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Single stage vs. Turret

jeep45238

Private
Minuteman
Aug 8, 2020
4
0
The few people I know that actually play the distance game are all about single stage with trickling in the powder to isolate each step and, in their words - "I feel like I have more control of the process" I can see where that would be the case for a lot of this.

What would be the downside of running a Robust Turret press instead of a single stage? Something like a Redding T7 or similar.

My thoughts being if the dies are set, the time invested to complete cartridges could be less, and it would be possible to finish a cartridge from beginning to end in a minute or two, versus batch processing each step of the process and the time investment to finish that step before moving onto the next (because of life, being tired, whatever).

My background on reloading is purely volume pistol ammo for action pistol style matches, where effort for 'match' ammo doesn't really pay off.
 
Single stage and turret are effectively the same.
Turrets are a newer style of single stage really.
 
Lot of shooters including F-Class are going with progressive presses and are having great luck from what I’ve read and seen.
 
Single stage and turret are effectively the same.
Turrets are a newer style of single stage really.
That was essentially what was rolling through my head, and wanted to get some other thoughts on it. People can be very adamant about a certain way of doing things, when that's the way they've been doing it for a certain period of time and have that time/money investment in them.
Lot of shooters including F-Class are going with progressive presses and are having great luck from what I’ve read and seen.
On the progressives, do you recall any model tending to be more popular than others?
 
Most are Dillon, and don’t quote me but I’d say the models 550c and XL750 I believe are to be the ones that most use......eventually I’d like to get one, just don’t know which model I’d get, it would be one of those I think, I’d have to do more research on the matter as I just have a forester co-ax at this present moment.
 
I love my old lee classic turret.
I Just pull the 9mm turret out and plop in the 260 turret.
I have turrets for 6 cartridges and run a Hornandy case activated powder measure on my pistol turrets.

If I was t get any other press it would probably be a Dillon 550 as I don’t need auto index of 650/750.
 
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I have a Forster Co-Ax and a Dillon 650 and for precision I will be sticking with the single stage as I feel that it will always be more consistent / repeatable / accurate than the progressive. Just my opinion after some time using both. YMMV.

I have no experience with a Turret press but if the tolerances of the rotating mechanism of the turret are good then I see no reason why it wouldn't work well. I can see the attraction.

With quick change dies & the open design of some presses like the Co-Ax switching dies takes seconds so that is something to think about.

I kinda like "batching" as I find I am less likely to miss a step.
 
On the progressives, do you recall any model tending to be more popular than others?

Most will be Dillons, run in two passes/two toolheads. The 550 used to be the precision go to, but we're starting to see a lot more people running 650/750 setups, and some with autodrive for the first pass/brass prep toolhead.

Erik Cortina and F Class John have videos of their 650/750 autodrive setups on youtube if you want to see them in action.
 
There's a trade-off between control, and volume.

Yes, a growing number of good shooters, both F-class and PRS, do a majority of their loading on some form of progressive press. It's mainly a matter of available time - if you need more precision than you can get in factory ammo, or if suitable factory ammo isn't available in the caliber you need, you have to handload. But when you shoot enough to where the limiting factor in being ready for the next match is the turn-around time in processing and reloading your ammo... the progressive starts to become worth it. Usually by that point, a person is mostly 'over' the whole "I want to touch and inspect every single component of every single round" and it becomes more of "how *few* times can I touch the components and still get acceptable results".

That said... the people pursuing even more precision - the LR BR crowd, and probably the ELR group... still load primarily on single-stage presses. Some of that is lack of volume (they don't need to turn around 300-500rds from one three day tournament this weekend for another one next weekend, *and* still work for a living and keep from being divorced in the process). Some of it is sheer OCD. And some of it (in the case of the ELR group) may be the lack of suitably sized presses - though I've heard of some folks loading some pretty fair sized rounds on a 550.

I opted to move my 'magnum' stuff back to the Co-Ax (lack of volume), though I'm rethinking that as I have F/L size in two steps, instead of one - and same for charge / seat. Setting up a two-pass system for each caliber does add up money-wise. Not a lot, compared to the overall cost of the sport, but you know how some people get about stuff like that ;)
 
Thanks for helping to confirm that I'm not crazy for not wanting to jump into single stage - I'm all about handling/processing in as few of the stages as possible all ready. PRS is something I'd like to learn in a couple years, and have a T1x training rifle already.
 
That was essentially what was rolling through my head, and wanted to get some other thoughts on it. People can be very adamant about a certain way of doing things, when that's the way they've been doing it for a certain period of time and have that time/money investment in them.

On the progressives, do you recall any model tending to be more popular than others?
I love my 550. I size on my single stage, but I can prime, expand, charge, and seat all in one go with my 550 and it saves me a shit load of time.
 
People can be very adamant about a certain way of doing things, when that's the way they've been doing it for a certain period of time and have that time/money investment in them.

I was definitely one of them. I had a fully functional setup using my Co-Ax, and I did a *lot* of testing side by side before I fully trusted the 550 to get the job done right.

The biggest knock against doing this stuff on a progressive (in my mind) is that when things go wrong, now you're trying to troubleshoot / un-fuck multiple stations. Even when things aren't going 'wrong' per se, simple distractions (wife or kid walks in and asks a question, a phone call, etc.) while you are trying to track multiple operations starts to increase your chances of doing something dumb. Dumping a charge down the funnel when the ram is *down*, or forgetting to push forward to seat a primer. Pretty much every person I've ever talked to who loads on a progressive press has done that (or worse) at least a few times until they got the whole 'flow' sorted out - including picking up where you left off after a break or interruption.
 
Single stage loading....

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