Hand priming tool, which one?

bearhunter said:
I wore out a couple of the Lee hand primers as well.

I've developed arthritis in the base joints of my hands. I found the levers on the Lee to be to short, therefore not enough mechanical advantage, to do the job painlessly.

I picked up one of the LEE bench mounted presses from Western Metals, a banner sponsor. It worked OK, needed some tweaking but was just as fast as the hand primer. Just not as handy, as it requires mounting to a bench or some other surface. I mounted mine to a 12inX12inX1/2in scrap aluminum plate, so it wasn't necessary to mount it permanently to the bench.

The Lee was OK, but I finally went to the RCBS hand held unit, which is slightly more complicated than the Lee and takes a bit of getting used to. Nothing serious though and once you get used to the slight differences, it's a very smooth and positive unit, with longer operating levers, that are quite sensitive to the feel of the primers seating or binding .

It's biggest issue id the curved bar, attached to the priming arm. It also works to stop extra primers from getting in into the works. It's not very rigid, and is easily bent, especially at the point where the primers slide over it to enter the primer mandrel recess. As long as you're careful it isn't a problem.

The only other issue with the RCBS hand primer is that the priming mandrel isn't held in place, if the unit is turned upside down and will fall out. It goes back in very easily, just drop it right back in, from the top.

I know a lot of folks won't do this, but I always purchase two different hand primers. On for small primers and one for Large primers.

If push comes to shove, I could use the Lee Bench Primer. It's now relegated to back up mode, hanging from its nail on the wall.
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Interesting. I was thinking if I replaced my Lee Hand Primer I'd want to go with the bench mounted one. Maybe I should reconsider.
 
bertn said:
sounds cool but what if your pocket is deeper than it is adjusted to?

my rcbs goes in all the way until I feel that it is there.
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Agreed...uniforming is very important.
Even on my plinking rounds -as painful as it may be - I uniform all my brass.
It sucks when doing high volume, but at least a guy only has to do it once (if done right) for the life of the brass.

I used the RCBS for many years and was happy with it.
IMO the Frankfort A, is bit better because it is adjustable and better for ergonomics on my arthritic hands.

IMO was is most important feature a priming tool is a dead stop -which is why I use the seater on top of my co-ax press for competition loads. Also it is fixed at 0.003 counter sink... it is a perfect bang-on-the-nuts 0.003 every time I prime.

Someday, when I have $600 USD burning a hole in my wallet, I want one of these Competition Primer Seaters.
Fast... adjustable.. dead stop...and it doesn't get any easier on my "old man hands".

Dare to dream.

 
If you're talking about the old Lee round tray style priming tool I heard that Lee was not stocking parts for them anymore. I have used one since the mid-80's and only broke one connecting lever in all that time (so must have been 10's of thousands of rounds). The trick is to lube all the pivot points and spring with some sort of grease (I use the white lithium stuff). It's still my go to hand priming tool.

The Frankford unit gets a lot of good reviews on the Midway site (remove the space ht tps):
ht tps://www.midwayusa.com/product/1016958988?pid=582486
 
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Suther said:
Interesting. I was thinking if I replaced my Lee Hand Primer I'd want to go with the bench mounted one. Maybe I should reconsider.
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I don't know about you, but I often sit in front of the TV with a few thousand prepped cases with a bit of whatever to relieve the non existent stresses.

I can do that with a hand primer but not with a bench mounted primer unit. Neither does the job faster or better.

I used a competition seater for a while and found that I could seat my primers with the same precision, especially after thousands of rounds.
 
Google Primer Preload Test. It was an experiment done with an accurate 6mm Dasher. "Nothing good happens until the primer touches the bottom of the primer pocket." "Primers with a slight amount of crush shot just as well as primers that were seated just touching!" Slight amount being .002" to .004", after that groups started getting erratic and opening up!".

I made a jig with a dial gauge to measure primer thickness. The lot of Federal 205 primers on hand were .1205" to .1235" thick or .003" variation. Remington 7 1/2's were worse. Now there is no way I'm going to sort primers by thickness. Consider this assuming all primer pockets are uniformed to the same depth: using a priming tool that has click adjustments, a thick primer may be bottomed and the anvil of a thin primer may not touch, resulting in inconsistent ignition and possibly a flyer. Now adjust the tool to bottom the thin primer in the pocket and you will have .003" of crush on the thick primer. Better to adjust the tool to seat all primers to bottom by feel.

After trying a bunch of priming tools, the one that gives me the best feel with 2 thumbs is the old Lee round tray tool. They all wore out so I went with the Gen 2 Lee with the square tray. It has its problems misfeeding etc. which I put up with for the feel. I bought a Frankford Arsenal tool which is a fine tool and feel was improved by replacing the lever return spring with a weaker spring. It still had too much mechanical advantage for my liking with the underlever operated by 4 fingers. So I sold it.

I can tell you that if you press the Lee lever until it hits the body of the tool, that primer will be squashed .017" below flush and that shot will be a flyer out of the group. So, pick your tool based on what ever seems important to you but I need to be able to feel the primer bottom and I stop pushing.
 
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TrxR said:
Take a look at K&M, PMA tool or 21st century.
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You can only load a single primer with all of those as well as the Sinclair. I had the Lee and used it for years until it crapped out. No complaints with the Frankford Arsenal plus it comes with shell holders. If loading high volume, single loading individual primers gets tedious real fast. Also I don't shoot benchrest and do more field type shooting and the occasional Precision Rifle type match. For me I need to read wind better than worrying about which primer tool I am using. To each his own of course.
 
I just switched from a Lee to a Frankford Arsenal. It is a worthwhile upgrade, but the Lee primed a lot of brass. The Frankford isn't as tiring to use. On a sidenote, for 9mm and 45acp, I used to prime on the progressive press. But given all the variations between various males of brass, and know with different brands of primers being slightly different, hand priming just makes more sense for me.
 
Why not? said:
StoneHorse, they replaced mine for free. It had primed many thousands of cases over at least thirty years.

And they always ship by USPS to my door, again with no charge.

Ted
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Thanks for the suggestion Ted but I found a replacement part locally. $6.00 for the connecting rod and a 30 min drive round trip; I'm not going to bother mailing back to Lee. Additional posts have given me more food for thought. The RCBS hand tool has a few mixed reviews. I also want a primer tray. Single loading primers into the tool will be tedious and I will end up dropping primers. The Frankford looks like the one for me.
 
bearhunter said:
If push comes to shove, I could use the Lee Bench Primer. It's now relegated to back up mode, hanging from its nail on the wall.
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When I set up a designated reloading bench, I wanted a bench-mounted priming tool, as I never loved the Lee hand-held I'd used for the last 10 years; looked at everything that was available, and decided to try the Lee Bench version out, as it was about 1/3rd the price of the other options (and like 1/15th of the Primal Rights one...). Figured I could afford to maybe buy twice - cry twice, in the worst case scenario...

Bottom line: the Lee Bench Primer works well enough, but the primers tend to hang up in the tray, such that I need to rap the tray every 5-8 primers to get the next set of primers into the tool from the tray. Not the end of the world, but I was hoping for something a bit more smooth-operating... (Put it this way - needing to rap the thing randomly didn't add to the enjoyment...)

So, about a month ago I decided to buy the Forster Co-Ax Bench Primer out when X-Reload got a couple in stock - I had gone back and forth between the Forster and the RCBS one, and the opportunity to buy the Forster came up first. Haven't tried it yet, as I've been waiting for some decent weather for shooting for a while now (wind! snow! defective scope! locusts!), and have nothing to load as a consequence... Will post a review when I get a chance.

Am really hoping it's not going to be buy three times - cry three times...
 
used the lee for a year and switched to the RCBS, works great for 8 years no issues and upgraded to the RCBS universal thet does away with the shell holders, my opinion is the older version works better using the shell holders, reason the case drops right in no fiddling around getting the case between the jaws
 
Mike112288 said:
FRANKLIN ARMOURY HAND PRIMER. incredible hand press. Worth the monies.
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Post a link...the Franklin Armory found on google do not produce or sell hand primer.
Will like to see why it is so great.

By the way, only K&M sell a hand priming tools with pressure gage. Most accurate primer seater..you cannot beat a uniform seating pressure. If you do not uniform primer pocket and pin drill flask hole..this might be overkill for most reloader..but..thats thectool to have. Only drawback..not fast but for precision reloads..no hurry aftercall.

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I have used an old Lee hand primer for pistol for years but my rifle priming is done with a RCBS press mounted priming tool I got with the press years ago. The Lee will sometimes flip a primer so I have to keep an eye on it. I seat the primers with the RCBS press tool just by feeling it bottom out and then a visual when done.
I am not a competition shooter so my round count isn't that high.
 
StoneHorse said:
So after several thousand cycles, my Lee hand priming tool broke. This is the third Lee tool that has worn out/broken over the years. I like hand priming because of the feel of the primer seating so I'm not a fan of press mounted tools. Has anyone tried out the Frankford Arsenal platinum series tools? I don't mind spending more for quality tools.
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I have three of the old Lee's, one of the new ones, and one of the Franklins. They all work. I found the Lee a little easier to use, but there are some cases that just won't fit in the old Lee. - dan
 
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