber swaps?

Lee's auto-disk powder measure works with Lee's case-mouth expanding dies. As far as I know, it doesn't work with other dies.


Here's a $500 setup, but $500 won't put you in a 5 caliber progressive of similar quality.

Here's my recommendation for a $500 setup that meets your specifications, but I don't know if the production capacity will meet your needs.

$95 Lee Classic Turret Press (includes one turret)
$0 Scale (you already have one, I suspect will be just fine)
$34 Set of Deluxe (4-die) carbide dies
$21 primer feed tool for the press in both large and small primers
$46 Auto-Disk measure, riser (necessary for clearance when turret head
rotates) and swivel adapter

$196 plus shipping to start

each additional caliber:
$45 for each set of Deluxe 4-die set and one extra turret

Note, your 45 Colt will do 454 Casull (but with readjusting two of the dies), so $331 plus shipping would get you outfitted nicely with 4 sets of dies (45 ACP, 380 ACP 45/454 and 40 S&W). $466 would put a powder measure on each set of dies.

Caliber switches would then be extremely fast (1-switch shell holder, 10 seconds. 2-swap turret with dies pre-installed, 20 seconds, 3-empty the old powder measure and fill the new powder measure, 30 seconds). Less than a minute. (Try that with a Dillon 650.)

The Lee Turrets are as close to a progressive as you can get without going to a true progressive. No other turret press has auto-indexing, which makes the Lee amenable to continuous instead of batch processing. Thus the Lee Turrets get you as close to progressive output as you can get without going to a true progressive (and a progressive's price tag).

If you are content to load 100-250 rounds per hour, this is the press that will do it, easily. If you demand 500 or more per hour, a progressive is the way you will go eventually, but you should double your budget, at least.

Good Luck

Lost Sheep

 

[OldStumps]

Thanks all again, especially for the tips on Lee.

Call me crazy (I spent a lot of the weekend looking at videos and reading reviews) but this morning I placed an order for a Lee 1000 Progressive press in .40SW. Out the door with the case collator was $170 from Midway USA, who had it on sale. It comes with dies, shell plate, die plate. As well my .45LC/.454 dies are Lee (there was an issue with Lee dies fitting the Hornady Lock and Load and the powder measure only works with Lee dies).

In the end, those that stick with it achieve 200-250 rounds per hour. I will be happy with that. As well I won't have to deal with powder throw and handling cases. I do expect as most everyone has found, that this press will take some getting a feel for. I am very mechanically inclined and will sort out the issues fairly quickly I believe (especially given all the commentary on the web). It looks like alignment is number one problem and I will take a lot of care there. Other issues noted I will simply take one cartridge at a time. I am confident there is good value here.

I am cheap, but not foolish (I think anyway). There are a lot of very happy users of these press systems. Would I be happier with something a little easier to use for twice the price? Probably, but for this kind of investment I feel it prudent to give it a chance and, if it truly sucks, I will do the Hornady LNL and still get the 500 free bullets by year end and wind up pretty much even. The Hornady was next, simply because I liked the die lock bushings and auto indexing. And the bullet deal of course really knocks down price. The Hornady system seems to lend itself better to how I would want this all to work if I wanted to spend those bucks.

Anyway I will report back when operational. It will arrive roughly end of month. I really do need to move forward with components now. It's time to get to work, both with the Herters No 3 and to clear a spot on the bench for the Lee.

Thanks again.

 

[OldStumps]

One add by the way. The biggest issue with this press is the primer feed and seating. One thing I really wouldn't mind is to resize and prime on the single stage and then only use the 1k to add powder and seat bullet. I certainly like that idea as bunches of primed cases can go in the case feeder and I don't have to worry about being too concerned about alignment and feel of primer seating (except as one at a time in the single stage). This I got from the 1000 problems thread and once again shows how great this forum is for solutions to issues. Resizing and priming is relatively straight forward in a single stage press and very efficient. Loading the progressive with primed and sized cases and doing the remaining two steps is also very efficient and I think beats turret headed single stage Lee solution by quite a bit. It also provides for me the best operational flow for loading. Rather than trying to do everything with the progressive I can still do most everything and stage it a bit. Safer too as no stack of primers to go bang if one goes and not so much to watch on the progressive side. More confident than ever this was the right choice!

 

[OldStumps]

Lee Pro 1000 Progressive arrived yesterday and I mounted it to the bench today. Dies came installed and adjusted (at least the sizing depriming). It comes with the prodisk powder measure and four disks. Plus the swivel. Pretty nice and seems to operate just fine. The shell loader is AWESOME. Works just like I hoped it would (collator is definitely a plus here).

I'm still waiting on primers, powder and bullets to arrive for this (sometime next week. I may wait to see how the primer mechanism actually works (I ordered an RCBS hand primer). So far I really don't like that they don't seem to be dropped one at a time into the table. But maybe they are. Need to fill it to see. Overall this is amazingly compact except for the shell tower. More when I actually load some .40 with it.

 

[Uniquedot]

Oldstumps, I used to load 45 colts on a pro 1000 and it always went smooth unless i forgot to watch the primer chute or trough rather. You always want enough primers in the trough to keep them feeding smoothly. I ended up getting a loadmaster which is the second best deal (after the pro) in a progressive set up because i wanted the extra die options and also liked the idea of not having to feel the primers seat as everything including primer seating happens on the upstroke. I also like the speed in which calibers are changed on the loadmaster. I do wish i would have kept the pro as a dedicated press as it was fast and silky smooth indexing, but i just didn't have room for it on my bench with my other presses. You should be pleased with it.

 

[Bull Nutria]

Oldstumps,

I have 357 and 44 mag dies from Herters, from the 1980's. they are fine. I have used them both recently. Herters stuff was very good and reasonalbly priced. Cabelas bought them out but didn't replace them as far as reasonabley priced is concerned!

Have fun with your new reloading equipment.

yak