Ive received such great help here Im back for more.
Im confused on dies, I am purchasing the LEE turret press kit and need help on which complete die set to get. If Im correct I need a re-sizing die and de-prime, bullet seat, bullet crimp. Now is the LEE deluxe as good as it says? “no case lube needed”? and is this the best die set I can get for the Lee turret. Thanks.
I’m assuming you’re loading for an AR. I’m also assuming you are referring to the four hole Turret Model.
I wouldn’t bother w/the Deluxe set. The die you are referring to, the one that does not require any lube, is a Collet Neck Sizing die. These are inappropriate for use in reloading cartridges which will be fired in semi-autos.
For semi-autos you will need a Full Length resizer. These size not only the neck, but also the shoulder and body, and they bump the shoulder back to ensure reliable chambering. Lee’s product line includes a Pacesetter Die set, and this is what you should purchase. This includes a FL resizer, a seater and a Factory Crimp Die. All of these will be used when loading for your AR.
Assuming you are also going to use a Lee Powder Measure, then you’ll need to purchase one of their disk measures (not the Perfect Powder Measure, those won’t work ona Turret Press) and a Rifle Charging Die and a Powder Riser. While at it, pick up a Double Disk Kit, this will allow you to fine tune your powder charges and will allow you to load sufficient charges of extruded powders. My recommendation would be to go with the Pro Disk Measure, RCD w/riser, and the DDK. Lastly, pick up their trigger operated priming system (can’t recall the name). You’ll need that riser mentioned earlier if you use that priming system, but it also comes in handy when charging cases with extruded powders. The added height helps the powder fall with added velocity which helps reduce bridging at the case mouth. Only an issue w/extruded powders, ball powders meter and flow fine with the stock setup.
Regarding the decapper, those can come in handy for case prep, but they are much easier to use on a single stage press. If attached to the Turret Press, you’d need to detach the auto index when depriming, and then reattach when reloading. Kind of a pain. Or, just do w/o auto indexing and advance the turret head by hand (which is what I did).
In lieu of using a dedicated decapper, you could rely on the decapping pin on the FL resizer, but if you are dealing with mil cases that have crimped primer pockets, you’ll need to remove the crimps for the first reload. This will necessitate either disabling the auto-index as mentioned above, or immediately removing the sized case after resizing and then reaming the crimp out using a drill and reamer (and while you’re at it, trimming and deburring the just-resized case), and then reinserting the case for remaining operations.
Because of all this, I really like using dedicated toolheads (or better yet, a separate single stage press), one for case prep, and one for reloading. The first toolhead I use to resize and deprime, that’s it. I do this w/o using the auto index. I then tumble the lube off the cases and then move on to decrimping, trimming, inspecting, etc. Once all that’s complete, I prime them using a hand held Auto Prime rather than the priming system referenced above. Cases are then stored in zip locs and set aside for reloading at a later session.
For the relaoding session I had my toolhead setup with a RCD/powder measure, a seater and a FCD. If using the four-hole turrets, then you could add a Universal Case Flaring die in the first station, and adjust it to just barely kiss the case mouth. This will ease bullet seating later, especially if using flat based bullets, but it’s overkill if seating boat tails. For this reason, if you are only going to seat boat tails, I prefer the three hole turret to the four hole turret since the fourth hole is wasted (all you need is a powder charging station, a seating station and a crimping station).
I know this response was kind of long, but hopefully it made some sense. Also, as you think through how you will use this press, I’d strongly advise you to pick up a single stage along with your turret press. The SS comes in very handy for depriming and resizing, and it allows you to keep the auto index mechanism set up all the time on your TP. The set up and tear down of the auto index is what finally led me to just leave it detached and rely on manually indexing the turret head. It’s easy with all the dies installed, just grab a die and rotate the head.
You assumed everything correctly. I thank you for your in depth response and your time. I really appreciate it, a lot! Thanks!!