NFOA MEMBERS FORUM
Ammunition & Hand Loading => Cartridge and Shotshell reloading => Topic started by: SemperFiGuy on December 28, 2012, 11:06:33 AM
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I've used my old Lee Autoprimer with the round tray so much that the plastic bushing around the seating rod finally wore out and primers would not seat reliably. Lee wouldn't accept it for repair; they have a newer design out. [Lee has now gently hinted that maybe those older Autoprimers were dangerous, especially with Federal primers.]
So--then I finally got the newer design model, the Lee Autoprimer XR, w/the step-up lip, square tray, and the cheepie plastic lid which has those clip lips that break off all the time. I'm using a medium paper clamp to hold the lid on. Reloaders improvise a lot.
Also, I've got an RCBS hand primer which has the seating rod that always falls out and rolls under the loading bench, requiring a hands-and-knees search in the dark. Spider webs. Roly-poly bugs. Old, spent primers. Tools. Knee pain. Whatever.
Never have used the primer device attached to the press. No sensitive feel to that one. Primer seating feel is important.
So--do any of you reloader gentlemen have a hand priming tool that really works?? One that doesn't seat the primers anvil side out??? One that feeds primers reliably?? One with good seating feel?? One where the square doesn't meet the round and drop primers on the floor?? Would you kindly share that secret, if you do??
sfg
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I have an RCBS universal (square tray) that I use. I've never had an issue with the seating rod falling out. I like the feel of it - I can easily tell when some primer pockets are loser than others. I set those cases aside for depriming and recycling.
I did have an issue that was caused by a defective primer that I didn't notice when filling the tray. It took a chunk out of the primer feed when I encountered it. I called RCBS, told them what happened and that it wasn't the tools fault. They sent me a new primer feed - no charge, no shipping, and I had it in 2 days.
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I use the Forster Co-Ax Primer Seater. It's well made and safe. It can be a bit of a pain to set up and load, but once you've done so priming is fast.
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Hornady makes a good tool but it only works with Hornady shell holders.
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I still like the old lee autoprime the best of all I've tried. I think I'd try to scrounge up a used one on ebay,gun broker ,etc.----FWIW --Mike.
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In Reverse Order...........
monkeyboy
Yes. The Old, Original Lee Autoprimer seems to have been the best. All other just don't match up.
justsomeguy
From what I can tell, just about all mfgrs hand primer shellholders are not interchangeable with other shellholders. They don't even work as shellholders in the reloading press, except RCBS.
Mikee Loxxer
Well, after your post, I checked out the Forster Co-ax Primer Seater. Had never heard of it. No shellholders to interchange. Cool. But....you gotta be a Registered Professional Engineer to set it up and run it. [I am, but still intimidating, like you said.]
OOBuck
My RCBS hand primer has a non-captive pushrod. Just drop it into the hole. Unfortunately, turn the primer device past horizontal, the pushrod drops out to the floor Yes--of course--don't turn it upside down. Well, that's beyond human nature. Hence the hands-and-knees search.
Summary:
Still searching for the Golden Hand Primer.
sfg
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Just to throw some sarcasm out there:
The lever on my LNL AP does me just fine :).
You don't get quite the 'feel' as you would from a hand primer... but you can still tell when something is amiss or maybe needs a lil more attention.
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RCBS handprimer (square one). Love it.
Liked it so much I bought a second one. One for large primers and one for small ones.
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I use the Lee handheld primer and yes those stupid plastic lid tabs break easily. Seems to work pretty well...haven't any problems with it.
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[Lee has now gently hinted that maybe those older Autoprimers were dangerous, especially with Federal primers.]
The caution about Federal primers predates the introduction of the New AutoPrime XR ..... it was in the Lee Reloading manual (the first one).
The on-press Safety Prime is pretty slick, though not very sturdy. My brother had one on his press, and it was very fast ...... but he dropped something on it, and it died.....
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Our Big Honker RCBS Supreme Way-Over-Engineered Massive Single-Stage Press has a provision for an on-press primer tool. And I've seen a number of single-stage presses that were outfitted with such devices.
Never used one. Seems like the hand-precision and dexterity involved with picking up an itty-bitty primer with fingers, orienting the itty-bitty primer properly, and then putting the itty-bitty primer into the itty-bitty hole in the on-press primer tool hunnerts of times in a row would be tiring, taxing, wearying, fatiguing, annoying, leading to carpal tunnel........you get the idea.
Not to mention the loss of essential primer-placing "feel" that would result from the use of that massive single-stage press.
But...........People do it. I've seen 'em. And they were Happy Reloaders.
sfg
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RCBS offers an Auto Prime add-on to the rock chucker. You apparently fill a tube with primers, dump this tube on to a tube mounted on the press and it'll feed a primer itself.
The Hornady LNL AP is similar in that you fill a tube as well.
RCBS and Hornady offer pickup tools for primers that work similar to:
Hornady LNL AP Progressive Loading Primers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxAgaAYBew8#)
Others have taken a hand primer tool and adapted it to fill the "pick up tubes" via using a hand primer... which I'll be looking into doing shortly. One of the longest portions of "set up time" for making 100 rounds for me is filling primer tube, and modifying a hand primer tool to just spit a primer into to the tube would be ideal and much easier on the hands.
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I really liked the first lee round seater and it broke then bought the XR didn't like it then bought the ergo http://leeprecision.com/ergo-prime.html (http://leeprecision.com/ergo-prime.html) it still is not the orginal but it does capture the next primer to hold it into place and is much more easy on the hand.
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Picked up an XR today.
Not necessarily to prime brass with (I will be doing that, don't get me wrong) ... but to fiddle with making it easier to fill primer tubes.
Also bought a bunch of other stuff today. I need to STOP going to stores with goodies in them :(.
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Our Big Honker RCBS Supreme Way-Over-Engineered Massive Single-Stage Press has a provision for an on-press primer tool. And I've seen a number of single-stage presses that were outfitted with such devices.
Never used one. Seems like the hand-precision and dexterity involved with picking up an itty-bitty primer with fingers, orienting the itty-bitty primer properly, and then putting the itty-bitty primer into the itty-bitty hole in the on-press primer tool hunnerts of times in a row would be tiring, taxing, wearying, fatiguing, annoying, leading to carpal tunnel........you get the idea.
The Lee Safety Prime has a tray, chute and a little contaption that does the itty bitty work without fingers touching the primers at all:
Lee Safety Prime Operation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SufHZhIs-mc#)
The thing loads a single primer into the priming arm at the top of the stroke, and the case is primed at the bottom of the stroke. Slick.
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The thing loads a single primer into the priming arm at the top of the stroke, and the case is primed at the bottom of the stroke. Slick.
As far as lee stuff goes the Lee Pro 1000's seem pretty narly about it. Just gotta keep an eye on the primer feed ramp to make sure it's always full.
The lee safety prime "pinch it" rocker arm thing does seem kinda neat... and I think RCBS offers something similar.
The Hornady LNL AP -> fill a tube, place it on press, and you don't do much else. When you finish a full up / down stroke of the RAM, you push the handle towards the table/press a bit - it lowers the ram a bit more causing it to seat the primer. No finger manipulation of anything. I have had a few instances of it not feeding a primer into the shuttle near the end of 100 round run... people have suggested placing a small brass case on the 'rod' thing... and it can help. For what it's worth, I also drew an 'empty' marker on my primer follower rod. Picture later if needed.
As mentioned, rcbs has an auto prime attachment for their rock chucker. A primer tube is mounted diagonally on the press, and then a lil primer cup gets moved back and forth from the tube to the ram.
The Lee 1000's just do it automagically with normal strokes as far as i know.
Not entirely sure how the Dillon 550's and such do their feed & primes. Looks similar to the hornady lnl but without as much movement in the primer feed shuttle. No clue about actual seating the primer.
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Having seen pics of the blast damage/ damaged tubes and primers and primer parts stuck in various things ..... I'm not a real fan of stacking 100 little explosive devices on top of one another in a metal tube ...... YMMV.
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I imagine the RCBS tool is similar...
But now that I've got the Hornady hand primer in my possession .... it takes regular shell holders rather than custom ones (looking at you, Lee!).
You can swap out shell holders without removing the primer tray.
It comes with two trays, one for Hornady shell holders and one for RCBS shell holders. The RCBS tray works with the Lee shell holders as well.
The primer tray and lid are round. The tray has small opening on one side, large opening on the opposite side (one tray does both size primers). The Lee primer tray's "primer righting divits" are little pegs sticking up, the Hornady is a series of rings (like a normal primer flip tray). The little round MTM flip tray doesn't quite fit it perfectly (neither tray nor lid).
The seating plug is retained (doesn't fall out), similar to the Lee, but unlike the RCBS apparently (at least the one demonstrated to me).
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Not sure what model of RCBS you guys are talking about but the universal's seating plug is captive and can not fall out.