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Looking at some equipment this afternoon, may have some questions.


Collim1
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Got a co worker who’s been out of the reloading game for a long time. He has a, quote, “whole heap of ****” he’s looking to get rid of.  Including a progressive press which I don’t have a lot of experience with. 

I may need help sorting through it all. 

Price has ranged from make me an offer to just looking for someone to haul it off that will make use of it. 

It might turn out to be a great opportunity. I reload on a friend’s equipment and have been learning with him for a couple of years now. I have been considering getting my own setup for a while now. 

Edited by Collim1
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Got a Lee turret press, a Lee single stage press, case tumbler, balance scale, powder trickler, bullet puller, Lee .30-06 and .45acp dies, Lyman Case trimmer, deburr tool, case gauges for 30-06 and 45, three reloading manuals, a few bags of corn cob media and brass polish, case lube pad and some old wax style case lube, and two different powder measures/dispensers. 

And about 40 gallons of 30-06 brass and 45 brass in buckets and ammo cans.  And a couple thousand LRN hard cast 45acp projectiles.  He wants the ammo cans back so looks like I’m going to Firehouse Subs tomorrow and buying about ten pickle buckets.   

........and all it covered in twenty years of dust, cobwebs, and rat ****.  

No instruction manuals for any of the equipment.  Prolly be a few weeks before I can get any of this cleaned up and setup and see what’s missing, broken, functional  etc.....

like said in the original post I will probably have many questions in the future as I start sorting through all this stuff.  

Any help will be greatly appreciated.  

 

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Spread it out, take some photos and post them. I / we will be able to help you out quickly.

That Lee turret press is not an auto-indexing / fully progressive press.

If you really like fiddling around, this sounds like an interesting project. If you would rather spend your time to reload as effectively as possible, get a Dillon 650. You could clean that Lee stuff up and sell it on eBay to fund partially the 650, if you have the time.

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I’ll work on pics tomorrow.  

I appreciate the offer.  

There is no telling what I missed in all of this also. It’s cold and pouring down rain so I didn’t have a lot time to inspect everything.  I was grabbing everything I could, covering in a trash bag, and throwing it in the cab of the truck. Tomorrow I will begin unpacking and inspecting stuff.  

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I teach NRA Metallic Reloading; check the NRA website and see if there are any local instructors in your vicinity. Even if you don't want to take the full blown course, most / all will answer questions.

 

I've let many people come by and look at different things I have to get them started.

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I got more done today than I expected. The turret press does not orient correctly. Upon closer look I observed the index key at the top of the actuator rod is missing and had been replaced by a hex nut in a homemade attempt to fix it. 

I assume I can find a new rod somewhere. 

The scale balances with two different check weights, so it apppears good to go. 

I don’t know how to use that particular powder through measure die, and am not sure how to verify it. I will have to play with that. 

The single stage press is junk. I don’t see it lasting long. But it resized 200 .30-06 cases this afternoon without any problems.  

Here are some pics. This is not its permanent installation, just a convenient spot on the bench to get it all sorted out. 

 

 

43FC0A5C-1EA4-4584-8D1F-CB2CD4187BB2.jpeg

4270B3DF-168C-426D-A179-C6E070288643.jpeg

 

B377E1FF-AE53-4A6B-8FAE-D3189BE7D83C.jpeg

 

 

939C6C57-90DE-49CB-8C95-D206436DFF50.jpeg

 

Edited by Collim1
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@Collim1

IF you are going to consider wet tumbling with stainless steel pins, you could keep and use the small press for decapping, prior to tumbling in order to get the primer pockets look like new.

The Hornady scale seems fine and good to go, unless you plan to work with a proper digital scale, which will save you time.

I don't own any Lee products other than the universal decapper and a push through die set. The turret looks like the old Lee 3 Hole Turret Press. Here a link of the discontinued product:

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1013010673/lee-3-hole-turret-press-with-manual-index

Here a link to the (very short) manual: https://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/3-HoleTPwAI.pdf

Here a link to a much better manual, but for the 4 hole turret (should still help you to figure your 3 hole turret out): https://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/TP2131_redbase.pdf

 

Here a video showing how to adjust the indexing: 

 

 

And here the manual for the old Auto Disk Powder Measure:

https://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/AD2302.pdf

 

And a matching video:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by crockett
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