press question

[bkmilw]

Can someone tell me if an arbor press can produce more accurate reloads than a conventional press, like a rock chucker?

 

[BigJim]

BK I know I am going to get critizied on this BUT.


It isn't the press that matters, it's the guy pulling the handle. A RCBS will do just as well as any other so will a Lee and for much less dollars. Save your money and put it into better components,heads, cases, powder and primers).

Accurate loads is a process not a product!!!

Good Luck and Good Shooting
BigJim

 

[bkmilw]

Big Jim thanks for the response. I feel that my tecniuqe with my current press,RCBS Rock chuucker) is good, Im very happy with the results and accuracy I get but Im having a Dasher built and if an arbor press will be even a slight improvement I want to go that route. Im just trying to make sure Im producing the most accurate rounds I can possibly produce and I have no experiance with an arbor press but know that several top shooters use them from things Ive read and was just wondering if theres an advantage to using one.

 

[Winchester69]

Conventional presses have compound leverage, i.e., the mechanical advantage increases as the ram rises. Arbor presses act linearly; any difference in mechanical advantage is due to the location of the user's arm. The arbor press provides more sensitivity so that the user is able to better feel the reaction between the bullet and case during the seating operation. Your RockChucker is a very powerful press, providing low sensitivity. What you should expect, if run-out is well controlled, would be an opportunity to decrease vertical stringing if the neck tension of your loaded cases varies, which you may be able to better feel with an arbor press. As BigJim points out, the press won't make better ammo, but may tell you if you have variation. The cause of the variation would have to be identified and corrected.
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[rayjay]

Most BR competitors nowadays use threaded sizing dies and inline seater dies. The difference is that the threaded sizing die they use is either a semi-custom or full custom die to match their rifle's chamber. These are full length dies that minimally bump back the shoulder and body.

If you don't need to load at the range your RCBS press will do fine. Personally my favorite threaded seater is the Forster Ultra BR.

 

[MSwickard]

Being a BR shooter, I have used inline and threaded dies. Both work well. However, I use my 20+ year old RCBS press for sizing and depriming brass and an arbor press with Wilson seating die to seat bullets. kind of best of both worlds.

Mike

 

[bkmilw]

thanks for the info guys, if Im understanding this correctly the advantage to an arbor press is the ability to,feel) the bullet seating more so than with the rcbs. from threads Ive read here I want to have a die made for the slight shoulder bump written about to use in the rcbs and it sounds like the arbor press will give me more feed back during seating. Another question is about neck tension and bushing dies. After fireing a round I should only need to neck size until the case gets hard to chamber or eject. I.E. a sticky bolt. Than I would need to full length resize with the semi custom die made with the reamer that made my chamber, is this sounding correct? And is it better to size the whole neck or just the upper half or so? thanks for all your help. sorry about the green horn questions but I know you guys are the best source of info around. thanks again.

 

[rayjay]

Buy or make a little tool to measure the shoulder bump and full length size them everytime. At our last match there was a new guy that had been only neck sizing. You just about had to have a cheater bar to get the bolt closed.

One of the keys to accuracy is consistency. By full length sizing and bumping the shoulder back about a thou [ .001 ] EVERYTIME you don't introduce variables where you might make a mistake.

When I was using a Forster Ultra BR seater I found added consistency by making a double bump at the bottom of the stroke when seating the bullet.

Buy, or better yet, make some windflags instead of spending money on an arbor press. You will know when you are ready for an arbor press. Usually this is when you start wanting to load at the range.

 

[MSwickard]

bkmilw

As for resizing, I'd prefer to have a die that will minimally size the body and bump the shoulder. Shooting BR, I want the same feel of each resized case when I close the bolt. Have cases get tight is a big distraction during a match if you just neck size. But if you have the right resizing/bump die you will not over work the brass and you will have nice consistant chamberings.

Bushing dies give you flexibility for different neck tensions, but sometimes you can get by using a std FL die. An example: I shoot a tight neck,0.333") 308 Obermeyer in my hunter BR rifle. I do all my resizing with a $15 RCBS 308 Win FL die. Only thing I changed was put a .270 expander button on it so the expanded would not touch the neck, but will punch out primers. The die itself sizes the case neck to 0.329" and it minimally sizes the body of 308 Lapua brass. So cheap dies that work can be had you just have to do alittle research. Before buying dies, get the dimensions of the resizing dies and compare it to your chamber.

Hope this helps

Mike