Lee Classic Turret or Lee Load Master

[call-in]

OP,

I was in your situation about a month ago. The thought of rounds/hr really made me want to get the progressive, but all the "single stage first" posts made me pause. I won't tell you what you should get because I am not you and I have my own needs, perception and reasoning, all I'm doing is sharing my thought process for a perspective that might help you.

Like you, I looked at the investment amount and found little difference between the two, yet the progressive offered the ability to produce much more volume of rounds for the same amount of time. I almost made the jump just on that reason alone but I kept reading people's "single stage first", "crawl before you run" or "baby steps first" posts which I kind of ignored at first thinking it can't be that hard. But as I watch various youtube videos of different reloading presses, I started seeing how much more involved operating a progressive is, that and the thought of handling things that can go boom while reloading or while shooting really made me think twice. Then I thought to myself "hmmm... I now see the importance of starting out with a single stage" but then my ever present dollar value calculator in my head kicked in and figured that the single stage kit costs almost as much as the turret system. At this point that rounds/hour mentality started creeping back in to the equation. So in terms of volume, single stage<turret<progressive, and in terms of simplicity, single stage>turret>progressive. Seems simple enough, the turret is the ultimate compromise! Not only that, but just remove the auto index bar and voila! I now have a single stage, a real two presses in one, that and the fact that I really don't need all that much volume, because I figure even if I compete, I probably would not need more that 400 rounds per week, if that. So yeah, I now have a turret system.

Hope you find this useful.

[glug]

I produced my first reloads with a $30 Lee hand loader and was glad I did it that way. It forces you to take it slow (a good thing when starting out), and it was helpful to learn the technical aspects of reloading and quality control independently of the mechanics of assembling and operating a press.

From there I moved on to a Lee Classic Turret which I've been happy with so far. I don't really shoot enough to warrant a progressive right now but even if I did I'm not sure I would want to switch at this point. I don't know if it's just Lee FUD but I like that the LCT doesn't use a tube fed priming system like most progressives have-- I've seen too many internet pics of those mysteriously blown up by static electricity. For me safety is king and no amount of speed is worth blowing holes in my self. I will leave progressives to those with many more years of experience than myself.

[Cowboy T]

Would you give a formula 1 car to a person who has never touched a steering wheel before? Nope, you'd give them a volkswagen beetle and make them learn the basics on something slow and simple first.

Well said. My first box of ammo, a light-ish .357 Magnum load, took me close to 5 hours to make. This is because I was checking, re-checking, and triple-checking and going through the learning process of making my own ammo. This was on a cheapie $30 single-stage.

Went and shot it, hoping I did it right. Turned out perfectly.

The next box of 50 took me an hour and a half to make, considerably less than the nearly 5 hours for the first box. And the speed just kept gradually coming from that point.

I did 1,000 rounds of ammo on this little $30 single-stage press. 500 of it was .357 Magnum, and 500 was .45 Colt. During this process, I learned each stage, what it does, what to look out for, how a primer should "feel" when it's being seated, what the powder charge should look like in the case--all that stuff. And yes, I pulled a few "oops" rounds during the process. That's part of it.

Next up, I went to the Lee Classic Turret Press and made 500 rounds of .45 Colt on that. This, too, went well. Finally, I started using the Pro 1000 progressive. While on the Pro 1000, I caught a double-charge while making some .38 Special. How'd I catch it? I realized what mistake I made right then and there as I was doing it. No problem; I just dumped the powder back into the hopper and did that case individually later on. Had I not had all that single-stage experience, I probably wouldn't have caught that double-charge.

So, learning how to do single-stage probably saved both my gun and my fingers.

And this is why I generally recommend starting in single-stage to anyone with questions about "how do I get started?". I don't know you personally, so I don't know your mechanical aptitude. Some people do fine going right to progressives. Some people might do just fine learning Driver's Ed with that Formula 1 race car. But there's a reason we don't typically teach Driver's Ed with race cars. :-)