At 78, Who In Their Right Mind...

[edgarspencer]

goes out and buys a new press? Me, but for the part about being in my 'right mind'.
My 1974 20ga. 600 Jr was still fine, but since I seem to be mostly clay shooting with either one of my 28ga., or one of my 20s, I find the speed at loading 20s was becoming tedious.
Since I have a 28 with 2 1/2" chambers, and another with 2 3/4" Chambers, converting my 9000 press to load 2 1/2" was a worthy undertaking. I am in the same boat with the 20s, some short, and some long, so I only loaded 2 1/2" for them also.
I grudgingly like the 9000, but have to remain diligent or I'll end up with shot and powder everywhere, and I wanted to avoid that with a new, progressive, 20ga. press. I opted for a "Grabber", which is essentially a 9000, but without the mechanism that automatically advances the turret. That contraption makes catching a primer miss-feed difficult. Without it, it adds a minute and a half to the 2.5 minute rate per 25, of the 9000. Very acceptable.
The conversion to 2.5" was easier the 2nd time, and the Grabber loads factory-like shells, without a single spill. MEC modified their 200 primer feeder a little bit, mostly for the better, except a sharp edge on the lock-out ring, that drew blood. A fully loaded turret does seem to take a bit of muscle, but not bothersome.
At one time, I stated that I believed the conversion could be done on a 16ga. press, but I've re-thunk that.

[6pt-Sika]

I believe any more my suggestion would be purchasing a flat of 20 gauge skeet loads with 8’s or 7 1/2’s . My desire to load large amounts of shells for clay birds has about left me .

[6pt-Sika]

You know I had a 20 gauge 9000 and a nice used 20 Grabber popped up on here for a real good price so I bought it and kept it at the shop . Last couple years I loaded 20’s I used that Grabber pretty much exclusively . Same can be said for 16’s I’d bought a LNIB 16-9000 off EBay and shortly thereafter I got a 16-650 in a deal that I purchased because there were 5k plus of the older WIN “AA style” hulls included . Anyway I loaded all my 16’s on that press at the shop well except for Buck/slug loads I used a 600JR .