A few questions about the use my Harrell Turret Press

[bsbxl]

I have just acquired a Harrell’s Precision Turret Press with a 4 position turret head. It is meant to be used beside my Lee Classic Cast single stage press to reload .308W munition for my Tikka T-3. The idea is to use the Lee press for the dirty (decapping) and heavy (full length resizing) work and the Harrell press for the other reloading tasks on the press. I will be installing the following dies in the turret head: Lee collet neck sizing die, Forster micrometer seating die, Redding instant indicator and a Lee FCD. On the Lee press I will be using a Redding body die and the Lee universal decapping die.

About the use of the Harrell’s turret press I have the following questions:

1) I have read somewhere that it would be a good idea to put a rubber o-ring between the press and the lock ring of each dies. This would provide a bit of float to the set-up and enhance concentricity of the reloaded ammunition. In your experience, does it help? And, should I put the o-rings on all dies, also the Redding instant indicator?

2) When I raise the ram, the ram reaches its highest point just before the press lever is fully lowered. Then it stalls and retracts a little bit. I suppose this is what is called cam-over? As far as I know, my Lee classic cast is designed to not have the cam-over feature, so I have no experience with it. In order to achieve the best consistency, how should I use this cam-over (or not at all)? I would think that for seating and measuring CBTO (with instant indicator) I should not use the cam-over and screw those two dies in so that they would touch the shell holder before the cam-over sets in. For the neck die and the FCD I would screw them in so that the cam-over is achieved just when the press lever is fully lowered. This would provide a consistent force on the die. Is this correct?

Thanks.

 

[mikecr]

For seating, and seating measure, I prefer precision beyond a threaded press and floated die.
The Harrell's turret can be very precise(with a change), but I would not allow any cam-over or float the dies you intend to use. That's just me, I'm a Wilson hand die person.

I currently use my Harrell turret only for neck expansion/seating force measure. What I felt was a weakness in the design was the bushing/bolt holding down the turret plate. This allows enough play to turn freely turn the plate through each detent, but it also allows the plate to lift in use. The lifting plate set's the die off from true perpendicular. There is no need for this really, as turning the plate from detent to detent is fairly infrequent. Yet, it sucks to keep an allen wrench around to tighten the plate rigid with a thicker bushing(the allen bolt bottoms early) for each turn to new die.

So I setup a threaded handle to loosen for plate turning and then lock the plate down. This also gives me a leverage handle to hold with any heavier use of the press(the flimsy bench clamp can't be relied on for any real work).