Why so many complaints about Lee reloading dies?

Cause it's Lee. Really all the hoaky crap about perfect alignment goes out the window with seating the bullet as you will never be able to hand seat it to the thousandth before it makes contact with the seating die. I guess maybe sizing dies might not have as nice of a polish to them? Can't say it has ever mattered to me.
 
I have had the decapping rod slip in the collet on LEE dies, and I will never again use a sizing die that does not have a threaded decapping rod.
 
I have mostly Lee carbide pistol dies and have no problems with them . Also use RCBS . I like the collet on the Lee decapping rod . I have never broken a decapping pin with my Lee dies . Wish I could say the same about my RCBS dies .
 
Lee dies work just fine. People grumble about 10/22's, Lee dies, this, that, and almost everything else. Not all Lee presses are aluminum. I use a couple of the little cheap presses for decapping, bullet sizing etc. Saves having to molest a good setting on a casing resizing die. Most times I just decap with the little punch decapper tool and a plastic hammer.. I am not doing six million rounds at any one time, so it doesn't matter what brand of dies I am using.
 
I have mostly Lee carbide pistol dies and have no problems with them . Also use RCBS . I like the collet on the Lee decapping rod . I have never broken a decapping pin with my Lee dies . Wish I could say the same about my RCBS dies .
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They are supposed to slip. That way they don't break!
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I have never broken a decapping pin in over 30 years of reloading. Unless the decapping pin is out of alignment, you won't break a decapping pin. And if a person can't figure out how to adjust the decapping rod, so it doesn't bottom in the case, perhaps that person should not be reloading.
 
The pin will break if, as in my case, you are loading a couple of thousand 9mm or .223 and end up with the odd military round mixed in. Unfortunately these don't always pop out and will occaisionally break a pin....unless you are using a Lee die in which case you simply reset the pin and a way you go :)

John
 
About 1/3 of my 40+ sets of reloading dies are Lee. My experience with Lee dies has been good but it has been mostly with dies for revolver cartridges. Most of my rifle dies are RCBS, Lyman, and Hornady.

I have had dies that were defective or not dimensionally correct from the factory that had to be replaced. Interestingly enough - none of those dies were Lee. I've had some minor "issues" with every make of die I own except Hornady, and that's just because I haven't used them much yet.

Every mechanical device can break and no manufacturer is 100% free of defects. Lee dies are good value for the price and in fact for some of the handgun cartridges I load on a turret press I prefer them because the Lee auto-disk powder measure attaches to the expander die and works brilliantly. I always wondered why the other manufacturers couldn't do something that effective and simple.
 
The pin will break if, as in my case, you are loading a couple of thousand 9mm or .223 and end up with the odd military round mixed in. Unfortunately these don't always pop out and will occaisionally break a pin....unless you are using a Lee die in which case you simply reset the pin and a way you go
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I don't bother with cases that have crimped primers, so it isn't an issue.
 
Good point that every manufacturer has a defect get by QC every once in a while. I have had two sets of lee dies, years ago now, that were defective, one was a FL size die that was reamed wrong, the other was so badly coarse inside it was totally useless. That was out of a total of four lee die sets I have ever owned. So for me that is a 50% defect rate. Probably not the norm, but I purchased Redding dies, and some RCBS when I couldn't get the reddings I wanted, and have great success thus far. No need to change what works!
 
stubblejumper said:
I have never broken a decapping pin in over 30 years of reloading. Unless the decapping pin is out of alignment, you won't break a decapping pin. And if a person can't figure out how to adjust the decapping rod, so it doesn't bottom in the case, perhaps that person should not be reloading.
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LOL
Try ramming your threaded decapper though several berdan cases accidentally mixed in with 1000 5.56 cases that were supposed to be all boxer
 
If you are loading for match loads, then I can understand spending the huge dollars on the extremely adjustable dies for RCBS and the such. If you are loading hunting loads and everyday range loads there is no reason in the world to spend anymore than what Lee charges. I have loaded for over thirty years and never had a die issue. I load for currently
load for 12 different calibers, for hunting and target, for my new rifles and my milsurps, some of which are over 100 years old, and again never had a problem loading with Lee dies. There are those who only use the top dollar stuff and good for them, for me I don't need any better than what Lee has given me which is 100 % ! What more could you ask for ?
 
i reload for 12 different calibers and have never had an issue with Lee dies. Thousands thru the dies and never a hiccup.
Only ever broke a pin when a Berdan snuck thru. Lee sent me 12 pins free when i sent an Email.
 
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