Lee classic press primer seating tool stop

[blockfort]

I wanted to be able to control the depth of my primers with a hard stop, rather than rely on handle pressure. I came up with this simple device. Works well.

[stand125]

What happens if the case has a deeper primer pocket and the primer does not seat fully.

[rsrocket1]

No bangy

[blockfort]

Does the primer have to bottom out to work?

Also, the way it's set up, I feel good resistance at the end of the stroke, just before it hits the stop. So even without the stop, it feels like a good seating.

[Bill Steele]

Does the primer have to bottom out to work? ...

Yes, that was rsrocket's point. If the primer is not fully seated, the anvil will be too far away from the primer material to ignite and you will have a misfire. Many times that strike finishes the seating and the round will fire on the next shot.

[rsrocket1]

Thank Bill.
You won't hurt the press or set off the primer if you push harder than normal once in a while. Too much force for too long might bend or ruin a press (though highly unlikely). So long as you get into a routine, you will be fine. If you think that your down stroke "feel" is better than your forward stroke, look into a ram prime system.

You should be able to feel a slight indentation of the primer or at most, flush to the face. Any protrusion of the primer from the face of the case and you will likely fail to fire. Many times a second strike will set it off.

[blockfort]

I am definitely underflush on all the primers; they are seated deeper than the rim of the pocket. When I started reloading, I was seating so hard that the primer would flatten a little, and the anvil would actually make a mark in the center of the primer. None ever went off accidentally, but I think that's more force than necessary. Even in my new setup with the stop screw in place, I can seat the primer very gently and the handle is still not touching the stop screw. I have to add a little more force to actually get it to touch, but the seatings are very consistent this way, and like I said, underflush or countersunk, or whatever you want to call it.

[stilly]

I smash the hell outta all my primers on my Lee turret press all night long. Usually the cheap primers like tula or wolf are hard and require that kind of force, but others like CCI are softer and just slip on in...

[CobraRed]

I smash the hell outta all my primers on my Lee turret press all night long. Usually the cheap primers like tula or wolf are hard and require that kind of force, but others like CCI are softer and just slip on in...

I agree, plus soft brass like Fed is easier than say Lake City or Winchester.

I hated slamming primers all day on my turret press, the Lee auto-primer makes my life a lot easier and I can just do it inside in front of the Tv instead of my garage.

[Bill Steele]

I am definitely underflush on all the primers; they are seated deeper than the rim of the pocket. When I started reloading, I was seating so hard that the primer would flatten a little, and the anvil would actually make a mark in the center of the primer. None ever went off accidentally, but I think that's more force than necessary. Even in my new setup with the stop screw in place, I can seat the primer very gently and the handle is still not touching the stop screw. I have to add a little more force to actually get it to touch, but the seatings are very consistent this way, and like I said, underflush or countersunk, or whatever you want to call it.

It sounds like you are seating them fine, but where the primer sits relative to the head surface is not the point (other than you never want them sitting proud).

If you have a particularly deep pocket and seat the primer so it is just underflush, but not fully seated, the primer will likely not fire on the first strike.

It is not about where the primer sits relative to the head surface, it is relative to the primer being firmly all the way down inside the primer pocket. If you have a process that assures all the primer cups sit in the exact same place, but you have primer pockets of varying depths, the deepest pockets may have primers that are not be fully seated and you may have some reliability issues.

I hope the foregoing made sense.

[stilly]

I agree, plus soft brass like Fed is easier than say Lake City or Winchester.

I hated slamming primers all day on my turret press, the Lee auto-primer makes my life a lot easier and I can just do it inside in front of the Tv instead of my garage.

Yeah but then OH, I see, I guess when you go to resize them you just move the decapping pin up so that it no longer decaps... I will have to think of this... I just ordered 8k primers and a bottle of titegroup from PVI so I was thinking that maybe I should start priming all of my brass.

Someone said that they had a metal priming tool, like the Lee but all metal and it was really nice. The Lee auto primer can be used with any of them or do they say NO to a few brands? I thought that they did that in the docs somewhere. I wanna check out that metal priming set.

[3006mv]

explain how this setup works please.
i only use the Lee autopriming tool

[steamerjames]

Does anyone have a chart for the old, old Lee priming tool? The one that was made out of Zinc. They use Letters rather than numbers used on the new tool.I found my fathers and wanted to reload Luger cases on it,but do not have the right size.There are many on e-bay,however i do not want to buy the wrong size by mistake.Thanks for any help.I really want to reload for my Luger pistol and ammo is so hard to get,i was lucky to get 100 rounds to start with.

[gunboat]

Steamer, you are seeking a Lee "M" = 9mm luger, 30 luger, 30 mauser and 38auto --
good luck finding one --

It may be easier, & cheaper, to find one of the newer style used --
The non-square primer container style is probably best =
my tuppence

[steamerjames]

Thank you, there quite a few of these for sale on e-bay.Besides, i like the way it works.