RCBS Very First Press Welded Pre-A

[glhc46]

I wanted to share a gem I was able to pickup out of Idaho a couple weeks back. I won a RCBS welded Pre-A which is 1 of about 50 made. The later Pre-A's were cast. Sadly this one has been repainted but nevertheless a great addition to my A series collection. I was also able to win a B & an A4 in the same auction.

I wanted to say thank you to all the members who have posted info here over the years, especially Pressman. I got into reloading a few years back and press collecting shortly thereafter.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Beautiful collection!!

[Jchvy4]

Awesome piece of history. Thanks for sharing

[M-Tecs]

Thanks for posting. Very cool.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I have a beautiful pre A cast press, but didn't know they made a pre-pre A model !! Any idea of the year made ?

[glhc46]

My knowledge has come from the senior guys on this page. From what I have pieced together here are the time frames.

Welded Pre-A: Development on press design began in 1943. Best estimate is 50 were made before the cast pre-a.

Early Pre-A (1948-1951): Press was cast and pivot block was updated.

Later Pre-A (1951-1956): pivot block changed again and priming system was updated

Pressman posted some pics in a previous forum outlining the pivot block variations in the 2 later versions. The early version has 2 holes on the frame where the priming system goes, the later version has 1.

[Shawlerbrook]

Whatever happened to guy here who was an encyclopedia of old reloading presses ?

[Maven]

Do you mean Floodgate? He hasn't been on this site since 2016.

[glhc46]

Whatever happened to guy here who was an encyclopedia of old reloading presses ?

I'm guessing you mean Pressman. His profile says banned and I do not know why. He is definitely an encyclopedia of old reloading presses and I'm disappointed to no longer see his post.

[abunaitoo]

Nice collection.

[Bent Ramrod]

Get on the ARTCA site. All the scholars and reloading tool collectors (including Pressman) hang out there. There’s a specific subforum for RCBS stuff.

Doug Elliot (Floodgate) has, unfortunately, passed on. He was a fantastic wealth of knowledge, especially on Ideal and early Lyman presses.

That’s an impressive collection, all right. I gave my Rockchucker to a reloading newbie so I could set up and use my 2A press. Lots of “cool” factor, although I sometimes have to run a wire up the primer exit chute to break up jams. Only seems to happen with Large primers.

[Shawlerbrook]

Yes, Pressman. Also miss his knowledge.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

It’s always a good day when we can get an old press up and running again. I’d say it’s good for many more decades to come!

[glhc46]

Thank you ICH! Press is smooth as butter and completely operational now. I now have to decide what I want to reload on it first!

I am also posting a few more pics of things I have learned about this press (Pics taken before ICH fixed it up). On the cam that connects the pivot arm to the swing arms I noticed there are 3 positions. As shown in pics one position is marked with "R", another with "B", and the 3rd position which is in-between the other 2 is not marked. These markings all appear to be made with a punch press. From talking to ICH we believe the R is for Reload and the B for bullet swaging. There also appears to be something marked near the B that either looks to be an F or a P. We were unsure what this meant.

I also posted a pic of where it can be seen that it is marked RCBS CO on top.

The craftsmanship of this press is absolutely superb!