Lee now offers this with a 4 hole turret. This would be good if you want to crimp after bullet seating with their factory crimper, otherwise just get the three hole turret which combines seating and crimping in one die.

My model has the auto index feature. When it works, it's a blessing, but often it's just slightly "out of time" stopping just a tad short. There's an adjustment mechanism to get everything right but it's a bit tempermental. Regardless, when it stops short, just manually rotate the turret the remainder of way -- very simple.

All in all it's a pretty good kit that will work for all of your pistol needs. If you start with the 3 hole turret, you can later upgrade to the 4 hole model pretty cheaply.

Martindog

I'd recommend you buy 357 dies and adjust them accordingly, then if you ever buy a 357 Mag you're all set. Some jobbers out there also have 1/8" waskers to place under 38 Special dies to make them work for 357 reloading too.

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Shane Marquardt

quote:

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Originally posted by robv60:
I am wanting to start handloading 38 special cartridges.

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I have a lee turret press (plus a lee pro1000) and have three things which disappoint me about the turret press.

1) By the time you buy dies, powder measure and primeing system, you could have bought a lee pro1000. The pro1000 uses the same frame handle turret, but has an added priming system and 3 position rotateing shellholder. For .38spec, the pro1000 is weak in that powder checking, and a separate bullet seating and crimping operation are not natural (possible? I haven't done it).

2) The turret deprimeing system shares the slot in the ram with the priming arm (a very common design), but gets the old primer stuck in the way of the primer arm that should be seating the new primer.

I gave up on doing a round in 3 strokes and went to a pure batch method (ie. resize & deprime all the cases, prime off press, expand and drop powder in all the cases, visually check powder in all the cases, seat the bullet in all the cases).

This is the exact same method as I use on any single stage press.

3) If I try to drop powder and seat the bullet, I can't see the powder level of .38spec target loads while the case is in the press. The powder in 9mm and .45acp (etc) can be seen with a good light in the right position. This is also true of the PRO1000.

I feel looking at the powder level is important as I had 1 in 5 of my first box of .38spec target loads (ie 2.7 gr bullseye with 148 gr wadcutter) with no powder. This is a good way to stick the bullet in the barrel and blow up a gun.

Another solution is to use ww231 powder (ie a ball powder) which flows better than a flake powder (ie bullseye). I'm not in a position to say it is good enough that the powder level doesn't need checking.

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I guess I'm saying you need to undestand the steps you will want to do and how you will do them on the press (equipment) you buy.

I find of particular interest

How are old primers handled.
How is the powder level checked.
When and how is the case crimped on the bullet.

JerryO

quote:

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Originally posted by robv60:
Well, how about the LEE anniversary kit? It comes with the "better" Perfect Powder Measure....Is it made out of metal or is it a sturdy plastic or something?

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I don't consider the perfect powder measure better than the disk powder measure. Both have their places.

The disk measure seems to be aluminum while the perfect powder measure is (almost) all plastic. I feel the perfect powder is intended for rifles (though I have used it for pistols, it was ok except for h110 & w296) and the disk mesaure is intended for pistols.

In fact the disk measure is required if dropping powder while expanding the case mouth with lee pistol dies.

The Challenger press has an aluminum frame and steel rod for a handle. The frame to handle link is steel. I expect the handle to ram 'clam shells' are zinc.

JerryO

Regarding the spent primers, this may be cheating but I deprime on my Challenger with a depriming die. It catches the spent primers. From there, into the tumbler. Once tumbled, I then load on the Turret press.

If the Turret is your only option, the only thing I can think of is a broom and dustpan or a vacuum cleaner. Not trying to be a wise**ss, that's just a fact of life. Still, I can pick up quite a few primers if I'm saving $100 or so, bucks which can be better spent on components.

Martindog

quote:

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Originally posted by reloaderman:
I like my Lee Turret press, great for pistol, the only thing I don't like is the spent primers fall all over the place! Anybody have any suggestions on this problem?
Reloaderman

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Yeah, I am impressed with the way the little lee C-press handles primers. So I modified my rockchucker and lee turret to handle them the same way.

It works great!!!

Since you probably don't have the lee C-press to copy. The secret is to enclose the path that the primers drop thru. And this generates a problem: You can't prime on the press with the top of the slot enclosed.

I trimmed a square piece of wood about 2 inches long that would just press into the slot, but leave plenty of room for the primers to fall thru. Another poster said he used a burgerking straw (some are big enough, some aren't).

I also made a wood triangle with a slant next to the ram which sits in the socket for the primeing arm, and took a little metal off the frame where the primers piled up.

Now, I can deprime, reprime with the lee hand primer and load. But my pro1000 gets all my 9mm and .45acp reloading.

JerryO