It's official; Lee will be releasing an "upside down" bullet sizing press.

[Starsizer]

What has me extremely interested is it being used as a depriming "machine".

I really prefer to have my brass deprimed for wet tumbling for a number of reasons. Mostly, it keeps all that nasty primer ash, dirt, and grit out of my Dillon. I take good care of that machine and keeping it clean is part of it. Of equal importance is brass can then be 100% tumbled clean, inside & out. Almost all of my reloading is for competition ammo. I would prefer to eliminate as many variables and potential reliability issues as I can. You can't argue that a 100% clean as new primer pocket is as trouble free as it gets. Zero chance old residue can effect function. Also, complete drying is insured. I have seen trapped water in wet tumbled brass cause problems.

Currently I use a heavily modified Lee Pro 1000 as a depriming "machine". It has its foibles and headaches. It does 9mm relatively well but .38 Super Comp,.38/.357 is an effort in frustration. Perhaps this new Lee machine will be the solution to everything!

You will love this little APP press. I ordered one which I use to deprime 9mm cases for stainless pin tumbling too. The good part is that if you get the LEE Universal case feeder with the collator on top you don't even have to touch the cases. And they really go fast through the machine. It takes a little adjusting to get it working just right but way better than manually handling each case. I bought another one for 44 Mag cases which I seem to be shooting a lot of lately. I got the primer pocket swager too but haven't gotten to it yet.

[RedlegEd]

Hi all,
Being stuck at home isn't really so bad. I'm catching up on a lot of things. I just finished two mods to my Lee APP using my 3D printer. One was to print an extension handle and the other to find a way to catch and direct my sized cases under my bench. I've posted both mods on Thingiverse so you can print your own if you have a 3D printer (links are below.) The extension handle really makes using the APP a lot more comfortable and seems to speed it up for me. This afternoon, I sized 1200 .45 ACP cases in about 20 minutes. I finally got my case feeder tuned and I could barely keep up with it. The second mod was to make a diverter for a square funnel from Amazon to catch the brass and direct it into a bucket or box under my bench. I use a strong magnet to locate it on the bench in the right location and then can pull it off and stick it to my safe out of the way when not in use. If you'd like to see a short video of the APP in action, I posted it on YouTube (pardon the absolutely amateurish quality.)
Ed

Lee APP Extension Handle



Shell catcher/diverter

[pastera]

Doe anyone know if either Titan or FS Reloading are shipping the new upgraded shell holder with the hourglass groove cut in the face of the shell holder? Or are they still using up the old stock?

The ones that come with the press were the new style - got a #1 for 38/357 and it was the old type (and jams like crazy)
Need to contact Lee and see what they will do, if not I'll mill it out myself because shipping is more than it is worth

[Mollyboy]

Take out the detent when using the old style shell holder and it works just like the new style. I doubt you have high primers causing the jams

[psychbiker]

Wondering if I should cancel my midway backorder. I was able to backorder last week for a 3/23 in stock. Order says back ordered and you cannot backorder anymore.

Midway and Lee aren’t answering phones right now.

Titan and mid south list it in stock but $15 to ship. I’m not really in a rush but don’t want to wait a month.

[digid]

I received mine from Midway USA today. I chose to order it from them as I had a gift certificate from my wife left over from Christmas, plus I got the Birthday discount (Thank you Midway USA) It was also on back-order, but I noticed that it was in stock, but a few of the accessories were holding it up. I was also surprised to receive it on a Sunday. Mounted it on an Inline Fabrication Quick Mount. So the output is just kind of hanging mid air. I see that Inline has an adapter to hold two Akro trays for the APP press. Seems a little pricey for what it is at 38.50, but I need a few other things so will probably just order it instead of making something.

So far I have just been de-priming some 9mm with it. But I have to say I am impressed, I did mount the Lee 4 tube shell feeder on it. I think this is will be the single most time saver I have added to the loading bench in a long time. Very happy with it so far.

[Beetmagnet]

[onelight]

Wow Beetmagnet that is sizing a bunch of bullets fast!

[dverna]

Beetmagnet,
That was impressive.

[Beetmagnet]

Beetmagnet,
That was impressive.

Took me about a couple weeks...off and on...but got the 40,000 9mm I finished casting in January all sized. Shoulders are still sore. lol

[igolfat8]

Were those powder coated clear or do you still have to coat them?

[dverna]

Took me about a couple weeks...off and on...but got the 40,000 9mm I finished casting in January all sized. Shoulders are still sore. lol

Wow. I thought I had a lot of cast bullets with 30k in stock. And that covers 3 calibers. Do you do it commercially?

[Drydock]

Hmmmm. Geared electric motor, crank and linkage . . .

[Beetmagnet]

Wow. I thought I had a lot of cast bullets with 30k in stock. And that covers 3 calibers. Do you do it commercially?

No sir. I just cast and load for myself.
I shot 35,000 last year, 30,000 the year before, 25,000 before that. 40k was just my goal for practice and competition shooting this year.

I blew a cervical disc a few years ago and the nerve that runs down my arm and affects my thumb, trigger finger, and middle finger was damaged. I had to do a lot of shooting to get it back into competition shape, and I have to shoot a lot to keep it up. Shooting is a parishable skill...for me it is doubly so. I up the livefire practice and dial back the dryfire practice a bit more every year. It's the price I have to pay to beat my friends on game day. I think 40k is about as high as I want to go. The last few years I was getting my son to size for me, but he is about to head out to college, so a speed efficient system was needed.

[Mollyboy]

How did you size all those projectiles before the app?

[dansedgli]

Took me about a couple weeks...off and on...but got the 40,000 9mm I finished casting in January all sized. Shoulders are still sore. lol

Any breakages? My star sizer would wear out a few links in that many. I think it might be time to get rid of it.

[Mollyboy]

Any breakages? My star sizer would wear out a few links in that many. I think it might be time to get rid of it.

Early on Lee said they did a million cycle test at maximum load and it passed.

[Beetmagnet]

How did you size all those projectiles before the app?

I had a Rockchucker, a Lee sizing kit, and a teenager. He turned 18 in January, said he needs to work more and finish his last semester in school and didn't have time to size bullets. I respected that, and this APP came out at the right time

[Beetmagnet]

Any breakages? My star sizer would wear out a few links in that many. I think it might be time to get rid of it.

No. The plastic pieces snap on and off easily. Because of this, when I got jamm ups, they would pop off before they broke.
The only problem was when my son tried it out the first time, short stroked it, and tried to jam the ram through the plastic feed piece that popped off. It was salvageable though, so I snapped it back on and kept going.

[Rhino]

My App press has a black plastic projectile carrier,mi ordered it very early, many I see have a red carrier that looks a little different.

Has Lee made an upgrade part already.

My press occasionally pops a projectile out of the slide at the start of the downstroke, but overall it works very well.

I adapted the multi tube bullet feed kit to fit, and it works well, I do like that Dillon? Bullet feed kit, might be the next upgrade.