Thread: RCBS Summit - anyone with experience of using one?

Update.

I received the short handle today which is an optional extra for about $36. Designed for bullet seating operations not needing the amount of leverage FL sizing does. After trying it out, I can see how it would finish up living on the press if you did your decapping and FL sizing separately. For neck or collet sizing, there is no requirement for the long handle. But believe me, you would need to be a gym bunny to FL size with the short handle. I tried with a 6.5x55 Swede case, admittedly with crook shoulders, but after swinging pretty hard on it I gave up. My table was starting to creak and groan. That extra length of the long handle makes a huge difference and 6.5x55 becomes a breeze.

The photo shows both handles installed for comparison. You might think they could live like that, but no. Using the short handle, say to seat a bullet, the long one comes down and clocks ya one!

You can easily do without the shorty. Its nice, it makes the press very compact and comfortable giving more feel to the seating operation but you can do the same stuff with the long one and not think badly of it - until you try the shorty of course.

I learned more about the cam-over. Using the Lee Dead Length Seating Die I made a mistake setting it up, being more familiar with Lee Pistol seating dies that also crimp. With the latter, you thread the die to touch the shell plate then back it out some if you don't want crimp. Depending how much crimp you want you then progressively thread it down until the crimp is achieved. There is no crimp function in this rifle seating die. Backing the die off the shell plate meant there was no cam over happening. The load I was using is compressed. Without sufficient, or any camover, first the bullet would not seat beyond the pushback of compressed powder, secondly there was several thou difference between cartridge OALs depending on how the powder had stacked in the cases. I only have on hand a short neck funnel and the AR2217 is a stick powder inclined to bridge. Tapping the case head on the table helped settle the powder but with no consistency. I finally realized my mistake. Lee die instructions call for a further quarter turn of the die down after touching the shell plate. On the Summit you can go that far and continue a tad more if more camover is desired. It is exactly the same feel as closing vicegrips on an object as they lock. With the Summit you want just enough lock and not so much as to damage things. With that sorted I was getting precise bullet depth seating even with quite heavy powder compression. And yes, ADI load data specifies this as a compressed load.