Press vs hand priming

[Ritz]

I have a hand primer and the fixins to prime with my "classic" Lee. If I'm only doing a small number, the hand prime is fine. I find that after 30-40 shells, my hands don't appreciate the strain (sucks to get old). With the press, I can do hundreds of rounds. Perhaps if I was into benchrest shooting (which I would like to do some day), that last .001MOA achieved by Jedi feel of the primer being seated exactly in the pocket would appeal to me.

It's like anything else...tennis/golf/hunting/fishing/etc. It's usually the operator that's the limit, not the equipment. If/when I get to the point that I cease to be the bottleneck, I'll think about all those little extras that are probably huge if you compete, but are perhaps less relevant in day to day shooting.

 

[rdmallory]

I can sit in my living room recliner and prime with my Lee hand primer

I have also, but be sure to wear safety glasses and make sure no little ones are around. I had one go off in my hand one time and my boy just got up from "helping me", It was a .223 shell and never did figure what made it go off. Left a black mark on my sore thumb and my ears ringing, I no longer prime with my thumb over the shell either.

Doug

 

[James K]

Some folks say you just have to use a hand primer and nothing else will do. So I have to admire those folks at Remington, Winchester, and Federal as they sure can work those hand primers.

Jim

 

[Lost Sheep]

Yes, with handling individual primers, a Ram Prime would be significantly slower. The pictures of press-mounted Ram Primes I have seen show a tray of primers that seem to feed into the Ram Prime without handling. Hence my confusion.

I guess I haven't ever seen one like that. Who makes it. What I'm seeing are Lee, Lyman and RCBS dies.

Well, this shows the dangers of depending on my memory for bookmarks, footnotes and references.

But I did find one that looks familiar.

It seems like it would be simplicity itself to provide a gravity-feed into a ram prime. It would be far easier than the feed that hand primers use, since the press- mounted ram primes are always in the same orientation to gravity.

Have you ever seen something like this?

Lost Sheep

 

[mikld]

I believe the unit Lost Sheep linked to is called the Lee Auto-Prime. I had one, worked great, but sold it during a messy divorce and I believe Lee discontinued them, IIRC. I now use the single unit with ram (with interchangeable cups/pins), and shell holder assembly.

 

[jib]

RCBS hand primer for us, usually at the kitchen table. I really like the feel of a hand primer because we load 5.56 LC brass that was crimped and we can almost always feel when a crimp wasn't fully removed before we crush the primer. We do all our pistol primers by hand too.

 

[jamaica]

My press has a primer arm and I primed with it for years. I do have to manually put a primer in the cup each round. Though this gets the job done, it is rather slow compared to the hand priming too. The speed and ease of the hand priming tool is why I prefer it. I am not one to worry about the "feel" or depth, but push the primer firmly to the bottom which ever system I use.

Just a thought; I disregard any "primer depth dimensions". Of course all primers must be below the case head, but a "dimension" is of little value if the anvil isn't seated. I seat all primers to the bottom of the pocket, regardless of depth of cup face; all the way down. I have not had any mis-fires because of mis-seated primers in over 25+ years.

Agreed! I will add, I have had no mis-fires in over 50 years of reloading doing this.

 

[wncchester]

So long as a primer is correctly seated the ammo won't care how it got there. I've done this a long time and have used several priming tools from inexpensive to horribly costly but the effects were the same. There is no "best" - or even "better" - method of primer insertion, all methods work ,and the system an individual prefers is best for him. Speed, as such, has no meaning in my reloading but convienience does and I use the method that better suits what I plan to do.

If I only need to prime a box of rifle ammo I'll likely do it on the press arm because thats so quick and simple. I rarely load such small quanities of small primer stuff so swapping primer punches is rarely needed but, given that I can make the change in less than a minute, that's irrelivant. My first press, a Lyman, had a tube feed syster with a very good and smooth brass tube. It worked flawlessly for a very long time but I finally replaced that press with a (green) compound toggle press and I never cared for the poorly feeding aluminum auto primer tube.

For the last 25 years, for volumes up to maybe 100 rounds, I've mostly used my original two Lee AutoPrimes (one large, one small) without difficulty or breaking anything. I don't react to mechanical problems by applying more force so IF a primer isn't seating normally I check to see why not. An occasional spot of car grease on the toggle knuckles has controlled wear quite well.

For volumes greater than 100 rounds I will usually turn to my Lee AutoPrime II sitting on it's own little Lee "Reloader" press, which sits beside it's twin with a Lee Universal decapping die; love 'em both. The AutoPrime II is the only "ram prime" device I know of with an auto tray feed mechanism; seating depth can be very well controlled with it too. In fact, it's the best high volume priming tool I've ever used but seems too few reloaders agreed so Lee dropped it years ago.

No matter the method, anyone thinking he can feel the tiny pressure of prestressing a primer pellet is kidding himself.

 

[William T. Watts]

I have an RCBS 90200 hand priming tool, it's more than 20 years old, rcbs has replaced a couple of pieces that were lost. What I like most is if you use this hand priming tool you will develope a feel for when the primer is fully seated and anvil is pressed into the primer mix! Well pleased! William

 

[lee n. field]

Have you ever seen something like this?Lee Ram Prime.jpg

That's what I thought you might have meant, but I couldn't find it on Lee's site. Discontinued? It seems like an obvious thing to make.

Certainly better than their current ram prime die: http://leeprecision.com/ram-prime.html

(Why don't I like Lee's currnet ram prime die? Not enough length on the die body to have a lock ring, so you can have a nice repeatable adjustment.)

 

[WESHOOT2]

advantages using a hand primer

-I can prime 5,000 cases quickly

-I can feel each one seat properly

-I can watch TV while doing so

-Or I use my XL650......