New press and Lee safety prime.

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Prof Young

New member
Loaders:
So I got tired of having primers all over the floor. Even though I'd built a cache below my lee turret press the primers were always everywhere. Bought the value turret press that has a catch tube on the ram. Gotta love it. Also added a Lee Safety Prime, which, after I got it installed correctly it worked well. It's a touch flimsy but it works well. Should speed things up a touch.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Life is good.

Prof Young
 
I drilled holes and mounted a catch can under my loading bench for my turret press to catch the primers. Works pretty well.
 
Prof Young, so how are you liking that new press compared to the old one? I have 3 models of the Lee Presses. An old 3 hole turret, a Pro1000 and a new Auto Breech Lock Pro.

I am still using them all and they all serve a different purpose for loading pistol cartridges. The primer tube is a nice upgrade and the Safety Prime took a little getting use to.
 
I have the Classic 4 hole turret press, the tube works great. As for the Lee Safety Prime system, I am not a fan, drops primers almost as often as it seats them.
 
I went with the Forster Coaxes. love it .

Its got a small bottle to catch primers, just have to keep an eye on it.

So far no issues, my brother reports a hand up and opening it up a bit.

Quick die change is wonderful.

Leverage is great, I use it without a handle for seating.
 
have the Classic 4 hole turret press, the tube works great. As for the Lee Safety Prime system, I am not a fan, drops primers almost as often as it seats them.
Click to expand...

I have the same press, but love the Safety Prime. Mine doesn't drop primers...all a matter of adjustment, I think.
 
Safety prime dropping primers . . .

When I first installed the safety prime I dropped almost as many primers as I seated. Then I realized I was using the Large Primer arm for small primers. Switched over to the right size and it worked much better. Still drops the occasional primer but not enough to stop using it.

Life is good.

Prof Young
 
There is a third generation of the safety prime now. I had the second gen and it dropped nearly 3-4 primers per 100. The new model never drops any primers at all.

I have the Classic 4 hole and it works fine for my needs. I never load more than 100 rounds per sitting. Usually half that. Sometimes just 5 rounds to fill a rifle mag and go hunting with my pet loads.
 
kmw1954 . . . since you asked . . .

Yes I do like the new press. In terms of finished product it is easily as good as my old turret press and now there are far fewer spent primers on the floor. This means that when the safety prime does drop a primer on the floor, it is much easier to find and recover.

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
I use the Lee 4-hole Classic Turret press, and just in the last 6 months I went from the old Lee hand primer system to the newer Lee Bench Prime system, and Boy Howdy do I like that better than the hand prime system. For one thing, I have arthritis in both hands, so on certain days I just couldn't prime my cases (40 and 38/357). I did notice that the reason I liked the hand prime system so much was the tactile feed-back I got when seating the primer, and with the Lee Bench Prime I lost absolutely none of that tactile feed-back. The Bench Prime system was a little hit and miss in the beginning (it seems that one has to break it in with a few hundred priming operations before things seem to smooth out), but it does smooth out perfectly with use. I have always cleaned out each and every primer pocket on pistol/sixgun cases since I started reloading almost 45 years ago (started with reloading for my .308 first, I guess that was when I got into the habit of cleaning primer pockets). I started with that priming arm system when I first got my Lee Classic Turret and just didn't like it very much for all the reasons stated in the above posts with dropping primers (and having primers flip on me every once in a while). Glad you figured out a way to make your system work better for you Prof. as Reloading should be a joy to do, not a pain in the back side.
 
Me too, but . . .

I was a primer pocket cleaner while I had a single stage press. When I moved to the turret that went out the window and I haven't really noticed any difference.

Yeah, reloading should be enjoyable and not too hard on the body.

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
I've been using my Lee 4 die Turret press for over 5 years. It came with the tube to catch the old primers and it came with the safety primer for small and large primers. In the beginning I was dropping primers once in a while loading them but now that I've done it for a while I haven't lost a primer in a couple of years. I started having trouble with the Turret not setting to index but a very lite coating of Lithium grease solved that. Not sure if it gets any easier than that.
 
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