Mequon (Lee loader) priming tool?

[Texas by God]

I've found two. The loaders are identical to Lees except the priming tool is a hand held unit. Very neat. The word Lee is covered by a Mequon sticker on the box. Anyone know about these?

[Green Frog]

Apparently two branches of the Lee family split apart and started competing companies to produce reloading equipment. I think you will find that the Mequon branch's priming tool works like the Lee unit but is made of red plastic instead of aluminum and does not have interchangeable shell holders.

Froggie

[Artful]

Green Frog is correct, Lee Custom and Lee Precision Engineering were totally different companies, rising from different goals within the family. Part of the Lee family started Lee Custom Engineering but were sued by Lee Precision Engineering so changed the name to Mequon Reloading Corp.

I've got a Mequon Pistol Rest (poor man Ransom)




and This is a little history of that

I called Lee Precision, and they straightened me out. The rest was a product of Lee Custom Engineering, which was never related to the Red Reloading folks. They later changed their name to Mequon Reloading, and then went out of business in 1988.

The base is a cast steel piece weighing about 3-4lbs. It bolts down with four bolts to a large piece of wood, which you then could C-clamp to your bench. I suppose you can also bolt it directly to the bench, if you're priviliged to have a dedicated shooting area of your own.

You attach your pistol to a cast alloy armature by means of special alloy grip plates. They bolt onto the grip-frame of your revolver, or act as a dummy mag in the case of a semi-auto. They would be quite easy for a machinist to create for most any revolver, or pistol. In effect, it makes the pistol "one" with the armature. You then set the armature down onto the base, where it makes contact in four, distinct places.

You cock and fire the gun with your own hand in an otherwise normal hold. It's free to recoil back up and off of the base as normal. You then simply seat it back down onto the base as before, where it will be in perfect alignment once again. As long as the base does not shift around on the bench, and the bench itself does not move, you will have a true picture of the gun's mechanical accuracy.

Due to the fit of the magazine insert within the frame of the pistol, I would suspect some slight variation with semi-autos. Revolvers are bolted on far more securely, and it should prove every bit as repeatable as a Ransom unit. I honestly don't know why nobody else has picked-up on the idea.

As to pictures, I do have them. However, we recently got new confusers at work, and MS Photo-Editor was not installed.
Thus, I cannot shrink them down to the right size for hosting on Hunt-101.
If one of you would like to try receiving them, then performing the alteration to post them here, I'd be glad to forward them on. For that matter, anyone who's interested can ask, and I'll send them along.

Reply With Quote VictorLouis

and my buddy collects the primer tools with screw in shell holders

[Green Frog]

Not to hijack the thread, but I have a pistol rest like the ones shown and would be interested in finding somebody who has extra "gun holders" they would sell or trade for my duplicates.

Back to the original question, the only primer tools I've seen from Lee Custom/Mequon are the red plastic ones that have fixed, non-interchangeable shell holders. I've only seen the aluminum type in Lee Precision applications.

Froggie