I recently purchased Two CH Auto Champion progressive press's which have been a joy to learn how to use, and I mean that in a good way!
however a couple old issues with these press's have had me looking at other options for priming case's as the on board system on these units are:
1. In my way as I am a lefty
2. A law suit waiting to happen! The primer system is what ultimately put the original CH under from at least one Law suit from a primer detonation.
So I have been priming brass then running them trough the press with the de priming pin removed from the size die, this has worked extremely well and now my search has been for a better off press priming system.
Now the original Lee hand priming tool, which has gone through several upgrades, is a fine tool but I find myself having sore hands after using one, an age thing is my guess, LOL!
So I bought an RCBS bench priming tool which has worked well and been very easy to use with no jamming or other malfunctions. However filing the little primer tubes is a chore and the "rhythm" of the tools use is not quite right for me, but it works and works well just looking for better easier tool to use.
Bought a Lee Bench primer tool: easy tool to prime with never felt better feel for seating primers, sadly the thing won't feed primers worth a darn and seems to be prone to jamming in the weird little primer tray they thought up, simply said not cutting it period.
So the RCBS tool, the one with the long handle that hangs off the table top, has been doing the Lion's share of priming for me, until this weekend.
I was going through junk that I have bought over the years and stumbled upon an old project that didn't work out for auto priming on a Lyman Tru Line Jr Press.
I won't go into details on that project just suffice it to say it involved some machining on a Lee Auto Prime II tool. At the time I had a fit and bought about Four of them thinking R&D was going to eat a couple, LOL!
Since that project failed and I hadn't damaged but one of the priming tools I had a brain flash and decided to set one up on a Lee Classic Cast press and try it out!
Now for those who think they don't need a single stage press in their reloading room: you need to rethink that period!
Once I got the Auto Prime II set up I had very little ram movement and a very good feel for seating primers, yes you can create enough force to actually bend the case rim, I did it setting up to prime 45 Auto case's, and once I realized I didn't need to be King Kong to use the set up life got easier and I only ruined one case, LOL!
For those that haven't seen one of these it use's the same type primer feed that is used on the Lee Pro 1000 and yes it has the same issues with primer feeding but because it is not on the back of the press and is easily jiggled I found it fairly quick to use with no real Jamming issues, at least not with Large Pistol or Rife primers I easily primed almost 1000 45 ACP yesterday afternoon and got a chance to visually check each case as I primed it, this allowed me to pick out a few cracked case's, a small primer 45 ACP case that I'm sure would have caused a problem in a Dillon 650, and I also sorted out a bunch of ACP case's Marked A-usa as they would not accept large pistol primer and no they are not small pistol case's either the primer pocket is just under sized, a quick hit with my Primer pocket reaming tool brought the case's primer pocket back into "spec" and primer seated easily in the Two I bothered to "adjust"!
With over 1000 case's primed I did not feel the need to "Fix" the 100 or so A-USA case's and simply separated them as I primed.
By the way I also found a few case's with tumbling media stuck in the primer pocket, easily cleaned out, and again this would have caused issues on a progressive press should I have been priming on it as I loaded.
Moving on: This morning I decided to prime 1000 9mm case's to see how the Auto Prime II handled small pistol primers.
An eye opening experience to be sure!!
First problem: getting primer's from the tray into the feed trough without jamming! No problem with Large Pistol I simply used a paper Clip to hold the primers at "bay" as I inserted the tray into the feed trough. Not so much with small pistol primers as there is enough space in the trough to allow jamming of primer's as soon as I remove the paper clip!
To solve this problem I decided to fill the primer tray attach the feed trough to it then install the whole set up in the priming tool die body, this actually worked very well and I was off and running with Three Primer tray / feed trough set up's already filled with small pistol primers.
First tray full went trough with no issues other than needing a "nudge" once in awhile to keep primer flowing, no more an issue than the occasional flick of the wrist with the hand held tool but, once again the reason this set up never worked on the Pro 1000!
Second tray I had an issue with and realized it was the stupid shell holder that was causing it! The suggested shell holder for the 9MM is the number 19 which is just to large and allowed case's to pop out and seize on the upper portion of the shell holder!
Once I spotted that I found if I held the case all the way to the rear of the shell holder priming got a lot easier, however Monday morning I will be ordering a Number 6 shell holder from Titan Reloading to cure this particular problem in the future.
My Pro 1000 depriming press has a number 6 shell plate for 9mm case's and it works much better than the number 19 which actually fits the 40 S&W case!
Overall I was impress with the Auto Prime II, much more so than the Lee Bench priming tool and it was actually easier to fill with primers than the old RCBS bench priming tool, it was also easier to get used to using and I'm afraid the old RCBS tool may soon retire!
Some of that is due to the fact that I have several of the primer trays and was able to pre fill at least three primer trays prior to starting the priming session, the rest is simply an easier "motion" to use rather than the back and forth "Dance" the RCBS tool requires.
Sadly Lee discontinued the Auto Prime II several years ago and sourcing one may or may not be as easy as our own swap and sell section or a visit to E Bay and hope to stumble onto one.
If you've gotten to the point in life where aches and pains are more normal than not this tool may be the answer for mass priming applications.
HM
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