Got me a Classic turret for Christmas

[c1skout]

I showed one to my wife a while ago, and she found a good deal on a lightly used one from ebay and got it for me for Christmas. Looking through my local gunshop last Saturday I spied a Pro auto disc (missing the lid and discs) in the bargain bin with a $20 price tag. I pointed out the missing parts and the manager said "gimme 10 bucks for it?", I was happy with that so I took it home, I've got discs and the adjustable charge bar and wasn't too concerned with the hopper lid.

I took my old Challenger press off the bench and mounted up the turret press. I only had to add a short piece of 2x4 for bracing under the bench-top. The Pro auto-disc took a bit more work. I don't think it was ever used, there was no sign of graphite in the hopper, and no sliding marks on the black paint where the discs run. It was set up for a progressive press so I had to fab up a new actuating arm to work with a return spring. I found a picture of the spring arm on the internet, made a paper cut-out in the proper size, then copied that onto a piece of scrap metal from an electrical box I found in my basement and cut it out with tin snips and a cut-off wheel. After a bit of final filing it functioned properly, so I headed out to my barn to find a serviceable return spring. With the return spring installed the auto disc was working well, so I pulled the homemade arm off and gave it some cold blue. New press mounted powder measure for 10 bucks and some spare time makes me pretty happy! I even found a plastic snuff can lid that fit the hopper perfectly.

I loaded up some 357, 380, 38 special, and 45acp so far. I didn't know how I'd like grabbing each primer to put them in the little press mounted prime arm, but that turned out to be a relatively simple affair. I leave them in the primer flip tray off my Pro 1000 press and grab 1 when I need it. It doesn't take much time and isn't as fiddly as I thought it would be. I'll rig up some kind of light for it next, and I'm gonna want to get some more turrets, but I don't think I could be happier with the press.

[dikman]

Sounds good, nice wifey. You did well with the Pro Auto disc . I've found that manually inserting a primer is no big deal. The nice thing about the turret is that by disabling the auto-index it can be used as a single stage if needed, and spare turrets (and bits) are pretty cheap (I use Titan reloading, highly recommended).

[Artful]

Take your Challenger mount a Lee Universal Decapper - deprime your brass on it
- then Tumble/clean them and use a hand primer like lee's to prime them all up...
then run them thru the turret, don't forget to remove the decapper stem from your sizer die.

[zuke]

Nice way to start the new year

[RobS]

The Lee Classic Turret is a nice press. If you get yourself the safety primer system that goes along with the press things speed up quite nicely and you won't have to handle the primers with your hands.

[ubetcha]

Need pictures or it didn't happen.

[ukrifleman]

The Lee Classic turret is a great press, I load 15 calibres with mine (12 rifle, 3 pistol) and have a turret for each.
I use the indexing rod for the pistol calibres and can crank out 200+ rounds per hour without effort.

The Lee safety prime is a great addition, don't be put off by the fact it is made of plastic, it works well when set up properly.

There has been a lot of negative comment about the plastic components of the Lee turret being a weak point, in particular the indexing rod ratchet insert.

While they are cheap and easy to replace (I destroyed one when I first got my press) it is normally avoidable when things are set up correctly.

The reason I damaged one, was that some of the hexagonal die locking nuts were protruding over the edge of the turret and fouling the safety primer bracket as the turret turned. This caused the metal indexing rod to twist inside the plastic insert and rendered it useless.

I rounded off the offending lock nuts and have since loaded many hundreds of rounds without issue and have not needed to replace the insert.

Basically, if you set things up correctly, you should have no problems.

You have a great press that will give years of good service.

ukrifleman

[JD74]

with the adjustable charging bar I found this mod helps a lot when dropping small charges for the 380. On my charging bar the hopper wasn't dropping directly into the opening making small charges a pain little JB weld to get the proper alignment and can drop 1 gr or less now if wanted. Idea for the modification came from here http://www.taurusarmed.net/forums/re...harge-bar.html

[Duster340]

Congrats C1skout. My wife got one for xmas awhile back. I love it. Gotta love them ladies that appreciate our hobby (addiction lol). Enjoy that press!

[c1skout]

Thanks for the comments. I might fab a quick change mount for my single stage press and my bench vise so I can use the 2 interchangeably from the same spot. I don't use the vise for more than a set of extra hands so a mount that would work for a press would be plenty stout. I may need to mod my adjustable charge bar some day, but so far it has worked for my uses well as is.
I've been loading with mostly Lee equipment for almost 25 years now, so I'm not new to the brand. My pro 1000 has put out many thousands of rounds and I've only had to replace 1 of those white plastic ratchet gears, and that was during the initial learning phase when the press was new. I've always tumbled then de-primed the brass on a single stage before running it through the progressive press, and during the dark days of the last component shortage when I couldn't get CCI primers I started hand priming the cases before I dropped them in the loading tubes, and haven't gone back to seating them on the press.

Here's a shot of my new press mounted on my bench, it's set up for boolit sizing right now.



And here's one of the new Pro auto disc, with my homemade actuating arm and snuff can lid.



I'm sure I'll get lots of service out of this new time-saver.

[mizzouri1]

congrats! I love my turret press.

[gunfreak]

I started with a Lee single stage back in 2010. Use some Christmas cash to buy myself a Lee turret. I love it.

[Mike Kerr]

Nice looking set up. Hope you enjoy it.

[dragon813gt]

Buy a Safety Prime and take the time to set it up properly. Don't let the naysayers turn you away from one. I was aggravated w/ mine for months. Then I set it up right, learned it requires a light touch and have been happy ever since. The turrets are the greatest part about the press

[zuke]

How were you able to make such nice label's?

[dragon813gt]

Label maker