Recommend a Turret Press rcbs or dillon? Others?

[Billyvan]

Looking at the rcbs turret press however i keep reading so much about the Dillon. Is it worth the extra $150 or are they similar enough to save the money. Also the Lee and the Lyman are even cheaper than the rcbs? Thoughts? I am a beginner.

Mainly reloading 308 and 300 win mag

 

[jhm2023]

Are you meaning progressive or turret? If progressive, Dillon is a great choice. The closest they make to a turret is the 550 to my knowledge. For a turret press, give the Redding T7 a look. With an added slide bar priming system it's great.

 

[Billyvan]

Yes i was trying to save some money by going w the turret vs progressive for now. I am just reloading for myself however I have 4 sons.. lol

 

[fishsticks]

I’ve loaded a boatload of pistol ammo on the Dillon 550. While you can load rifle on it I don’t think it would be up to magnum rifle full length resizing (which you’d likely want to do for hunting ammo). If it were me, I’d be more inclined to either get a turret press or a nice single stage with quick change dies. Personally I don’t shoot enough of my hunting calibers to justify loading rifle on a progressive.

 

[Billyvan]

Also Lee sells a 6-pack pro 6000 progressive kit w 308 dies on ebay for $398. That seems cheap but is it worth a crap?

 

[ORhunter74]

I think you’re comparing apples to oranges a bit here. Dillon doesn’t make a turret press but RCBS and Lee do. If you’re looking but not 100% sure you’ll be reloading in say a year, go with the Lee Classic turret press. It’s cheap enough that if you decide reloading isn’t for you, you didn’t lose too much money.

If you’re really looking at a higher quality turret press, Redding, Lyman, and RCBS are all quality options. I bought a Dillon 550 after reloading on a single stage or Lee turret for like 10 years. I can pump out some 9mm and.223 but I still load all my .308 and 300wsm on a MEC Marksman. That’s actually the press I would recommend to a beginner. It’s very solid and simple and loads really concentric ammo. A single stage is great because you’re only doing one thing at a time so you’re really learning good reloading habits.

As far as that Lee you mentioned, I’ve read on forums that it’s really fiddly and I will vouch that Lee stuff tends to need more “adjustment” to get it to work right.

 

[JF_Idaho]

For 308 and 300 wm I wouldn't suggest a progressive type turret press like those mentioned.

A redding T7 or a Lyman AA8 style turret would be good. Or just go for a single stage.

I use a Lee Classic Turret for 9mm, 45 and occasionally. 223 plinking rounds (55 fmj). It works good. 4 pulls for every round though. I would not suggest it for any type of precision rifle rounds.

 

[pbroski]

For a beginner, I would not recommend a progressive press with auto indexing. It can be hard to get used to. If loading rifle cartridges larger than .223 I would not recommend a Lee product. They're not robust enough for larger cartridges, IMO.

Go quality single stage or Dillon BL550 if you still want progressive (manual indexing). The 500 will easily handle .308 and .300WM.

 

[Karlburns]

How much are you planning to load volume wise? The Dillon’s are really designed for high volume reloading. While you certainly can load 300 win mag and 308 on a progressive it’s not how I do it. If it’s precision hunting rounds you are after buy a RCBS rock chucker. Their slow compared to any progressive auto or manual indexing but their stout which is a good thing for larger caliber sizing like the 300wm.

I’m not a fan of Lee. Lots of folks own them but their presses feel cheap to me.

 

[randy66]

I use the classic Lee turret press. I have had good luck with it but truth be told I would like to get a mec marksman.....

 

[wind gypsy]

Lee classic cast single stage press has been good to me over the years. Its the only press i've ever owned. I've never felt that a turret was that big of a convenience over a standard single stage but if a guy is going back and forth between cartridges with small batches of ammo i could see some utility. Whatever single stage press you get, make sure inline precision makes a case ejector kit for it before you buy!

 

[Billyvan]

How much are you planning to load volume wise? The Dillon’s are really designed for high volume reloading. While you certainly can load 300 win mag and 308 on a progressive it’s not how I do it. If it’s precision hunting rounds you are after buy a RCBS rock chucker. Their slow compared to any progressive auto or manual indexing but their stout which is a good thing for larger caliber sizing like the 300wm.

I’m not a fan of Lee. Lots of folks own them but their presses feel cheap to me.

Yes i am just planning on loading hunting rounds for 308 amd 300 win mag, possibly 6.5 cm and prc in the future. Time is something im short on so thats why i was looking at more of a turret style press . Also i like the idea of the dies being there and not having to swap them around.

 

[FZMT]

If you’re short on time and planning on shooting a good amount I would definitely go with the Dillon 550. It makes no sense to save a few hundred bucks on the press if you’re going to spend an extra 100 hours at the bench for the next decade.

That said, time vs money is a very real trade off in reloading, so if you’re not shooting enough to justify it there’s no sense paying the premium.

 

[Karlburns]

Yes i am just planning on loading hunting rounds for 308 amd 300 win mag, possibly 6.5 cm and prc in the future. Time is something im short on so thats why i was looking at more of a turret style press . Also i like the idea of the dies being there and not having to swap them around.

I load on a rock chucker, a RCBS turret and recently purchased a Dillon 650 from someone who upgraded to a 750. I wouldn’t load my hunting rounds on the 750. I like to have particular control over each step with my hunting rounds.

The rock chucker vs the turret. I load most of my hunting rounds on the turret but I will also point out that the turret does have a little play in it that the rock chucker doesn’t. Because of the design of the turret rotating on the bolt it has a small degree of wobble. You can make yourself a small shim to put in the back of the press to remove that wobble but you have to pull it out each time you rotate which will slow you down. I like the turret more than the rock chucker because you can size the case, pull the brass off to reprime, dump the powder, then seat the bullet with rotating the turret head. I will mention though that because I pull the brass to prime (you can do it on the press but I don’t do that for hunting rounds) I work in stages. It saves very little time compared to a single stage. I’ve made some pistol rounds on the turret and that is 100x faster than using the rock chucker but still 10x slower than the Dillon.

You could also by the lock n load bushings for the rock chucker to switch between dies.

 

[Billyvan]

If you’re short on time and planning on shooting a good amount I would definitely go with the Dillon 550. It makes no sense to save a few hundred bucks on the press if you’re going to spend an extra 100 hours at the bench for the next decade.

That said, time vs money is a very real trade off in reloading, so if you’re not shooting enough to justify it there’s no sense paying the premium.

That Dillon looks complicated! Ive studied on that one and the Redding T7. That's the short list

 

[pbroski]

The Dillon BL550 is not more complicated than the T7, it's just different, while at the same time being more versatile. The difference between the two is that instead of a rotating toollhead, the 550 has a fixed toolhead with 4 die positions, and a rotating manual indexing shell plate. The shell plate only turns if you want it to.

Both presses can be used as a single stage press and both presses can be used as a turret press. The difference is that the 550 can also be used as a progressive press, while the T7 cannot.

So you could use the 550 as a single stage at first as you learn, then when you're ready (like in the future) go to progressive mode to significantly speed things up with the addition of a case eject upgrade. The T7 will simply never be able to match the speed of a 550.

The 550 also has the advantage of having virtually no flex, so it's ideal for loading match grade ammo.

The only downside to the 550 is that .308 and .300wm use different shell plates, so you would need an appropriate conversion kit for each cartridge. Changing them out would take about 2 or 3 minutes, so not long. The tool heads are swappable so the dies can be left in the tool head, then the whole tool head changed when needed, That takes about 15 seconds. You would need a total of 2 tool heads for those 2 cartridges.

I hope this clears some things up for you.

 

[AT79]

Owned a Lyman turret press for years. I’m not a fan of the priming system, but I do really like the press. TBH I prefer to use a hand primer anyway, so don’t let that sway your opinion. You can buy a spare turret plate too. I have all my pistol dies on one, and rifle on the other. Pretty easy to swap them out and maintain the die setups. The kit they sell with the turret press is a fairly good value too.