Hornady single stage "Iron Press"

[toad]

H/T Firearm Blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNEK39tt9MM
Expensive for a single stage but the ergonomics look to be great. Uses the "lock and load" dies, has a nice auto prime system and has mounts for case prep tools on the press so you can do everything at the press without moving around. I like the attachment for a bullet tray. With the price of powder weighing systems coming down you load up some pretty accurate stuff at a good rate with this it looks like to me.

[Netpackrat]

Meh...

[Steamforger]

I guess they couldn't afford the rights to use Sabbath's Ironman for their commercial????

[Netpackrat]

Just looked at the price... Yeah, I paid a lot less than that for my Co-Ax. They basically stuck the priming system from a progressive onto a single stage press. Okay, so it works better than the priming system on most single stage presses... Most people using a single stage press aren't using the press to prime in the first place. If I'm loading at single stage speeds, I want to take the time to clean the crap out of the primer pocket before repriming.

Honestly, I think it is better to save your money until you can buy the whole progressive press. At least Dillon's "halfway" press can be upgraded to a full progressive. You buy this thing from Hornady, and you want to upgrade later, you are SOL.

[blackeagle603]

not clear to me from that promo vid how the press would do with big brass (say, up to 50BMG). Maybe I didn't listen close enough.

[First Shirt]

A single-stage press is fine if you're loading a box or two of rounds at a time. And in some ways, it's more versatile than a progressive.

But for a lot of us, you reach a point where you either upgrade to a progessive, or you just give it up altogether, because it's not worth the time it takes with a single-stage.

For example, I can easily load 300 .45 ACPs on my Dillon in an hour. Loading that many on a single stage press would take most of an afternoon. And if you've got an afternoon to kill, that's fine, but I don't. (Right now, I'd like to see a 26-hour day, so I could get six hours of sleep, and still get everything done that I need to get done ON MY DAYS OFF.)

JMHO, YMMV, IRDDU.

[toad]

As far as I can tell the Hornady Iron Press will not take the .50 BMG dies like the Lee Classic Cast Iron Breech Lock Press will.
http://www.amazon.com/Lee-Precision-Bre ... lock+press
The price off of the Amazon site is considerably cheaper also. IIRC you just unscrew the breech lock bushing from the Lee Press and then you can screw in the .50 BMG dies.

[HTRN]

not clear to me from that promo vid how the press would do with big brass (say, up to 50BMG). Maybe I didn't listen close enough.

Generally speaking conventional presses don't have enough window for it.

Also, at this price, they're going to run into competition from some seriously heavy duty, high end presses - Redding Ultramag, Forster Co-Ax, CH4D Champion, and probably a few others from small time manufacturers.

[Netpackrat]

Although honestly, unless you are going to actually reload .50BMG, having that capability in a press is a negative. Given the compound leverage involved, you are having to move the handle a lot farther to generate that sort of stroke, than you would for a more normal sized cartridge. Forster even offers a shorter handle than the one the Co-Ax ships with to reduce operator fatigue and speed production, and I find it easier to use for most tasks.