Lee APP First Impressions

[Preacher Jim]

I have now sized and deprimed 9k 38spc and 16k of 45acp. After tuning and fitting the 4 tube feeder it has had only 7 hick ups for a cheap press I can recommend it to anyone who likes to tinker to tune setting up. Screwed a pan to catch finished brass and feed into plastic shoe boxes. Carbide dies are absolute necessary with this unit.

[Preacher Jim]

Looking at the handle I am reversing sides machining a n aluminum bar to fit skate bearings an making a roller handle on mine

[dragon813gt]

The handle is a torture device for me, doesn’t help that I tore and beat up my hand working on the van that week, but it needs to changed, it plain hurts, even with a glove and especially swaging.

It’s why I changed mine to a roller handle. A lot more comfortable and it doesn’t chew up the web between my fingers. W/ swaging I eventually start using the tube so at the bottom of the stroke I can use both hands on the handle. This keeps stress off my right elbow which can start to hurt on long runs. But I have this issue w/ all presses. Getting old sucks

[Preacher Jim]

Dragon it sure does I notice my press sessions are getting shorter and blue emu has become my friend.

[poppy42]

Funny, I’ve had surgery on both hands/wrists, torn tendons on the right and I shattered the let wrist in about a dozen places. Lots of plates and screws in the left. I’ve put about 40,000 cases, and to many boolets to count through my app press since I got it in June. With no problems with the stock handle. What dose the roller handle do Increase leverage? Or is it just that the handle turns. I’ve never had a roller handle so I’m not sure of the benefit.

[Preacher Jim]

Poppy it reduces stress on my wrist arthor was screaming easier this way.

[poppy42]

Poppy it reduces stress on my wrist arthor was screaming easier this way.

Oh ok. Like I said never used one didn’t know what the advantage was. whether it was increase leverage, or just the fact that the handle rolls and less stress on your wrist. thanks for your response.

[poppy42]

Ok here’s a couple things(not really mods) I suggest for new app press owners. The first one is to call Lee and get a second case inserted assembly! If you’re planning on using your app press to size bullets and you’re going to size multiple diameter bullets, Such as 22 caliber and 30 caliber. Really any sizes that would require you to change the fingers from large to small. By fingers I mean the two gizmos the grip the bullet in the front of the case inserter assembly. Small boolets required the small fingers. And large boolets require the larger fingers. Call Lee and get an additional case inserted assembly. Set one up with small fingers and set the other one up with large fingers. Change out the assembly as opposed to taking inserter assembly apart and changing the fingers. Trust me it’s a heck of a lot easier to do it this way. To remove the case inserter assembly all you have to do is disconnect the spring and slide it off the back of the press. Takeoff the assembly with the small fingers put on the assembly with the large fingers. It’s well worth the investment!
I think it cost about 10 bucks! I will tell you that if you call Lee, tell them your assembly is damaged they’ll send you another one under warranty.

The second thing is kind of my own design it takes a little bit of explanation so bear with me.
As far as I’m concerned, when processing large batches of brass, the one thing that takes the most time is filling the tubes that hold the brass. Now I know you can get their case collator and their case feeder assembly. At a cost of about 35 bucks! That’s all well and good but seeing as I am a little on the broke side and also a little on the cheap side, I have a problem paying $35 (which is about half the price of what I paid for the entire press) just to be able to feed cases. Ive never used it so I’m not so sure it’s that fantastic of a set up anyway. So here’s what I did.
I went down to the local Home Depot and bought a 4 foot length of pex half-inch id tubing. I cut it into four 1 foot lengths. I attached a cheap dollar store funnel to the clear plastic tubes that are supplied with the press. Now when I fill up the initial plastic case tubing I also fill up the four pieces of pex tubing with the cases that I’m going to de-prime.
Now when the initial tube runs out of cases I simply take one of the pex tubes (That I’ve pre-filled) and insert it into the Funnel there by filling up the factory tube. Not an ultimate fix but it certainly speeds things up. I paid $1.67 for 4 foot of pex tubing and in my case that’s a heck of a lot better than paying $35 for their case feeder assembly.!
Now the one problem I did come up with is that half inch ID tubing is only big enough to except 9 mm,38 special, 357 mag and such. For 45 ACP cases I’m gonna have to find tubing with a larger inside diameter.
Just a couple of things I’ve come up with that work well for me. I hope you all find them useful.

[CRracer712]

Hello all, new to the forum, not so much to reloading (started in ~2000).

I'm just getting in to casting bullets and bought this APP, arrived yesterday. I initially set it up to resize some 9mm powder coated bullets, the bullets I initially resized were not mine, but a friend's who had cast from their RCBS 2 cavity mold, I believe it's the 124 grain round nose target mold. While it is round nosed, it has a pretty pronounced 'shelf that leads in to the taper on down to a pretty small round nose.

While resizing, I had several that'd drop through and out in front of the open jaws. At the same time I might run through 10 or so without issue. I had adjusted the feed tube to the recommended 'penny' thickness. I also narrowed this gap(seemingly making it worse), and widening it(which initially seemed to fix it. But eventually it went back to spitting out one or two at random.

I'm wondering if those pointy round nose bullets just aren't going to feed very well. Anyone have this issue, or ideas on how to improve it? I'm using the thinnest guide plate(the one with two holes, as opposed to a hole and a C)

I had no issue using the original style bullet size on the APP, including using the included plastic jar(as opposed to just having them drop in a bucket).

[megasupermagnum]

I've never tried the bullet feeder on mine, I like to bullets by hand. I do know that the fingers on that slider are adjustable. There is a philips screw underneath the slider. Try adjusting it so that the fingers open up just enough to allow a bullet to fall in.

[CRracer712]

I was thinking about those fingers last night. When it worked for these bullets, the fingers were closed during bullet drop, and open to dispense bullet in sizer die.

When they would drop out, the fingers were open, allowing the bullet to slide right on through.

I'll check out that slider and see if I can get an adjustment to work, thank you!

[CRracer712]

I've never tried the bullet feeder on mine, I like to bullets by hand. I do know that the fingers on that slider are adjustable. There is a philips screw underneath the slider. Try adjusting it so that the fingers open up just enough to allow a bullet to fall in.

This worked like a charm, although the adjustment I needed wasn't the phillips screw underneath (that appears to just hold assembly together). The adjuster was at the back of the slider, straight blade, plastic threaded pin. Screwing it in keeps the jaws from opening too far so the bullets can't force the fingers open and slide on through. Works flawless now. Thanks!

[megasupermagnum]

This worked like a charm, although the adjustment I needed wasn't the phillips screw underneath (that appears to just hold assembly together). The adjuster was at the back of the slider, straight blade, plastic threaded pin. Screwing it in keeps the jaws from opening too far so the bullets can't force the fingers open and slide on through. Works flawless now. Thanks!

Sorry about that. After looking at mine, the philips I was thinking of only holds the track on. I'm glad you figured it out.

[CRracer712]

No worries, you got me in the right neighborhood! I'm just glad it's adjustable

[mattw]

That adjustment will fix almost any feeder problem on the little press. It is so critical to feeding, prevents dumping a whole tube of bullets on the floor.

[lesterktm]

I have deprimed and swagged about 2k .223 so far. A bit of tweaking and rhythm and I could flow pretty quickly. On swagging I had started with universal decapper and it had not flared the mouth. This was an issue once swagging. I then switched to the decapper that came with the app swage kit. Vast improvement once swagging.

[poppy42]

De-capped 4,000 cases yesterday! I really love this press!

[CRracer712]

The first one is to call Lee and get a second case inserted assembly!

I added that to my cart on lee's website along with a couple plastic pieces for my breech lock pro, it was all free except shipping, which was ~9 bucks. Lee's advertised price on the parts were 25 total, but free in the cart.

[Norcal707]

So, what's the verdict on swaging crimped primer pockets with the APP? Should I just get on Dillons back-order list for their SS 600? I have over 10k of LC, Wolf Gold, etc. in 223/556 that I need to do along with some 308.

[cwlongshot]

Mine is just for cast bullet sizing... It works verybwell even just single stage NO FEEDER is quick and easy.

CW