Lee APP Tips & Tricks?

[WartHog]

New APP owner. Have had it running for a few days decapping 223 and its been doing pretty good. Took a bit of tweaking of the adjustment of the Lee Universal Case Feeder and the APP's Pusher/Slider and put some carnuba wax on the slider rails. Also stiffened the Slider Spring internally with a piece of a WD40 plastic spray tube.

A couple of glitches remain - one is I'm getting primers hanging up/not dropping when punched out and not allowing the next case to push the problem casing out & advance into the shell holder despite my believing the decapping pin in the Lee Universal Decap Die set correctly. Pin is nearly new and is set flush with top of die and die set so APP Handle when pulled down ends up parallel to the floor. Issue seems to affect crimped primers more - Lake City 2000 headstamp was problematic whereas I ran close to 1k of PMC non-crimped without one hanging up.

The other is frequent misalignment of the decapping pin with the mouth of the 223 case mouth, requiring fiddling with the casing to pass the pin through. Shell Holder (#4) turns freely but seems to have excessive front to back play/slop that may be causing misalignment issue? I know Lee has guided decapping pins - maybe I need to get some?

[Jason_2111]

WartHog... new APP owner here as well. I've just completed punching/prepping 2.5k of 223, so I totally get where you're coming from. I've had slightly different results though.

For starters... my primary screw up was internet shopping a little drunk at 3:00am and buying what I thought was a fresh batch of universal decapper pins from SquirrelDaddy on Ebay. What I actually bought was cheap chi-com crap pins that were 10 cents each cheaper. Oh man HUGE difference.

Bent/broke all 3 pins in no time, which put a delay into my prepping. Got some REAL squirrel daddy pins in, and no issues at all.

Second, I used a smidge of Imperial Sizing wax for a slider-thing-lube... works like a charm.

I did not have case mouth mis-alignment issues or issues with the primer not knocking all the way out, and I think this is because I set the depth of the decapping pin to be "just right". Lots of people throw a pin in, set the depth of their die, but don't pay close attention to the depth of their pin. You should feel that sucker bottom out perfectly, that'll tell you you're at the right level, and you'll never have a primer that fails to dislodge.

There is a rhythm to this little guy though... I find with 223 I can't go quite as fast as doing 9mm or 45... because the vibration of cranking away can add a tiny bit of wobble to the case and give one of those "whacks" instead of nice satisfying "clunks".

Now, the biggest problem with the APP became apparent when I went to run my batch through full length sizing. You CANNOT do full length sizing on rifle brass with the APP Press. Even Lee will tell you that it's "Not advised". The problem is the rigidity isn't quite high enough, and/or the shell holder isn't tall enough, tight enough, or something... but what you get is you cannot set your die deep enough for a proper full size stroke.
I figured this out and verified it with a case gage... then went on the internet to figure out if I was doing something stupid, or it was the press. It was the press. So I ran my resizing on my existing rig, which for this stage is a single-stage adapter on the Dillon 550. Works like a charm everytime, always has. I wish the APP could handle this though.

I did try resizing pistol brass (9mm and 45), and that work like a charm. Normally I decap and resize as separate operations, but because this little sucker is so fast, I'm just using my sizing die instead of my universal decapper. It's kinda hard to screw up 45 anyways.

I bought the swaging kit for the APP, but haven't used it yet. I keep my military 5.56 sorted out from the civilian 223... and won't be getting to that for a few weeks... but when I do I'll come post an update.

For anyone thinking of getting one of these little guys to help with brass prep (large batches)... DO IT. Very much worth the money. If this thing blows up after 10k of use, it'd still probably be worth it, since you can get them for very reasonable with a little bit of patience and searching. I'm toying with the idea of grabbing a second one to do some side-by-side big batch processing with my nephew or the folks that I let come use my gear.

The APP ain't quite a full blown press... but a low-cost single-stage linear. Can't beat that. Just don't use it for sizing rifle brass.

The other thing I haven't tried to use it for yet is priming (with my Lee Ram Prime). Since the Ram prime doesn't use the slide-through shell holder, there wouldn't really be any benefit speed-wise to doing this on the APP.

Today I'm getting the 4-barrel shell feeder (Universal 1000 feeder) to hook up and try out. The single-barrel that comes with the APP is useless, except for the black mounting bracket. If the 4-barrel isn't awesome, I'll sell it off and make a sort of funnel for the black bracket, and just be able to closely drop cases in one at a time.

Please keep sharing whatever you discover WartHog! We're the trailblazers on this thing.

[Jason_2111]

Update: Swaging... YES!

So I've run a full bucket of 223 through the swaging die. Learned a few things, but basically love swaging on the APP... way way way faster than using the Dillion super swage, even with the cool vertical mount.

The good: You can adjust exactly how much swage you get. If you just set it to normal max, you'll end up over-swaging and have loose pockets. I ran through almost 300 before I realized I'll probably be popping primers on those. (tested them out, no primers popped, but they seated WAY too easily... like there was nothing there.)
I've found that about 50% of what is recommended has worked great.

The Bad: after about 1,000 rounds, it starts to stick. When it sticks, the case doesn't come up off of the swaging post, and there's no "pull" action on the upper die, only Push action. So you end up having to whack the case with something, which dents it all up. There's nothing to grab really, and trying to pull them off by hand didn't work.
The solution was the first time it sticks, unscrew the stud, clean off any brass shavings, and re-install it with a coat of squalene. This is a gunsmith trick for a lot of things... taken from watch-makers. Squalene is the oil on the side of your nose. Super light-weight, and just enough to keep the stud from sticking for several hundred more rounds.
Having the depth of the swag set shallow doesn't seem to make a difference. The stud now has a nice brass coating on it, and brass sticks to brass. Nothing is taking the brass off of the stud either.. that's there to stay.

However, the good outweighs the bad. Since the depth is settable, and it's FAST, being able to blow through large batches with the swager makes it totally worth it.

[WartHog]

Thanks for the tips/info, Jason!

Which SD decapping pins are you using? I bought some of their Tapered ones and had lots of trouble with the tapered tip getting stuck in the flash hole so went back to the Lee pins - haven't bent/broke yet. Will try some ISW for lube on the slider next session

I have the Swage kit but haven't used it yet. Have over 10k of LC, Wolf Gold, etc. crimped 223 to do so your success swaging is great news!

[jtv3062]

The Lee case collator helps feeding cases, I'm still playing with it.

[WartHog]

I have the Collator too - actually two collator tops and one tube set. 9mm feeds almost flawlessly after doing the penny mod - 40/45 feeds pretty well without the penny.

223 doesn't shake-feed well and I haven't tried any of the modifications I've found on YouTube yet. Have just been throwing a couple 100 casings into a round gallon plastic ice cream container then shaking the container to get most of the casings to orient base down. I then grab a handful and feed the collator manually. Still is faster than using my Frankford hand deprimer or a SS press.

[mindwreck]

I got the FW arms auto center popping decapper after i had tons of issues with the stupid primer sticking on the lee decapping pin. I got some squirrel daddy pins. I didn't break anymore pins but it will still pulling primers back into the case and making me rage quit. It didn't do this with any of my other presses only on the APP.

Get the FW arm decapper. SO much faster. easily the best decapper. And strong enough to punch through berdan cases like butter. Never got a stuck primer again even running full speed on my dillons.