I have Lee, Redding, Rcbs, Hornady, Lyman and C-H dies. Don't care for the expander/powder die, but that and the lock rings are my only complaint.
Have used the lock rings on the bottom, on my Dillons,and sometimes add a little pipe tape to keep the die from getting loose. Too much and its hard to remove.
Like I said before "the only thing that Lee dies don't have is snob appeal". They are a great dies. Their engineering is far beyond most of their competitors and they meet the needs of most handloaders with affordable tools.
Skeet1
"my only complaint with Lee dies is that they're not radiused (or chamfered) properly to work with other brands of progressive presses. "
Jim, are you saying the Lee progressive presses tend to index more precisely than most others? (That would seem to be the only reason Lee would feel they don't need to grind funnels in their die mouths to get cases to enter correctly. ??)
Not ready to make that assumption - there could easily be other reasons why they don't always work well with other brands - and they don't always work very well in their own progressives. I've had to fiddle with the case many a time in my Lee Classic Cast Turret and Lee 3 hole Progressive. I still own Lee dies by a factor of 5 to 1 over any other brand.Originally Posted by 1hole
"The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave."
James Burgh, Political Disquisitions, 1774
If Lee raised the price, maybe the complaining would stop. they have a great product at a great price. RCBS, Redding, Lyman are all great companys, and way over priced! Lee proved that.
I have seen more first time reloaders opt for Lee products because they dont want to spend the $$ for equipment they may or may not decide to keep. When and if they decide to keep it, they discover Lee will load ammo that shoots just as well,(reliably and accurately) as the high priced stuff.
IF THE 50 CALIBER CANT GET IT DONE..............RUN!
NRA LIFE MEMBER
SCI MEMBER
.......from RCBS to Lee.
I started with a RCBS Junior (still in use) over 40 years ago. The only dies I bought for over 35 years were RCBS. Then I decided to try Lee. The only complaint I have about Lee gear is the lack of a set screw on the locking nut. Their decapping setup is GREAT. Not bad for stuff that's made in the US and is half the price of most other stuff!
I also have two hand presses, a hand priming tool, trim tools for all my calibers and an auto-prime. I love them. I am new to casting, and all my gear is Lee. I love the aluminum molds. My first bullets are often usable. My bottom pour production pot works great too!
I recently picked up a Loadmaster - and I have to admit that the priming set up stinks. BUT - after some thought I realized that I really want to feel my primers seat. I don't think I would want to use the priming setup on any progressive press. Instead, I just use a decapping die and hand prime. Then I finish all the steps on the Loadmaster. The result is a massive speed increase. Not bad for half the price of other progressives.
The final straw for me was when RCBS moved press production to China. Why is Lee stuff cheaper AND made here?
That's my .02 worth.
"Why is Lee stuff cheaper AND made here?"
Very good question?
IF THE 50 CALIBER CANT GET IT DONE
NRA LIFE MEMBER
SCI MEMBER
I like LEE crimp dies.
"....... Just whistle and grin and ride your horse! "Ray Hunt"
Dove, don't misunderstand, we aren't upset. We're just laughing at elitest, surface trivia snobs!
There are a lot of VALID reasons to purchase any dies we may wish, the silly part is to not even consider Lee because they are (relitively) inexpensive or don't have purty polishing and knurling when it's clear they WORK as well as any!
Last edited by 1hole; 10-20-2009 at 01:31 PM.
I have most brands.I started in 1937.as a machinist I cant figure how they sell for the price.except using the lates and very expensive machines.most of the orhers have old machinery.only lee and dillon have new.
I have MB molds and lyman,lee.I just cast 4 different bullets.3 lees and 1 lyman .
all 3 lees cast from the first pour.the lyman from the 3rd pour.I had the lee pot hot
800 degrees.I am using a voltage regulater.one mold was the 6.5 criuse missle.
any one that cant handle lee should not be loading.I have never had a bad mold.but I also know how to make tools work.If your breaking lees primer tool your not allet to what your doing.I broke one after many yrs,and I know why.I should have backed off of the pressure.I had that for as long as lee made them.
for the price I dont expect to get one for free.I am going to send it in and see.
for the slippery decapping rod dont oil it,you could rough it up a little.I use two box
wrenches.I have 15 presses from 1945 to now. the lee clasic turret is the best,I have two lee turrets and two lee 1000.I also have the best progressive around
a RCBS GREEN MACHINE with a lee powder measure.to me the LNL is a obsolete machine.as is a single stage.but then what do I know.
WILDCATT
TA, your observations are astute, good post!
It gets amusing to see some of the whining about Lee "obviously" having low quality from people who are not only not machinests and have no idea of what they are talking about but also have little feel for things mechanical! My two Lee Auto Prime tools are over 20 years old, haven't broken one yet!
Dick Lee did design his dies to be made on modern, high speed CNC machines so he could make accurate dies with moderately skilled people he could train in house with no loss of accuracy. Worked too!
No matter what anyone's favorite brand is, I wonder if they have any idea of what current die - or press - prices would be without Lee's competion. ??
lee dies just plain work for me , cost and function both , and i couldnt live with out the factory crimp die for my 45 acp's wow that die is a god send !!!
I like my Lee dies. The universal decaper die makes short work of military 223 and 06 crimped in primers, something my RCBS dies can't do without buying decaper pins by the case.
My 40 S&W Lee set even resizes pregnant cases that I salvage from the range.
The only complaint that I have is that I don't care for the O-ring style locknut, and that is a personal preference thing, as they do work. In fact I find the old style RCBS split ring locknuts barely passable, and the new style hex locknut with the set screw that tightens into the die threads is downright abysmal. The only locknuts that I have found yet that I really lick is the dual ring Pacific Durachrome style with the set screw that presses onto the lower locknut.
I hear people saying they don't like Lee's O-Ring lock. I love 'em. The first time I experienced one I was pretty disappointed, then after using it for a while, I realized that it kept it's adjustment just as well as the set screw style in my RCBS dies, only when I wanted to change it, the side of the set screw didn't split off like the RCBS one did necessitating cutting the lock ring off. To make a long story interminable, I bought half a dozen sets of Lee lock rings to replace the set screw lock rings on the dies that had them. The split style lock rings on my other dies are OK, but much more expensive. One other thing about the set screw and split style lock rings is once they're set, it can be very difficult to remove a die from a press. The Lee O-ring type has always been easily removed with only fingertip torque.
The secret to keeping the adjustment on a Lee die is in the instructions. Simply unscrew the die by the lock ring, not the die body. Like the man said earlier on, most of the problems with Lee's gear is from not reading the instructions.
About Lee's customer service. A couple of years ago I bought a used Lee carbide four die set in .30 Carbine at a garage sale for three dollars because the carbide ring had come out of the die body. I emailed a picture of it to Lee wanting to know how much a replacement die would cost. Lee asked for my address and sent me a new sizing die gratis. They didn't even want the old one back.
In 40 years of using Lee tools, that's the first busted one I've actually had in hand.
Gerry N.
Lee dies are Ok and I've got a few along with most other makes.
I do not use their boolit seating dies though as I never get concentric ammo with them.
I think their Collet dies are inspirational, just wish they'd send out a finished product rather than one that needs fettling.
I like the lee lock rings, the floating "O" ring helps centre the sizing die over the case. To lock down for keeps I just use two lee Lock Rings.
For fine firearms and shooting requisites visit my Web Site by clicking the link below:
Pukka Bundhooks
Not sure what you mean about concentric ammo? Do you mean boolit run out?
If a man has nothing greater to believe in than himself, he is a very lonely man.
HAHAH Allright 1 hole,,, thanks for the clarification.
The Dove
My reloading equipment is a mix of mostly RCBS and Lee, with a bit of Hornady and Lyman thrown in. About half of my dies are Lee. They are a less expensive alternative to RCBS and other brands, and you usually don't give up much if anything when you buy Lee. Lee makes some milsurp rifle caliber dies that are the same prices as their regular calibers, way less than RCBS for example.
My main complaint with Lee dies pertains to the expander/mouth flaring die (#2 die) in the pistol sets. Their design does not have an expander plug that gives a precise sizing to the case when the mouth of the case is flared as most other designs do. The Lee design just uses a little tapered plug to flare the case mouth. This is particularly a problem with 9mmP, which has a slight taper to the case. If you are using a carbide sizing die, the 9mmP case gets a little distorted in the center (narrowed); this is unavoidable with carbide dies because they do not use the die body to size full-length. The carbide sizing ring is a fairly narrow band located just inside the mouth of the die. So, without a true sizing plug in the flaring die, seating the bullet often results in bulges in the case. The bulges are practically never uniform, so that means the bullet is cocked (even if ever so slightly) in the case mouth. This doesn't do a thing for accuracy, plus I just don't like the way it looks.
As a matter of fact, I've gone back to steel dies (regardless of brand) in nearly all the pistol calibers I load. I just don't like the case distortion that results from using carbide. I don't mind cleaning the case lube off. I use mostly RCBS goo in a little plastic bottle which is water soluble, so I just wash the cases off with a little dishwashing detergent and hot water and let 'em dry.
Re. other Lee equipment. I like and own one of their Classic Cast presses; use one of their bottom-pour lead furnaces; universal decapping die and universal case mouth flaring die are both a must-have. Although I own an old Hornady/Pacific case trimming die, I mostly use the cheap, little, Mickey-Mouse Lee Zip Trim these days because it's so doggoned easy. I can trim and chamfer a case while it's chucked in. Some day I might look into one of those fancy, electric case care dealies that does it all on one platform (can't remember who makes it), but for now, the Zip Trim does the job mostly. I'm on my third one now; they don't last forever. Lee replaces them for free.
I've used the little Lee hand-priming tools since I started reloading, although I have an RCBS I don't like it and it's harder to use. Lee has beefed-up the little die-cast levers inside the priming tool so that they last longer now.
Thumbs down on two Lee items. The powder measure and the scale.
Last edited by gschwertley; 10-27-2009 at 02:05 AM.
Yes for 7 years in fact (mentioned in the Lee Reloading Guide or whatever its called). Now the Loader was modified to do neck sizing only but thats still amazing.
Lee makes quality, inexpensive reloading gear that will work for 90% of the people out there. If you want to do jacket swaging or commercial quantities of ammo than sure Lee might not have a product thats as good as someone else. But there are very few companies in the world that will tell you that you can break there product from misuse within two years and get a free replacement.
I have several sets of lee dies and like them alot. I have 2 rcbs die sets also. The only reason I have the rcbs sets is that they were out of lee dies at the time. But there fine to. Just that lee happens to fit my budget very well. Have a lyman M die to. Also have 2 lee presses ,single and progressive. A old pacific 12ga. press that I am thrilled with at $10 yard sale deal. Not to mention all my lee molds. Lee does me well. All the way around. Bob
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