Bollits and lee loader

[Jamesconn]

I've heard you can only use factory **** with the lee loader I have a turret press set up for 9mm and I'm gettin a savage 111 30-06 and I'm kinda outa money and I won't be shooting near as much as i am shooting the 9 and I thought it would be great to use to teach my friends about reloading since it's portable and cheap and I'm always stuck with nothin to do.

I won't buy it if I can't load boolits with it is there some trick to get it to work?

[lead-1]

It will work fine with cast boolits as long as you chamfer the case mouth and bell it a bit with something round and tapered. Some guys will stick a pair of needle nose pliers in the case mouth and twist them to put a bell on the mouth, just enough to start the boolit.
I bought a .30 carbine loader just to try it out and have four or five others now as stress relievers/time killers

[Bret4207]

I never loaded a single jacketed bullet with my 32-20 Lee Loader. Worked fine, but every now and then I'd have to swab the boolit lube out of the die. Not hard at all.

[Maven]

Some of the older lee Loaders, i.e., those in the black box, came with a small flaring/expanding tool. You tapped it in with a padded or plastic hammer, just as you would with the brass to be resized (neck sized). Btw, they load very accurate ammunition too!

[Ziptar]

You mean I wasn't supposed to have made all those rounds using cast boolits with my Lee loader?

Uh oh!

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Lee loaders will produce excellent ammunition with either jacketed or cast bullets. If you choose cast then as previously pointed out you have to bell the case mouth before seating. Lee loaders are slow, but efficient. Of course you have to provide a means for dispensing/measuring powder. I loaded a lot of 45ACP with one- a long time ago; the only thing I didn't like was Lee's instruction/recommendation for the seating of primers. I thought and still do think that it is stupid to hammer on primers. On a couple of occasions You know what happened.(not fun) I then tried seating the primers by using a short length of dowel rod and a vise, but after a short time I was not able to stand that agony any longer and bought a Lee priming tool. LLS

[mdi]

I learned reloading with Lee Loaders, and I think I got a very good start at learning what each step does and why. True, the only drawback to Lee Loaders is priming. I haven't stopped to figger it out, yet, but my .44 Mag. set will set off primers at about 1 in every 50 - 75 tries while my 30--30 set hasn't set off any (in about 200 rounds). IIRC, my first Loader in .38 Special and my older Loader in .44 Mag/Spec. had the expanding tool mentioned above. I have a turret press, 2 single stage presses, and one hand held press, but still dig out my Lee Loaders every once in a while just for grins.

[Ziptar]

I use an arbor press with my Lee loader when I use it instead of a hammer. I've yet to set off a primer that way.

Process goes allot quicker with less effort and a whole lot less racket.

[Suo Gan]

All handgun kits came with a flaring tool. Lee sells the flaring tool for around $2 and shipping if the original was lost. Or you can use a larger FMJ bullet or a pair of needle nose pliers etc.

[singleshot]

And if your kit didn't come with a flaring tool (none of mine did) you can buy one from Lee Precision for a nominal fee. I think it was around $12, shipping included.

I bought one for my 45 acp kit, and one for my 44 spec/mag kit.

A 30 cal flare tool would be handy for my 7.62x54r kit as well, but have been using a press for that.

[plmitch]

I have a few sets of Lee loaders and none of them came with a flaring tool, I didn't know they made one. I'm going to have to check out their website for one. Good tips here.

[dromia]

I have found that chamfering the edge of the primer pocket slightly with a case chamfer tool cured the odd primer popping when seating with the rod and hammer.

Primers going off is exciting but not overly dangerous so long as you wear safety glasses.

[dromia]

You do need clean primer pockets BTW.

[paul edward]

Case mouths can be flared with a tapered punch.

You could make one with a piece of scrap rod, a file and a drill or drill press.

Tapered punches are also useful for straightening bent necks of range pickup brass.

[Yance]

I thought everyone had an old .50 BMG bullet laying around for flaring casemouths. BTW, the RCBS type deburring tool turned counterclockwise works OK too. (That's to the left for you digital watch folks):rolleyes:

[725]

Like everybody has said, Lee Loader and cast go together very well. Find some tapered thing to bell the mouth of your cases and stand by for some great fun making your ammo. Clean 'em once in awhile to remove the boolit lube from the interior of the tool. I use q-tips and Kroil.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

you have a turret, for what the lee loader costs you can have a set of RGB lee dies 13 something from lee factory sales for it , just take the indexing rod out and turn the turret by hand

i use my lee turret for my 30-30 rounds with a 2 die set i do use a universal flaring die so that the boolits slide into the cases better i also use a universal charging die but you can get these thing later or not use them at all


i just re read your post , i see you want it to be portable , the regular dies in a press are not portable , however be careful where you take your loading especially at your age , some see cartridges and you might think they have a gun shoved in their face for the reaction they have, they are sure your the next rampage shooter or something.

[1hole]

One of the reasons Lee's "cheap" tools work so well is they are actually made quite well and the fit is tight. We will have no problems with cast stuff in that kit if the bullets are actually sized as they should be, meaning not vastly oversized.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I personally think EVERYONE should learn to load ammo with a Lee Loader! It teachs the basics well and people who don't understand the basics are an accident waiting to happen.

Plus if you have to bug out, you can put enough stuff in an ammo can to load ammo for several types of rounds for a real long time.

I have loaded probably 1000 .44 spec and mags with Lee .429-240 with a Lee loader which were cast over a Coleman single burner backpack stove into a Lee mould.

I gave it to someone to use and never got it back. I need another if someones got one they want to part with.

I always look at gun shows but they are not as common as they used to be. Especially as we near the Zombie Apocyalypse.

Best way to learn loading there is. I still have my first one, a .243 Win and I paid $9.95 for it.

Randy

[QUON]

I was taught by a very nice shooter in the 60's how to reload with the lee hand loader. we both were shooting the 30/06 spd at the range. he reloaded his and mine 20 empties. wow! later on he gave me a list of what to buy for the whole kit. primers gun powder and the lee hand loader. directions from lee and his truely were right on. load your owm empties. not for level or semi-auto's. cramber the case neck and primer pocket. or use bt bullets. i also have a 50 cal to expand the case neck.