seating primers with lee auto prime

saskgunowner101

saskgunowner101

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
132   0   0
Location
near Prince Albert
Hey guys, new to reloading, and being (overly?) cautious about priming with the hand held lee auto prime. I've seated only 5 primers, 2 flush, 3 out a bit. The instructions call for light thumb pressure til you feel it bottom out. It feels like its bottoming out, but needs more than gentle pressure. How easy do these things explode?? Primers are cci 500 small pistol. Am I more likely to crush them?? Just curious where the fine line between firm pressure and sorry for the noise officer, new to reloading, is. Thanks in advance.
 
Keep going slowly on them. Try turning the case 1/2 turn and then continuing to apply pressure. I find if the case will come out of the shell holder freely, the primer is in far enough.
 
Well, I use CCI magnum pistol and large rifle primers. I've sheared the sides off of them forcing them into a pocket that had been damaged. I've nearly cut them in half on my Lee Pro 1000 press when they've become jammed. I've dropped them on a cement floor. I've deprimed cases with live primers in them. I don't think you have much to worry about. Just the same. Make sure you're wearing a face shield when you're reloading. A flying hot primer to anywhere is going to sting a bit. One in the eye is a bit more serious.
 
saskgunowner101 said:
Hey guys, new to reloading, and being (overly?) cautious about priming with the hand held lee auto prime. I've seated only 5 primers, 2 flush, 3 out a bit. The instructions call for light thumb pressure til you feel it bottom out. It feels like its bottoming out, but needs more than gentle pressure. How easy do these things explode?? Primers are cci 500 small pistol. Am I more likely to crush them?? Just curious where the fine line between firm pressure and sorry for the noise officer, new to reloading, is. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

It usually takes a bit more than "light" thumb pressure in my experience. If its really tight, you should probably stop.

Some cases have tighter primer pockets than others and you can open them up a bit with a hand held primer pocket reamer. Corrosion on the pocket wall will also make seating the primer much harder. Primer pocket reamer will fix that as well. Cost for the reamer is about $5-$10 and well worth the effort.
 
Thanks for the info guys! I primed about 40 now, and I've noticed a few things. They don't explode with a lil more than light pressure. Some cases run smooth,and the primer is at or below flush, some are tighter. Easy to notice when they turn sideways, and more importantly, my fingers are still here. Better safe than sorry, right!:)
 
I use the Lee implement and have not had any primers go "bang" yet thru many thousands of uses. That's you're using CCI primers is a good thing - they're "harder" than most and are not prone to being "squished" (as I've found with Federal primers). Note also that the Lee company specifically indicates that Federal primers should not be used with the Autoprime - tho I gather there may be some politics (as well as legal asscovering) behind that.
 
My Lee auto prime tray is about worn out. I've used it for over twenty years. Still works fine, but the primers don't feed as nice as they used too.
As to pressure, I use quite a bit. Never had a problem. I like my primers all the way home. They might even be slightly compressed.
 
Never had a primer go off with a Lee auto prime, it does take quite a bit of pressure to seat them.

I have had a few primers go off using a lee loader, you hammer the case down over the primer, quite scary when one goes off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom