I recently bought an RCBS Summit press. This cute little thing looks impressive. But there weren’t many reviews to look at. I’ve had it about a week now and I’ve tried a few processes with it. I’ve loaded mostly precision bottle neck rifle cases, but I have also tried a few things with straight walled cases.
And what a better way, then to do a side by side comparison with a Forester Co-Ax?
This Summit needed some tweaks right out of the box. In the picture below you can see the lever bolts. These have spring washers for adjustments. And to be fair to the people who assemble these…they probably don’t use one. Still, the whole mechanism had so much side to side play, that I had to tighten and adjust them a few times before I got it the way I like. Runout would have been a big casualty here with this kind of slop right out of the box.
I won’t mention specs here. Those are available on the RCBS website. I really wanted to see how a press that didn’t free-float like the Co-Ax would perform. Firstly, I must say that screwing in dies is a pain in the butt. The Co-Ax wins on this convenience by having a die slot. Die changes are very quick and easy. The Summit….not so much. Although this is probably a first world problem. The Summit also has a bushing that allows the use of larger sized dies. But that bushing would always thread out when trying to remove a die. A small frustration that the Co-Ax does not share. A picture below shows the bushing.
The first thing I tried was de-capping. Not a precision step, but it got me used to the lever throw. I ended up switching the handle to the left position because I have come to do a lot of press operations left handed.
It felt very nice, after some generous lubrication on the piston and pivot points. (It was completely dry out of the box.) Here you can see the de-capping process. The Summit has a catch tray for spent primers. It holds about 70 large primers before needing emptying. I like the Co-Ax’s primer tube that routes the primers below the press better then this system. I attached a clear hose to its pipe that drops spent primers into a bottle below the Co-Ax.
The next thing I tried was some sizing. To start, I did some .308win Lapua cases. Once I got the Whidden adjusted for .0005” shoulder bump, the Summit performed as well as the Co-Ax. No difference here between the two presses. Both presses are easily repeatable with this process.
I should note that I use my Co-Ax to prime. The Summit doesn’t have an “on the press” system to prime. I guess… unless you had a priming die set up like Lee, you could use it on the Summit…(?).
The last thing I tried with a bottle neck case was seating. Here the Summit did poorly compared to the Co-Ax. The Co-Ax has a free float operation for the case and die. This uses the power of physics to line everything up. Typically, my runout with the Co-Ax is in the range of .00125”. The best I could manage with Summit and the .308 and Juggernaught bullet was .00350”. This is pretty typical with a press that doesn’t free float like the Co-Ax. But I must say, I didn’t seat too many (only 6) on the Summit with those results.
Seating operations with straight walled cases aren’t as important to me as the precision bottle neck cases. Here, the Summit performed admirably. Sorry, I didn’t measure runout on the .38spl cases I tried (who really does that with pistol calibers?).
So all in all, the Summit is a keeper. It feels great. The operation is smooth and firm, after the before mentioned adjustments and lubing I had to make. I just won’t be doing any precision seating operations on it. But it will get a lot of use in my loading room.
I’ll try and chime in after a few months with some more observations.
RCBS Summit press
Linear Mode
