Turret press vs single stage press for reloading precision rifle loads

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

AKmoose

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
1,743
Reaction score
1,631
Location
McLoud
Neither, this is the way to go.
1640740831221.png

 

Shadowrider

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Jan 28, 2008
Messages
21,530
Reaction score
9,345
Location
Tornado Alley
I really don't see an issue with turrets that are aligned like mentioned by @KurtM nor any real difference between a single stage and a turret with regards to accuracy. If you are trying to wring out every last smidgen of accuracy I'd go with a Forster Co-Ax and really good dies. Yes I do love me T7.
 

Jcann

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Messages
1,701
Reaction score
2,246
Location
Oklahoma City
You can shoot PRS with ammo loaded from places like Prime Ammo, Federal Gold Medal Match, and Black Hills but you’re not shooting an F Class match with it. My point is, to be competitive in F Class you’ll need to roll your own and it would be best to do it on a single stage press or an arbor press. You may want to check with the folks over at accurate shooter though
 

PBramble

Let's Eat
Special Hen
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
2,812
Reaction score
3,704
Location
OKC
You can shoot PRS with ammo loaded from places like Prime Ammo, Federal Gold Medal Match, and Black Hills but you’re not shooting an F Class match with it. My point is, to be competitive in F Class you’ll need to roll your own and it would be best to do it on a single stage press or an arbor press. You may want to check with the folks over at accurate shooter though
I looked. Theres a few who seem to think you can and they do. Dillon 550, 650s and at least one using a 750. Now granted that a win or loss can come from x's, those targets are ROUGHLY 1 moa 10 rings and .5 moa x's. That's pretty doable with good ammo and good fundamentals. I'd guess reading the wind would be more of a deal breaker, but that's just my guess. If we're benchrest shooting, all bets are off if you don't have like 5 or 6K invested in loading equipment (Prometheus).
 

Chaparral

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
Messages
895
Reaction score
1,124
Location
Tulsa, OK
FWIW I have a single stage and a Lee loadmaster. I have issues on the Lee with the primer seating correctly unless I am engaging the brass with a die from above at the same time. I check each primer before powder. For pistol rounds it works well except I had issues with the 44Mag but that may be more related to my older Texan dies. 30-30 goes well through the Lee, 223 is passable but I end up doing lots of preparation work off the Lee and just powder and bullet on the press. Taller than the 30-30 did not seem to work well for me.
 

Osage1978

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Sep 19, 2020
Messages
497
Reaction score
1,138
Location
Hominy
IMO accuracy from the rifle & ammo are boiled down to repeatability with minimal variance in both cases of ammunition and rifle. The rest of the variance comes from the shooters influence on the dynamic & is where most of the trouble really is birthed.

With that said a quality single stage press being a simpler machine "should" have less variation from stroke to stroke simply because it has less moving parts to have variance.
Another added bonus is slowing down things should allow you to ensure by weighing and measuring each aspect of the process which should result in more tightly controlled ammo. The only exception & this is just my opinion again is the Redding T7 which I believe is so well made it's on par with single stage presses. For your type of loading which is mainly about precision not how quickly you can churn out ammo I see no reason to add possible variables to a process where success is measured by eliminating them.
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Top Bottom