Is the press level?
Quote from Reloader on March 7, 2017, 6:05 pmBuilt a nice steel press stand using 3" steel pipe and 1/4" plate back in 1978. Had my RL550 mounted on it since I got it back in 1991after I got my smarts and dumped the single stage press. Always had a small problem with crushing .45 ACP cases in the sizing or powder dies due to misalignment (or so I thought). Got a 9mm a year ago and started loading them, and really started to crush them in the powder die??????? The case would tilt tilted toward me a bit causing the powder die to crush the case. Cleaned and aligned everything but it still happened????? My wife heard my rumblings and said "Is it level?". Wanted to say that I had been using this thing for almost 30 years now and there was no way I could have bent it.....So I got the level our and it was not level..... It was off by about 1/4" over a 3 foot length. I put a piece of 1/4" plywood under the front leg and it is now level. Loaded 100 rounds without crushing a single case........Little did I know that 29 years of use I would find that the stand will not straight and level.....
Built a nice steel press stand using 3" steel pipe and 1/4" plate back in 1978. Had my RL550 mounted on it since I got it back in 1991after I got my smarts and dumped the single stage press. Always had a small problem with crushing .45 ACP cases in the sizing or powder dies due to misalignment (or so I thought). Got a 9mm a year ago and started loading them, and really started to crush them in the powder die??????? The case would tilt tilted toward me a bit causing the powder die to crush the case. Cleaned and aligned everything but it still happened????? My wife heard my rumblings and said "Is it level?". Wanted to say that I had been using this thing for almost 30 years now and there was no way I could have bent it.....So I got the level our and it was not level..... It was off by about 1/4" over a 3 foot length. I put a piece of 1/4" plywood under the front leg and it is now level. Loaded 100 rounds without crushing a single case........Little did I know that 29 years of use I would find that the stand will not straight and level.....