Antique Pacific Press

[Alstep]

Hear's a couple of mine. Old original pre-war "C" press, "Super" press I bought new in the late '50's, and a later "Super Delux". Notice the older blue paint had a gloss finish, while the later was wrinkled. Still use them almost daily.

[DonMountain]

Hear's a couple of mine. Old original pre-war "C" press, "Super" press I bought new in the late '50's, and a later "Super Delux". Notice the older blue paint had a gloss finish, while the later was wrinkled. Still use them almost daily.

Of that group of old Pacific presses, which ones are the easiest to use? Which ones do you find most desirable to "collect"? Which ones have the best leverage for sizing a larger rifle case? I have "collected" two Pacific presses so far. The 00-7 press I started out with about 35 years ago, and the Black Pacific C press that I obtained recently. I have them both set up and running on my reloading bench. Using the older C press for small pistol rounds and the 00-7 for all of the rifle rounds, except for the 50-BMG.

[Alstep]

I limit them to pistol & small rifle like the Hornet & .222. They are all "easy" to use, strength is the limitation. Notice the castings; the earlier press doesn't have the beef the later ones have, so springing becomes an issue with resizing your larger rifle cases. All "C" type presses have that fault. Plus you really have to put some muscle into it. For rifle sizing, I go to my compound linkage "O" frame press. MUCH easier. For seating & crimping, doesn't make any difference. The "C" is very convenient for that as the front of the press is wide open. As for collecting, I'm not much of a collector of loading equipment, I use it all. Just happens I came across these in my travels and bought them. The middle press I bought new in the late '50's.

[MRW]

I just acquired a old Pacific c press the ram is 38 special my question is will the Lee ch 1006 ram work in this press ? Diameters are the same I'd really like to be able to use replaceable shell holders

[Alstep]

Don't know about Lee, but CH makes a ram that takes replaceable shell holders.

https://www.ch4d.com/products/equipment/presses/412090

[abunaitoo]

CH4D makes a replacement ram that takes universal shell holders.
I got one for the other Pacific press I have.

[WalrusX]

Just an OBTW. CH4D is presently "Out of stock" with an unknown date to be back in stock.

[Czech_too]

I believe that CH4D has been out of stock for well over a year. The last replacement ram I picked up recently was through Midway. I believe that it's RCBS branded.

I use one as an upside down sizer, that one is green. Don't recall if that was the color though when I got it. The most recent one is a yellow.

[rintinglen]

I had a late 50's one that was green and had the old style ram. At the time, the newer pacific equipment was red. I ordered a "modern" ram with the interchangeable shell holder feature and eventually gave it to a friend of my daughter rather than move it again.

[Kai]

The blue deluxe Pacific press can also be used for swaging with half jacckets.

[mf79]

I went and found my old lyman spartan press under my workbench.

[Bmi48219]

…..If you are interested I have a mid 1930s press that is in good working order. It was missing the handle when I got it, so I fitted a new one. If you are interested in it along with a set of four primer arms, a shell holder ram that takes the newer removable she'll holders. I also have quite a few of the older solid shell holder Rams for the guy that is interested in old school stuff. I would like to sell it all as a package…...

Glad to see this post made it past the moderator’s review. (Satire)

[pworley1]

After setting up my "new" Pacific press, it became obvious that this press wasn't going to reload anything very large. But it works great on small pistol cases like 9mm Luger, 380, 32 Acp and 38 S&W. Since I only have the small primer arm made by Lyman in the press when I bought the press, this works out pretty well. As the larger primer rounds would probably be too hard to resize. Although my 45 Acp brass is all large primer and I bet it would resize them OK if I had the proper Lyman large primer punch to fit the Lyman primer arm.

You can always use a ram prime.