This seems to be the more active forum, so I'll allow myself to cross-post this question from the Benchrest forum. Apologies to readers seeing both postings...

Glen Zediker (http://www.zediker.com/) gives the Harrell's press a great write-up in his "Reloading for Competition" book.
Has anybody used these?? And would you like to share a qualified opinion on the quality of these presses??

http://www.harrellsprec.com/online_store.html

I'm particularly interested in the model labelled "Harrell Brother's Turret Reloading Press"

Thanks a bunch to all in advance - mike

Harrell's makes good stuff. It's about that simple. I'm not sure if this is the press or not but I've heard about (not yet seen) a Harrell press that is similar in concept to the Hood press. The Hood press is a combination press allowing for use of both threaded dies and arbor dies. He even has little doohickies that allow for minute changes in seating depth, etc. If you go to www.benchrest.com you can then go to reloading supplies and find a link to the Hood site as well as others.

Many of these sorts of presses are directed at BR shooting which has gotten a bit narrow in scope (6mm PPC) and some of the equipment is designed for that range of caliber. This can be seen in the relatively short throw of the standard Hood press for example. FWIW, Hood makes a longer throw press occasionally so you may be in luck if he's making them currently.

So, depending on what caliber you're interested in you may be better served elsewhere. For example, it's pretty damned hard to go wrong with any of the good presses from Redding, RCBS, Lyman, etc., especially for the big cases requiring a bit more leverage.

I hope that helps.

Reed

I own one of Harrel's "Compact Loading Presses" and have always been very happy with it. I carried it to benchrest competitions mainly.

If you want to, call him and he'll send it to you to try out. If you like it, send him a check, if not, send it back. Honest. This is how he does business. In fact, he's never allowed me to pay in advance, always insisting that he send it to me with an invoice to be paid when I decide to keep it.

Michael

They make 3 sizes of presses and while I think they are pretty handy, I don't think I would want to use one if I was going to be full-length resizing and/or necking cases up and down....what I mean is they may not be very versatile. However, for neck-sizing or just "bunping" the shoulder back a bit it should work fine...they make high quality tools and I especially like their powder measure.

Thanks for the replies sofar, much appreciated.

I realize these presses are somewhat specialized - probably limited both in terms of size and type of jobs to be performed (e.g. no heavy case reforming work). I was thinking about getting one for loading "accuracy" rounds on. They are rumoured to be (absolutely?) straight, so they should take some of the guesswork out of the equation of getting straight rounds loaded.

Don't know whether I'll get one in the end - kind'a pricey... :-}

Maybe I'm a dinosaure but shouldn't a loading press be made out of steel?
And how are these presses more accurate then the Bonanza CoAx?
Jim

If you're looking for "accuracy/straight" you might want to keep in mind that use of a bushing style die with it's built-in "slop" will take any misalignment of the press out of the equation...at least for the most part.

These presses are pretty much designed for the BR/take it to the range crowd and for what your use appears to be, at least in the near term, you'd probably be happier spending a little less.

Reed