When you are pulling "weird" ones out, wouldn't a person be able find those with any arbor press with a force indicator?
I agree with the op. Was expecting big things and reports, but it's been real quiet since the initial week of launching with no ground breaking information.
Maybe and I know that's the argument and don't disagree but you can't pull an arbor handle as precisely and consistently as their motor does no matter what anyones says. I'm not saying that you can't feel or see stuff with a force pack but how you pull an arbor handle has a huge impact on what the dial says. Also, I'm not saying that seeing or feeling something from either press style really makes a difference on paper, just saying you can't replicate the repeatable consistency of a motor if if that's what you're after.
There's a lot of things that go into how and why the AMP Press shows anything on the screen and to fair, you can manipulate those results just by how you change your brass press. Annealing, trimming, cleaning, lubing, chamfering and more all impact what the graph shows you. So you can't just say, "my graph looks like someone else says it should so I'm going to shoot a perfect score". I've done all kinds of testing to make my graph do different things and in the end I can still shoot tight groups with most of the final results. But that's also because I tune a given load to a given way of prepping. If I don't anneal it's going act different on screen BUT if I tune the load for not annealing then it doesn't matter because my paper results will still be good. Same thing for trimming, chamfering, lubing or whatever. I don't think there's a 1-to-1 relationship in what the screen shows to paper results just as there's no 1-to-1 relationship when using a force pack on an arbor. I run pretty heavy neck tension, so I fully expect my graph or force pack to show higher numbers than someone using .0005" neck tension. The two sets of numbers or graphs are going to be violently different but if both people know what they're doing the paper result should be the same.
Whether using an arbor press with a gauge or the AMP press, I've had wider than expected spreads in gauge numbers on any given set of rounds for testing over the years and sometimes you find a flyer on paper and other times they all group up nicely. I've said this from the beginning but no matter how you sort your ammo, as long as you're making top tier ammo to start with, I very much doubt you'll see a difference on paper with most tools just becuase they're more expensive or cooler.
It's the consistency, repeatability, ease of use or speed that you typically see or experience from more expensive tools and that mentally translates to paper because your brain just works better when it thinks all your ammo is perfect. Seeing that all my rounds for a given string showed up on the same place on the graph probably doesn't immediately translate to a tighter group with all the other factors involved, but it does let me know I did everything right in the process and ultimately keeps me from worrying that a bad shot was anything more than a bad call, bad position/ trigger break or something so far from my control that I couldn't have felt or seen what caused it.
A perfect case in point is SWN this year. I sent all my data to AMP for the 430rds I took. To be fair I think they were a bit shocked because I had some wide spreads across each box of ammo, or at least wider than they thought I should've. They didn't like what the graph showed but to be fair I didn't care. I knew exactly what the ammo would do, but still had faith that using the press would show any outliers and that alone was worth it for me (plus not pulling a handle 430 times). Ultimately I dropped 13 points over 3 days and 1250 points possible. The AMP Press didn't make the ammo any better for me; it just let me see what it was doing and have confidence I did everything right. It doesn't make it the only way (I finished fourth and I'm pretty sure the three above me don't use AMP Presses) but it was the way I wanted to load to feel confident and it did it's job. I know it's an expensive tool but at the end of the day most people spend more than the press costs just attending something like SWN or Nationals so it's all perspective too.
I know there's been countless chatter about how dark things went after everyone got one and people think that means there's something wrong with it. I can't tell you why other than I think people thought it was going to be a magic bullet. It's not, it's just another tool that some may want to add to their toolbox, and some of that is they were working on the update like I talked about and for me at least, it will lead to more testing and videos so people can make a decision if it's for them or not (because it's not for everyone). Like most things we buy and use, it's not necessary to have one to make top tier ammo. BUT it is an incredibly well made and supported tool that can help diagnose brass prep issues and does ultimately lead to very consistently seated and sorted ammo if you want to, and can make your reloading life easier. That's all our tools do, make things easier, better or faster. So if this checks any of those boxes for you then it may be something you get. If nothing else, it's a great motorized seating press and for those with bad hands or other medical issues who don't want to pull a handle hundreds of times loading for a match it's worth its weight in gold.
I'm only one guy who takes a far less than engineering degree approach to this sport, and my opinion is just mine, but I try to be as honest as I can about how and why I use tools to achieve success. I'm not defending OR hating on the press other than to say that I think there's a group of shooters out there that will find incredible value through some use of the AMP Press and countless others who can't justify it or don't see how it'll help them and both are right and that's ok. For me, it's currently worth it.
I'll work on doing some new videos very soon with the updated pressure sensor setup and will be sure to show how it all translates to paper so people can see if it's a tool they want to invest in.
