Area 419 Drops a Bomb on the Precision Reloading Market with the Zero Turret Reloading Press

Area 419 goes back to its roots with the today's announcement of the Zero reloading press. The Zero is a premium level, 9-stage turret press made to imbue your reloading bench with subatomic levels of precision.

Area 419 will have a full reveal on Facebook live at 11am EST today, 4/16, 2020.

Area 419 says the Zero is the embodiment of its “pursuit of zero tolerance reloading, with zero friction,” and “near zero variance in die setup.”

The Zero's design revolves around a couple of key features. One is the suite of 15 high-end bearings used throughout the press. The other is its 1.25-inch diameter ram… because if the ram doesn't run smoothly and accurately, then you might as well use a hammer to seat bullets.

Area 419's Craig Arnzen says the ram is brought in as bar stock and its features are machined, then it's sent out and cylindrically ground to perfection before it's black nitrided. Then the ram comes back to the factory where it's married up to a self lubricating linear sleeve bearing. Each press body is custom machined to fit its life-mated ram and sleeve bearing. This machine-fit marriage of the press body, sleeve bearing, and ram result in a near-zero tolerance fit that Area 419 says is the most precise ram movement available in a reloading press today.

“One of the big things right now in presses is, ‘Oh, everything's floats',” says Arnzen. “In our opinion that's a big cop out. We are in machining and we spend our lives looking at what's the most precise way we can do something. It will shock you that, in the machining world, nothing floats.”

He says the nobody making medical devices or aerospace components uses floating tool holders. “You've just got to get your tolerances right,” says Arnzen, “and that's what we're trying to do here.”

The press has a nine station turret attached to the body with a zero-point pull stud system that's commonly used in the machining world. It's the same work-holding system modern machine shops use when they put big tombstones in milling machines. They are super strong and super repeatable. The turret is located into each station with a detent and then locked in place with a quarter-turn of an included t-handle wrench.

While turret presses are popular because of their convenience, it's the convenience of easily switching to the next die that introduces inaccuracy to the system. With common turret presses you grab a knob to rotate the head between stations. Arnzen says, “that requires a lot of play to be present in the head and we didn't want that. So each time you change stations on the Zero, you're going to unlock the head. So there'll be no play in the head. It's really like a single stage with die storage and that die storage.”

Area 419 says when indexing the turret, repeatability variance of the system will be less than .0003-inch.

The opening in the press will allow for sizing and seating of cases up to 338LM, and will accept standard 7/8-inch dies and standard shellholders. Area 419 is making zero tolerance shellholders for the system that should be available as accessories in late 2020.

The Zero has a 419-designed decapping/primer-catch system that's built into the press, eliminating the need for Rube Goldberg-like tube and jar primer catching systems.

For mounting, the Zero will ship with a standard bolt-down plate for basic installation, but they'll also have optional plates to mount up to a Inline Fabrication modular mounting system.

Lastly, because we can't only shoot one caliber, the Zero's tool head is interchangable and Area 419 will offer replacement turret heads later in 2020.

For the rest of the details on the Zero, head over to Area 419's website. And, if you got this far in our post, you deserve to know the Zero is going to retail in the $1200 range. The Zero is expected to ship in August, 2020.