O Press: Aluminum vs Steel. Will I Notice The Difference

[JeepHammer]

Has anyone ever worn out a cast iron press?

In a word, yes.
It wasn't the fault of the press, if it had been properly cleaned & lubricated, it wouldn't have gone south.
Rust will kill steel/cast iron no matter how high quality.
Rust on a steel ram will kill aluminum in no time, so you can't stress cleaning & lubrication enough.

Keep that ram from rusting!

Most people would just bush the frame and install a new ram, but I bored/polished the frame and made a new ram that was larger diameter so it didn't deflect as much, but that's outside the price range/skill set of most people...
(I have a tendency to waste time & money on things easily replaced...)

Cleaning & lubrication, rust prevention is a must for long life, but that done, an iron frame press *Should* last a lifetime for the home reloader.
This is evident by how many old cast iron frame presses people find at estate sales!

[lightman]

I doubt you would see much difference between aluminum and iron. But, I like iron in a press. Its hard to go wrong with an "O" frame press with compound linkage made of cast iron. The Rockchucker or the Boss, or Big Boss, would be hard to beat.

[tankgunner59]

I have both the Lee Challenger and the Lee Classic Cast (Iron). I use the Challenger for my day to day reloading and the Classic Cast for all of my heavy duty, such as case re-forming, primer pocket swaging etc. As stated above I regularly clean and lube both, and more often if needed. I have had no issues as of yet, and don't expect to.

[RED BEAR]

Now i like my lee but i will agree that rcbs guarantee is worth something they have replaced parts on stuff i bought used that was decades old no questions asked.

[gumbo333]

Probably not a lot of difference most of the time. Me, I might look on E-bay or gun show for used. Buy both, a pre-owned cast iron O press and a cheap used Lee C press for the easy simple stuff. The openness of a C press is very handy. The heavyier iron press for resizing bottleneck. Just me.

[onelight]

I would say if the difference in price fits your budget buy iron I can’t help but think in the long run it would hold up better to foreign material from primers case trimming brass filings neglect but there are so many here that have used aluminum for years with no problems. I think most of us would probably see no practical difference.

[lightman]

If I could go back in time and still know what I know now I would buy a cheaper, lighter smaller press to deprime on and save the wear and tear on my Rockchucker. But its still tight after being cycled for 10's of thousands of times. So, maybe its a mute point? And universal depriming dies were not as popular 40 some years ago as they are now.

[kmw1954]

I was thinking of getting a Lee Challenger and my question is about the aluminum vs iron. If i'm using it strictly for reloading, no swaging, will I notice a difference?

I have an RCBS JR3, Lee Value 3 hole turret press, Lee Pro1000 and a new Lee Auto Breech Lock Pro.

I have 9mm, 380 and 45acp ammunition that has been loaded on each of them.. If I took 10 rounds each from each press and lined them up you would not be able to tell which press they came from. Same if you shot them all.

[john.k]

The best advice here has been to keep the ram clean and oiled in an ally frame ,or the wear will be rapid and excessive.While cast iron has a certain degree of self lubricating property,dry ally does not and is cut to pieces by dust,grime,or dry wear......I was given one of the little cheap Lee basic presses,by someone who won it in a raffle,and would not even use it........ the ally is very thin,but mine has never broken,and leverage seems little different form a big press........its so light I take it down the range in my ammo box.......try doing that with your A-2.

[EDG]

I bought a Rock Chucker about 1971 and I approached the problem in a different manner.
The RC was my second press and I was really proud of it and I wanted to keep it pristine.
My first press was a heavy cast iron C press that I used in the normal fashion. That meant a lot of primer
ash fell down on the ram and into the press bore wearing on the ram and the casting. After a while the ram would get dry and well powdered with ash and it would groan as I sized cases. I decided I did not want that and I began decapping all cases separately with a hand punch. Then I cleaned all primer pockets.
To keep the RC free of ash I continued the hand decapping and I still do that to this day nearly 50 years later. It is a little extra work but my press and the area around the press stays clean. There are no spent primers bouncing on the floor. I have never broken another decapping pin or decapping stem. I have never broken either one of the two hand decapping punches that I use.

As far as the disadvantage of the A2's mass. It FL sizes oversize cases with little effort. Some of those same cases would kill the little Lee press permanently. Life does not have to be all one way or the other. It may be better to own 2 presses. I own 6 or 7. The extremes on the big end is an A2 and an A4 Big Max.
On the little end I have the Lee hand press we call the thigh master, the small Lee C press and a Harrell's bench rest press with a C frame. That is 5 presses that I do not use much. I also have a couple of RCBS Juniors that I do not use at all. 99% of my press work is done with an old Rock Chucker. The other 1% is done with a small B Square arbor press used with straight line dies.
And I forgot the 450 Dillion which has not been used in maybe 25 years.

The best advice here has been to keep the ram clean and oiled in an ally frame ,or the wear will be rapid and excessive.While cast iron has a certain degree of self lubricating property,dry ally does not and is cut to pieces by dust,grime,or dry wear......I was given one of the little cheap Lee basic presses,by someone who won it in a raffle,and would not even use it........ the ally is very thin,but mine has never broken,and leverage seems little different form a big press........its so light I take it down the range in my ammo box.......try doing that with your A-2.

[GONRA]

GONRA sez save up until you can purchase a Large Robust Press. Do NOT cheep out!
You will need it with necked rifle cases to maintain headspace when dealing with range brass - if nothing else.
Probably any cast iron press manufacturer will do.
Get first class dies - RCBS, CH4D, others...
For serious resizing jobs, be sure to use STP Oil Treatment or TriFlow Synthetic Grease for a Case Lube.

[Ozark mike]

I'm just going to jump out there and say buy a turret if you're going to be making a lot of Rds or if you're doing more than one caliber it makes life a whole lot easier if you like spending your time doing other things like me

[john.k]

Its strange reloaders worry about primer ash wearing a $30 press ram,but are unconcerned about primer ash wearing a $500+ precision barrel.

[6bg6ga]

You won't notice any difference until it breaks.

[EDG]

I think that they would worry about it if there was a good way to deal with it.
However cast bullets do seem to mitigate the wear from ash. The soft bullet metal permits the ash to embed much like soft metal inserts for connecting rods and main bearings.
The much harder metal of jacketed bullets running over the ash probably cause a lot more wear.

If you want to try you can wipe your bore between each shot to remove any ash left behind by each round. Doing so makes for a very nice fouling free bore surface.

Its strange reloaders worry about primer ash wearing a $30 press ram,but are unconcerned about primer ash wearing a $500+ precision barrel.

[JBinMN]

.....

[Lance Boyle]

Has anyone ever worn out a cast iron press?

My first press, a RCBS reloader special 3, is iron unlike the RS5, has a bit of slop in the linkage. It’s been in service since the mid eighties.


I am another swimming in presses. The little RS3 is still in use, the used CoAx is in use, as well as the Dillon 550b.

I have a used rock chucker and a brand new big boss2 on the shelf.

I should probably pare down to an o frame, the coAx and the Dillon. I figured on using the tired rs3 for a dedicated decapper and bullet puller.

[AllanD]

My single stage press, which I bought in reaction to the growing "wobbliness" of the first metallic press, which I got at a garage sale (a Lyman SparT turret press) was an RCBS RS2 aluminum O-frame, it is still going but I want to retire it

The new press


I want to replace it with is the New MEC cast iron O-frame press, because of the way it handles spent primers and their dust or to be more precise because of the crappy way the RCBS press does.

[EDG]

Use a little imagination and hand decap all your brass off of the press first. Then your tumbler can remove the primer ash from the primer pockets and your press is never exposed to the primer debris.

[richhodg66]

I don't have much to add to this, been using the same Rockchucker for 30 years now and probably will til I die, though I have a few other presses.

My questions is, what benefit does aluminum have other than weight? For a reloading press that isn't going to be portable, why would aluminum even be a consideration?

All that said, I just passed on an old Lachmiller in an antique shop for $22 which after a couple of evenings of penetrating oil and evaporust would work fine. Also have an old Pacific C press I got for $15 at a gun show that would work fine now, even had the ram installed to take new shell holders. I'd personally never buy a new Lee press with so many high quality old ones out there dirt cheap.