Older Reloading Press Question

I have a chance to pick up an older Model 25 Redding Turret Press and am wondering what the advantages/ disadvantages of a press that is angled back are? I've seen many of the older presses with this design but haven't had the chance to try one.

Many of the older designs angled back to allow you to see into them better, but you'll notice that none (?) of the modern ones do. Much better to keep everything flat and level and just raise the press if you need a better line-of-sight. That being said, my old Pacific Multi-Power C tilts back slightly and yet works just fine. Truly its apples and oranges.

The angle can sometimes make it difficult to set a bullet atop a case without it falling off. Not so much with cast bullets or boat tail but more so with flat base J-words.

A simple hardwood wedge, cut at the appropriate angle, under the press when mounting will solve that problem.

Thanks for the replies. I thought of the wedge or maybe some washers as spacers under the back to set it forward (if its a prob). Anyone own one of these that can comment?

I used to own one. It was a well built press but I could never warm up to the backward cant. I sold it.

Use a Texan C frame press mounted on a wedge so the ram is vertical. Easier to set the bullet on the case but the handle wants to fall forward. Have to use a bungee, rubber band, or spring to keep the handle from falling.

I started loading in '65 on a Lyman Spar-T, a tilt back six station turret press and used it almost exclusively until '95 when I finally gave in to the hype and got a straight-up Rock Chucker for the supposed rigidity. I've loaded thousands of tall bottle neck and short straight wall cartridges with jacked and cast, big bullets and small bullets, on both presses. Never had a problem seating any bullet after I got more consistent with my case mouth camphers.

Either way, IMHO most presses get mounted too low. I block my (now four) bench mount presses up high enough that I can fully depress the lever without bending over; my damaged old back LOVES that! My press blocking varies from 3 to 7 inches. A cheap thrift shop swiveling bar stool serves to get the right height when I want to sit. And in the slightly higher presses everything is easy to see.

Different strokes for different folks but I still do press tilt/no tilt and it simply doesn't matter to me.

Part of the "selling point" of the back tilt was it kept cases in the shell holder seated to the back. In reality its what your used to.

A heavy wedge can be made easily to stand it straight up. Here a series of 2" X 4" a little longer than the press base and enough to be a little wider than the press base. On one mount a plate on the angled edge and the one end forming a v. lay out 2 3/4 dowel holes in the plated piece and drill. Use this for the fixture to drill the others. Remove the plates and glue together on the dowels pinning the dowels when clamped together in the outside board on each side. 1/4" dowels are fine here Let cure and finish down flat and mount. Lay out the lock dowels so they are on the seam of the 3/4" dowel and holes edge.
A good radial arm or table saw, drill press, belt and finish sander, 1/4" and 3/4" drill bits, s clamps wide enough to clamp together when assembling. A good wood glue, Finish ( oil or polyurethane).

To find the angle set press up so ram is square measure the height and length then duplicate this when you cut the tops.

I have an opposite sort of item. RCBS made a wedge for the RCBS jr press. It was a large aluminum wedge intended to tilt the press back. I have one that I got cheap but I have never used it and in 50 years of reloading and reading about reloading I have never seen one in use.

The tilt back can be a nice feature or an exasperation, depending on the fit of shells in shell holders. Redding shell holders and the one Hornady I’ve bought are nice and tight, holding the shell nearly straight at whatever angle of tilt. You can get a good view of the operation, unobscured by the top of the press, and only minimal guidance with the other hand is necessary.

Some of the other brands of shell holders are quite sloppy fits on shells, allowing 5-10 degrees of tilt on the shell. If the shell is any length at all, it will mash against the bottom or scrape on the entrance of the die unless the shell is “felt” into the die with the other hand. This condition can crush cases on resizing, and slows the seating of bullets especially, increasing the potential damage to the necks of carefully-prepared, primed and loaded brass.

I used to regularly peel the side of a case neck down to the bullet base when loading .22 Hornets on my tilt-back Pacific Super Deluxe press. The mangled loaded rounds looked just like the picture in Sharpe’s handloading book. Otherwise, the Super Deluxe was a pretty nice piece of equipment (lacking only the compound leverage for bullet swaging), but eventually I replaced it with a Rock Chucker with a straight up-and-down ram and learned to live with not being able to see the shells going into the dies. Or needing to, that much.