Priming Devices

[devildog999]

What do you guys think about using priming devices like the one from Lee, you attach a shell holder to it and fill the tray with primers. Has a trigger and just pull the trigger and put on a new shell and repeat as opposed to using the press to prime?

[Bongos]

Depends on what you are loading, calibers liek 223 works great as you have to prep the brass anyways, makes reloading move a lot faster, works out great.

[Abenaki]

I love them. I only have a single stage press. It is hard to get a good feel for how the primer is doing....I tend to squish them with the press.

Years ago I got a hand held priming tool and never looked back!


Take care
Abenaki

[Bill Steele]

All the ammo I load on my turret press I prime on that press.

For my rifle loads that I load on my single stage press, I use the Lee hand primer. It works great, very easy to use.

[tsname]

I'm running a Lee Pro 1000 and would lose about 10 primers out of 100 rounds when using the primer feed trough. I switched to the Lee Auto-Prime XR and now I don't lose a single primer. The trade-off from speed was efficiency, but now that I have a good system working for me, I can load rounds at just about the same speed while being much more efficient.

[LGB Loader]

I have a RCBS Universal hand primer and it works just fine.

LGB

[gunboat]

I have a RCBS hand primer, it works fine -a little fumbling to change from large to small primers but ok.
I have some lee old "old style" hand primers, no primer tray, and they work well also.
I also have the lee old style, with round trays, and they work fine also.
Both lee hand primers require "special" shell holders, RCBS does not.
I also have a very old lachmiller bench primer which has possibly the best feel for priming but it does not have a primer tray but a slow loading tube.
my ha-penny

[Justintoxicated]

My Hornady kit came with both, the one for the press and the hand primer.

The way I'm reloading I use the expander die and primer at the same time and it works perfrect on the press and combines steps, so I haven't had any reason to try hand priming yet.

Maybe I will try the hand primer when I start loading 223.

[CSACANNONEER]

I prefer my Lee handprimer to using a SS press to prime (except for 50BMG primers, I use a SS press and a M2 primer seater). When using a progressive, I use the priming system that comes with the press.

[Full Clip]

I have a RCBS Universal hand primer and it works just fine.

Same. I even bought a second. One large, other for small...

[damndave]

All the ammo I load on my turret press I prime on that press.

For my rifle loads that I load on my single stage press, I use the Lee hand primer. It works great, very easy to use.

Same as me.

My rifle rounds I single stage load, so I hand prime with a RCBS Universal hand primer.

Everything else gets loaded on the Lee Classic Turret.

[Cowboy T]

My hand-held priming tool is Lee's original Auto-Prime, and that works pretty darn well. However, my cameralady has found that if you hold it "wrong" (and I haven't figured out what that is yet, since I can't replicate it myself), you can sometimes get a double-feed of primers. It's easy to deal with if that happens, but a slight annoyance. This "double-feed" doesn't happen for me at all, though, and I've put a few thousand through that Auto-Prime.

The Pro 1000 and Load-Master progressive presses use a system that's based off of the same principle. As long as you keep it clean, it works fine.

I haven't tried the others yet, since the ones I have work well for me, but I've heard good things about RCBS's hand primer as well.

[Divernhunter]

They only way I prime is with the hand primer except for the 50bmg. I often do it while watching TV.

[Justintoxicated]

wow lots of hand primers, Seems faster to use my Hornady press to do it stroke one way expands the case, and feeds a primer and the other direction seats it. Not sure I understand why it would be better to load them with the hand primer separately seems like extra work?

[mjsweims]

I only load for rifle calibers now and only use a hand press. I have an RCBS and a Lee. The Lee just gathers dust.