The 5 Best Reloading Presses for Every Hand Loader

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One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “what press I should buy to get into handloading”. My response is always, “What’s your budget?” There are a lot of great options available today, and you can get a great press like the RCBS Summit press for around $300 or the Wilson Single Stage Reloading Press for $1,000, with various presses and prices between. These are my top five presses I use day to day, depending on my needs. For me, each one of these is well-made and serves a purpose on my bench and one or more will likely fit your budget and needs.

Wilson Single-Stage Reloading Press 

The most expensive, but worth every penny. This press is robust and produces some of the most accurate ammunition I have ever handloaded. The Wilson press is built from Billet Aluminum and Stainless Steel, with a three-rod design that keep the dies in perfect alignment during sizing/seating operations. The press rods are guided by a liner bearing for a smooth action on the press. Yes, it is very smooth! It takes the most standard shell holders and 7/8 dies. You can choose to operate the press handle from the left or right side of the press. Primers collect in the cavity of the press rod to keep spent primers and contain the mess. The one thing this press is missing is the ability to prime on it. But if you prefer to prime off press like me, this is not an issue.

RCBS Summit Press 

The best budget press is the RCBS Summit press, which is the least expensive of this review and can meet your basic needs for making match-quality ammo. I have loaded some crazy accurate ammo on this press. It has a massive 2" diameter solid steel ram that's polished to a mirror finish for a smooth operation. I really like the open design of the press, which has a 4.5" opening with unlimited frontal access. The case does not travel up to the die; instead, the die is lowered onto the case. 

The summit is machined from cast iron with steel linkage to provide the ruggedness demanded by handloaders, and it features a zerk fitting for maintenance with grease. It has a removable primer catch and an ambidextrous design option for the handle. RCBS also offers a more extended handle on their site if more leverage is needed.  I like the long handle when it comes to sizing brass on this press, but it would not be my first choice for high volume sizing as it can be a little rough cycling under the friction of sizing brass. Now, for seating bullets, it's a great option, as it offers some of the best concentricity rounds. Especially when paired with the RCBS Match Master seating die. Also, the press is made in the USA.

Hornady Lock‑N‑Load Iron Press 

The Hornady Lock‑N‑Load Iron Press is one of the best presses for beginners or seasoned handloaders looking for tight tolerances to assemble top-of-the-line ammunition. The Iron press provides consistency and precision that will deliver match accuracy. The Iron press features Hornady's patented Lock‑N‑Load bushing system, which makes changing dies so simple. The best part of this system is that once it's set, you don’t have to set up a die again when changing dies out, twist it in till it locks in, and start pulling the handle. Like the RCBS Summit press and the Wilson press, the Iron press is set up for Ambidextrous use, along with a spring-assisted 1‑1/8" solid steel ram for ease of use. 

The accessory mounting deck that comes with the press provides quick access to trays for bullets or cases, and storage for chamfer and deburr tools, case neck brushes, and primer pocket cleaners.  I use it for brushes as I like to run a brush up into the neck before seating a bullet. If you don’t buy the Hornady Iron press kit, you can get the gravity-fed automatic priming system, which increases reloading efficiency by allowing more processes to run simultaneously. 

The upgrade includes the automatic priming system, large and small primer tubes, large and small primer pick-up tubes, primer housing tube, and primer catch tray. With this priming system, I have found it's one of the fastest ways to pump out quality ammo without removing the brass from the press to prime. Overall, this press gets my vote as the best press on the market for getting started, especially since Hornady offers it in a handloading kit.

RCBS Turret Press 

The best turret press for the money must be the RCBS Turret press. This is a press I grabbed recently while loading 300 Blackout and 8.6 Blackout. It is a well-made press made of a rugged, cast-iron frame with a large operating window of 4 3/4" that's open on both sides and the front to give you easy accessibility. Like all the other presses so far, it's set up for ambidextrous controls; the turret head is six-station interchangeable, making it easy to swap heads for different set-ups, which is the way I prefer to run the press. 

I like to run a universal decapping die in position one. Position two: I run a full-length sizing die with the expander ball removed. Position three is an expander mandrel that is .002 below the Projectile size. Position four is flare if needed. Position five is powder drop. Position six is the bullet seating die. This setup makes for an easy, fast ammo plant with no complex or automated setup. Use the provided wrench to turn the turret head, and bam, you are on a roll, making your own freedom seeds. 

The press also includes a priming station for small and large tubes, as well as a safety blast tube. Knock on wood, no primer has gone off in a tube before, but this adds peace of mind. When it comes to priming on a press, this has been my favorite setup as I have had zero problems setting it up or problems with it breaking or failing to feed primers.

Short Action Custom Nexus Press

Now let's get to my favorite press as this is the best single-stage press on the market but comes with a high price tag. The Nexus Press uses two precision-ground linear guide rods and two linear guide rod bearings to provide smooth, consistent motion. There is no cast iron or cast aluminum parts; parts are pre-hardened, salt-bath nitride steel and high-strength, Type III hard-coat anodized aluminum, which increases the Nexus’ strength and consistency and provides lubricity and corrosion resistance. The Nexus press features two cam-over hard-stop methods: one for bullet seating and depriming, and the other for sizing brass. With the sizing hard stops installed, the press cams over 2° past the top dead center, allowing the same amount of sizing with each stroke. 

What sets the Nexus ahead of the rest is the floating shell holder system, which is also quick-change and tool-less.  The shell holder will center on your die each time because of its “floating” feature.  Because of the hard stops decoupling any requirement for die and shell holder contact, Short Action was now able to design the shell holder system shorter, allowing .010″ more sizing than all other shell holders on the market.  So, there is no need to modify shell plates anymore; the Nexus Press will take that problem out of the equation.  

The press comes with the four most common shell holders on the market: .223 bolt face, .308 bolt face, PRC/Magnum bolt face, and Lapua Magnum bolt face. More sizes are available on the Short Action Customs website. The other reasons this press is number one are the small amount of space it takes up on the bench, as the dimensions are 11 × 8 × 7 inches, and the need to pull the handle down over the press, so you do not have a handle sticking off the bench in your workspace. The die retention system is unique; it features radial floating capabilities, allowing your die to center on each stroke.  Two detents hold the die in the press while still working with any standard lock ring available on the market today.

Additionally, the Nexus Press has storage areas for all your shell holders. I love this feature, as hard as I try, I seem to misplace shell plates all the time. The spare hard stops are also stored on the press, so those don’t disappear on the bench.  There are also two 8×32 threaded holes where you can install small brushes to help with brass prep. As stated on the Hornady press, I am a fan of this on presses. The Nexus has a primer drop tube, and I 3D-printed a little container that mounts to the tube. Before that, I just put a bucket under and let the spent primers fall into it. Both methods work just fine. The press is set up to run 7/8” diameter dies. To run 1″ diameter dies, you can purchase an adaptor plate, which can be swapped in minutes.

Now that we have gone over my top five presses, it's up to you to decide which one works best for you. Regardless of your budget, you cannot go wrong with any of these presses! Good luck and happy loading!

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