Broke my Lee challenger at the aluminum hinge when resizing some 307 win to 303 Sav, then switched over to the Lyman Turret and broke the main bolt for the turret. Geez, guess I'm gonna by a RockChucker, unless someone has a Holly wood they don't want anymore. :eek::eek::eek::eek: Les

Pictures of the damage. :D

http://savagela.org/Presses/1.JPG

http://savagela.org/Presses/3.JPG

http://savagela.org/Presses/2.JPG

I'm guessing you don't want a recommendation for a Lee product at this point but I don't see how you could hardly break the Lee Classic Cast.

As long as it is steel, I probably can't but the Challenger has an aluminum hinge, thats where it gave out. :( Looking at a used Hollywood. Defintely want to stick with a single stage, as I will get the turret bolt for the lyman replaced. Les

It would be hard to do that to an RCBS Rockchucker or Lyman Crusher.

So I have heard, looking at trying to get a Hollywood single state press, if I don't I'll get a RockChucker. Les

I think you'd have to be Lou Ferigno to even put a sweat on a Rockchucker, I've got three other RCBS presses, and they are all as strong as I could ever want.

i have to say i'd have a h3ll of a time breaking my old bair c-press like that.. it's a heavy cast c body and a solid steel hinge,toggle,and ram.... it's built like a tank.......i'm really not too surprised the aluminum parts on your lee press gave out... i do use a lee reloader press on my .38 spls and .357 magnum reloads but if i'm doing some heavy duty resizing or something the old bair press is called upon!

Bad day for presses at your place. What case lube are you using ? I think Lee may send you a replacement for the casting.

that is the bad thing about aluminum and case forming. you may also want to take a look at the redding ultra mag, it's a horse!! another thing to look at is your lube.

I was using the lyman case lube, gonna switch to lanolin for heavy duty reforming, and use imperial for the standard reloading. Gonna call Lee this morning. Les

Both companies will supply new parts pronto. Both will also suggest you change lubes.

Pssssst . . . Imperial Sizing Die Wax.

Two other hints. Clean and polish your 303 SEATER die. Back it off two turns from your normal position (a cut creadit card or sheet metal washer works great). Run your ISDW-lubed cases into the seater die first. It is slightly larger than your sizer and will serve as an intermediate die. Wipe and re-lube the cases, then run them into the sizer die as usual. BUT - don't do it in one pass. Run the case up perhaps 3/4 of the way, pull it back out, rotate it a half turn (and re-wipe the lube with your fingers) and then size all the way.

You will almost never lose a case if you follow these tips. Certainly never break a press!

Well, Lee is gonna send me a steel replacment for the Aluminum part that broke, my Lyman on the other hjand will make a good boat anchor, as lyman doesn't have any of the bolts for the Turret anymore. :( So I guess i need to get a new turret. Dammit!

I am using an intermediate die now too, made a world of difference, 30-40 Krag.

Take your broken one to the machinist class at your local Vo-Tech school. The teacher will be delighted to have his students set up and make one as a class exercise. Heck, you'll probably get a dozen of 'em!

. . . my Lyman on the other hjand will make a good boat anchor, as lyman doesn't have any of the bolts for the Turret anymore.
Might ask a machine shop for an estimate on making a new bolt.

Didn't think of that, Thanks Rocky, we have a few here. :grin:

I would send Lee the part and get them to look at it. I would bet you that they send you a new one real quick.
I might still go with a Rockchucker and definitely Imperial sizing wax.

Yep Rockchucher!! Life time warantee!! Dude that's sucks!!

Aluminum framed presses were intended for normal reloading tasks, not case reforming. That may well include the aluminum framed Hornady LNL and a few RCBS presses as well as some of Lee's.

I understand that the Lee toggles tend to break most often when that lower bolt is even a little bit loose, seems the bolt tries to cam its way out of the groove and splits the aluminum as it goes.

Aluminum framed presses were intended for normal reloading tasks, not case reforming.


A point well made. A base reduction of at least .029” is quite large for a press not designed for case forming duties. The cast aluminum Lee presses are certainly strong enough for normal reloading tasks. The Lee press can be overstressed and broken as my pictures illustrate.
For normal reloading duties the cast aluminum Lee reloading press is a good value.
This Lee Challenger press failed while full length resizing .307 Winchester cases. I have never been quite certain why it failed. An e-mail to Lee was answered with an offer to replace the cast O-frame if I would strip it and send it in. About this time I had a motorcycle accident and everything went on hold for a year or so and I just didn’t bother. I had to think about it a bit before I decided to share these pictures but I believe it is helpful and interesting to share and discuss our experiences with the wide variety of reloading equipment available today.

William, I hope you learned your lesson with them dang motor cycles.

My wife says I have... I blame it on the two turkey's I hit!

I split a sizer die once with a Rockchucker. The press is fine. The die was replaced at no charge by RCBS.

Cheezywan

All you guys that said to go green, I did, here are the results, they were going along just fine and smooth, and I was even using imperial sizing wax, and then this happened about case 28. :o

http://savagela.org/Presses/4.JPG

http://savagela.org/Presses/5.JPG http://savagela.org/Presses/6.JPG

Did I fail to mention my wife is deployed.........................

Anyone else think Momma needs to come home for a Conjugal?

http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2005/images/fiddler_crab.jpg

Broke my Lee challenger at the aluminum hinge when resizing some 307 win to 303 Sav, then switched over to the Lyman Turret and broke the main bolt for the turret. Geez, guess I'm gonna by a RockChucker, unless someone has a Holly wood they don't want anymore. :eek::eek::eek::eek: Les

You're not the first... but I'll bet you already knew that!! :o
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/ontgunner/fun%20stuff/lee-links.jpg
This lucky guy had a machinist buddy help him out... check out the new links!!
Good luck busting these!! :D
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/ontgunner/fun%20stuff/newlinks1.jpg

Well and Wow! RCBS will make it right with you. I would hate to loan you my anvil!!

Is that yours, or do you know someone, and can you get me a contact? Thanks, Les

Holy cow Les. You're not living right, or you have a bad chamber requiring more force than normal for resizing. Or the parts are from China....

Well, i am reform to a Major degree, I do have a line on an old Herters, that will probably do just what I need. They are machined, not cast. :grin: At least I only have 50 more left to go, once these are done, i'll have enough 303 Sav brass to last me a lifetime. Making it from 307 Winchester brass, as the 30-40 brass is too thin for my liking. Les

Is that yours, or do you know someone, and can you get me a contact? Thanks, Les

Nope, not mine... I don't own anything that good! :eek:
I do know the machinist that helped him out though... I'll contact him to see if he made any drawings or notes.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Les

Les, you're going to give elbow grease a bad name! Well, any casting can be flawed, and I guess you found that out. I was going to recommend the Lee Classic Cast iron press because it is not actually cast iron, but steel, and I know the press is designed to handle the 50 BMG cases, which are a treat to resize. It is also supposed to be stronger than the older RCBS and Lyman "O" press designs. Lee apparently got a whale-load of old railway rails. They must have bid on salvaging them or on getting them direct from a salvager and are casting their classic presses from that stock. I have been eying one to have a higher leverage press for a massive bullet pulling project. But, it's still a casting.

If you've got a line on a press machined from steel billets, then you should be good to go. After your experience with the RCBS I would have steered you to look at the Corbin S-press (http://www.corbins.com/prcsp-1.htm). They are made for swaging bullets, which is another activity most conventional presses are not up to. All machined. Roller bearings in all the linkage pivots. Of course, it costs $500. A lot for a single stage, but a top notch looking piece of gear.

What is the Lyman turret model you busted? I have the old turret version of the Spartan press in my cellar (Lyman Spar-T). I was thinking that if they are the same, I could pull the bolt and give you a quick mechanical drawing for your vocational school kids pretty easily. On the other hand, the teacher may prefer they measure and draw it for themselves? It's a good exercise. If they are learning heat treating, you will want to get them to cut it from non-distorting oil hardening steel stock and heat and quench it, then draw it back at about 800°. That will bring it into the range of RC 50, which is what they pull hammer heads back to. Hard enough not to deform easily on impact, but not brittle enough to shatter easily. I had my 1911 rail anvils drawn to that hardness and surface ground. This was before I owned a heat treating oven. They've taken a lot of pounding with no dimensional changes over the years. If you can afford some high chromium air hardening die steel, that is tougher still. Always nice to have a bolt the rest of the press will break around.

Thanks, Uncle Nick, got a buddy that is a machinist that is sending me a new bolt for the T mag, also going to go pick up a Dillon next week end from a buddy, free, guy that has it isn't sure if it is complete. Les

I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties, but at the same time I'm somewhat gratified (in a completely GOOD-HUMORED kind of way) that the same thing that broke the Lee press also broke the RCBS press.

Personally, I'd prefer that if something was going to break, it be a bolt (like the Lyman) or a link vs. the frame itself. ...but then it really doesn't matter much if everyone will replace anything that breaks anyway...

I think you'd have to be Lou Ferigno to even put a sweat on a Rockchucker.

Hey, takes a good man to kill one of the Lee presses! :eek:

Lou wasn't forced into celibacy for 6 months. :D

Well, Les, since this thread started with your work making .303 Savage cases, I thought you might be interested in the sale flier I just got from Graf & Sons.

They are listing Norma .303 Savage unprimed brass for $25.99 "bulk for 20."

Flier expires 4-19-08

The Old Guy

PS. Remind me to pass on an offer to arm wrestle you for a beer :)

I got 50 pieces of 307 Winchester for 20.00, I got the same flyer. Les

Out of curiousity, how did you manage to break these presses? Did you have to use an extension bar on the handles to swage down the brass in your reforming, or did you do it with the existing handles.

Time to look at the hydrolic stuff if you can bust a rock chucker. Or make smaller "steps" in your case reforming prosess? I learn by the "feel method". Is like "over- tightening" a bolt. You will "feel" when it goes tight!

I like my old Rockchucker and I am in love with my Forester Co-AX.....if this helps any.....
Hope all is well with everyone.

My gosh, I would never want a press on my bench that I could break with hand operated power. I've used my same old RCBS Junior for 40 years now, and maybe split the 2X6's on the bench where it is anchored. If I (or even Arnold Schwartzeneger), could break a press, then that's one I wouldn't even want for free. Granted, I resize only up to .30-06, but I still don't think I would be able to break a decent press, even using a "cheater bar".

Rev

My gosh, I would never want a press on my bench that I could break with hand operated power. I've used my same old RCBS Junior for 40 years now, and maybe split the 2X6's on the bench where it is anchored. If I (or even Arnold Schwartzeneger), could break a press, then that's one I wouldn't even want for free. Granted, I resize only up to .30-06, but I still don't think I would be able to break a decent press, even using a "cheater bar".

Rev

Given a big enough cheater bar, anything can be broken. I'd wager most can be broken or damaged with only a four footer.

I think we need to be reasonable here, and agree that no press should break during the range of operations expected in reloading. But I don't want to pay for a press that couldn't be broken even if I abused it far beyond its intended use (reloading).

Andy

I wasn't really serious about using a "cheater bar". I should have used a smiley or a LOL or something to make that more clear. I agree with you that if a "cheater bar" was necessary, then something else must be seriously wrong.

I was just trying to make the point that a press that would break during legitimate hand loading procedures is not worth owning at any price IMHO.

Rev

Les,

I re-read the thread (fast, so I may have missed several things), but it seemed to me a basic examination of the process of reforming from .307 to .303 Savage is in order. I don't own a .303, but I looked at case drawings and what you are doing is pushing the shoulder back 0.234", narrowing the shoulder angle 8° and its O.D. 0.041", and narrowing the sides of the case 0.029" all the way back. Additionally, unless your .303 Savage chamber is wide in the neck area, the reformed neck will need inside reaming to bring the wall thickness down at the front of the .303's tapered neck profile, as well as to clear any constriction where the shoulder is squeezed in. You might want to make a chamber cast to see how much extra brass your particular gun can really tolerate in the neck, if you haven't already?

In addition to Rocky's suggestions in post #12, what jumps out at me is the amount of simultaneous shoulder push-back and narrowing being done. Unless your .307 brass was made by Lapua, it will probably be fully polished and you will have to hold it up to the light at the right angle to see the color change where the neck annealing stain stopped. Some cases have this stain further beyond the shoulder than others, indicating that stress relief is spread back further in some brands than in others. How far from the edge of the stain the actual stress relief occurred depends on the location, temperature, width and timing of the annealing flame, and also on the thickness of the brass.

The bottom line is, we don't really know how far back from your .307's shoulder you have stress relief? Almost certainly it is not as far back as new manufacture .303 brass would have. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that your shoulder relocation overlaps it, and that, therefore you need to anneal the new .307 neck and shoulder to soften the brass far enough back to include the new shoulder location? Doing that before forming could reduce the needed press force significantly, and should be done for good case life and uniform reaming, anyway.


One lesson I take away from this thread is to be cautious about inviting you over to chop vegetables for the Sunday pot roast. You might be able to have a second career with an anti-gambling organization: they could send you around the country to play slot machines. I figure you could take out several one-arm bandits an hour once that hernia mends. (Apologies, Les. I couldn't resist.) ;)

dont get the herters you will break it.I have one since it was new fine shape and I keep it that way.GET A BONANZA it WILL do what you want, I have one and use it to reform cases,it is a power house.I used to reform 30/06 to 6.5 jap.that means taking off 17 tho from BASE.any thing above the base should not be a problem.it would be great if there was a tool to roll the base smaller.there is an expensive tool to roll size 40 cal bases.the only Lee i broke was the link and they replaced it with the new steel link.but then I know the limits of metal.50 ys machinist. by the way annel the case neck and shoulder or the neck WILL crack with the bullets seated.thats why the military insists on seeing the color.:rolleyes:--:D