by Jeff Bergquist on Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:40 am
plblark,
The only press I have any familiarity with is a progressive, my Dillon Square Deal B, but as I understand it a turret press has a shell holder that only holds one round at a time, same as a single stage, but has the full set of dies mounted on a rotating tool head (turret) to complete the loading process one step at a time for each round while avoiding the necessity to change dies and adjust settings between steps as you must with a single stage.
A progressive press however has all dies mounted to a stationary tool head and a rotating shell plate that holds multiple rounds at a time. This allows the press to complete multiple steps in the loading process with each pull of the handle, i.e. for my SDB, station 1 sizes and deprimes a newly placed shell, station 2 loads a new primer into the shell, expands (bells) the shell mouth to ease bullet seating, and dumps a calibrated powder charge in, station 3 seats a new bullet in the shell, and station 4 crimps the shell mouth to hold the seated bullet in place. So as long as the primer and powder feeds aren't empty, you just put an empty shell in station 1, a new bullet on the charged shell at station 3, pull the handle and ta da, a complete new round is produced with each pull.
Almost all presses use standard dies and brands are generally interchangable, my SDB however uses proprietary dies designed for compactness.
The bold type giveth, the fine print taketh away.