Hi All.
Most of my reloading is pistol stuff. Before I had a press I used some Lyman 310 tools, and ended up buying a couple of Lyman Tru-Line Jr. presses so I could use my 310 dies with them. I used that setup for a while, but there were several things I wanted to get that needed a modern 7/8-14 threaded press, so I got a Lee Reloader Press (their single stage C press) that worked really well, and I was happy. After a while I decided I wanted to get a turret press, as they're just more versatile than a single stage press. There's a guy on both eBay, and Gun Broker that makes new turrets for the Tru-Line Jr. presses, which basically makes them into modern presses, so I bought one from him. The only thing left to complete the transformation of the press to using all modern accessories was an adapter Lyman sells to use normal snap in shell holders (Lyman calls them their X shell holders). So with one of those installed on my press, I was good to go.
There was one small problem. On the original J style shell holders there are 2 locating holes to mount the shell holder, one directly in front of the opening, and one off to the side. To mount the shell holder with it's opening facing forward on the TLJ (Tru-Line Jr.) press you would use the hole on the side. To do the same on their All American Press you would use the hole that's in front. As I like having the opening of the shell holder off to the side a bit, I used the 'wrong' hole, the one directly in front of the shell holder opening. When I got the J to X adapter it only has one hole, the one in front (I really think Lyman made this adapter only with the AA press in mind), and if I mounted it so the locking screw was in the hole like it's supposed to be, then the setscrew to lock the new style X shell holder into the adapter would be inaccessible while the adapter was mounted on the press, which would mean to change shell holders would require first loosening a setscrew holding the adapter to the press, removing the adapter, and then removing the new style shell holder from the adapter by loosening yet another setscrew! And of course the adapter seems to be hardened, so drilling a new locating hole so everything would line up right wasn't going to work. I ended up just tightening the setscrew that holds the adapter to the press just against the side of the adapter without a locating hole, and this seemed to work fine. After using this setup for a while, I noticed that the shell holder wasn't perfectly aligned with the die hole, but was off by a very small amount, nothing that made much of a difference, but occasionally I would have to hold a shell to the left a bit to get a casing into a sizing die. Oh well, I figured this is what you get when you use a third party part (the new turret), and just made due with it like it was. I recently got yet another press, a handheld Decker Press, which is a really nicely made unit, and it uses modern shell holders. So I'm thinking with 3 different presses that I use for different operations, sometimes at the same time, that I really should buy another set of shell holders in the sizes I use.
Then I remembered that I still had the old J style shell holders for 3 of the most often used calibers, and if I went back to using those in the TLJ press I would have the modern X holders for use in the other 2 presses. So I dug out the shell holders, installed the #2 (for 45ACP) onto the press, and after readjusting my dies ( the adapter/new shell holder combo is slightly taller than the original shell holder), I started reloading some 45ACP brass I just got the other day. The very first thing I noticed was that the shell holder was in PERFECT alignment with the holes in the 3rd party turret! So the misalignment that I was blaming on the turret was actually being caused by the Lyman adapter! Well, I don't have to tell you what shell holders I'll be using in the TLJ press from now on! I'll still on occasion need to use the adapter (like when using the Lee push thru sizers, or anything like that that uses a tool that mounts like a shell holder, but isn't one).
So the whole point of this message (which is starting to look like a book from it's size - sorry), was to ask, is there anyone else that uses a Tru-Line Jr. as their primary press? If so, do you use the J to X adapter, or just use the old J style shell holders?
One last thought, As I said earlier, I have 2 of the TLJ presses, and my original idea was to leave one original, so I could still use the original dies with it. Well, so far I've never used to second press since getting the new turret, and the same guy that makes the new turret also makes a 6 hole replacement turret (the original & replacement are 4 hole turrets), and so I'm thinking that I might get one of the 6 hole turrets, so when doing something that requires more than 4 stations I could use that press. (I would imagine that the 6 holes are squeezed in a bit, so it might be easier to keep using the 4 holed press as my primary unit) Now all I need to do is to start hunting down some of the other shell holder sizes I use in the J style holders.