anyone used it yet? its the new handheld primer from lee. i have and use the older autoprime handheld and it has worked well for several thousand rounds but seems to have a bit of slack where the shellholder goes that allows some movement while seating primers. i have been planning to purchase a new priming tool and planned to replace with another auto prime but his new ergo prime seems to be a better piece i will probably give it a try but wanted to see if anyone else had tried it yet.
http://www.midwayusa.com/produ...me-hand-priming-tool

I havent used one, but this instrument works "backwards" from the Auto Prime in that you hold the body of it in the web of your hand and squeeze the primer lever with all four (or at least several) of your fingers. This is much more powerful than the old design with which you push with only your thumb. It should allow you to prime more cases in succession without as much muscle fatigue.

As far as how well it does the job, the aluminum linkages appear to be virtually identical to those in the older Auto Prime and I would guess it to work about as well. The linkages are aluminum bearing on aluminum and will wear out pretty quickly if you don't keep them lubricated. I've found Vasoline to be the cleanest and most effective lubricant for this task.

Having primed thousands of rounds using the Auto Prime, I would have to retrain myself to use the new one. I do think the square primer tray is a nice upgrade.

I owned the Lee Auto Prime, the Lee Safety Prime (for the Lee Press)and the stand alone RCBS primer that uses the strips. My all time favorite is the RCBS Universal Hand Priming Tool!

No shell holder needed all the way up to 450/400 3 inch. And it works! OH, and the square tray fits the square primer cartons, so loading it up with primers is easier!

Not to steer the post the wrong way, but I read a warning in the Lyman 49th edition that stated using autoprime like the one that comes with the Lee anniversary kit is dangerous. Any input on this?

There was a piss fight going between Lee and Federal for a while over Federal's primer packaging (which was rather awkward for use with the Lee tool) and Federal's practice of makng their primer cups in a way that made them more difficult to flip upright in the Lee tray.

Lee chose to go the spite route and put out information that Federal primers were not approved for use in the Lee Tool. That was a stupid thing to do, first since more reloaders were loyal to Federal primers than to the Lee Auto Prime, and second since it had the cascading effect of causing everybody and his dog to speculate that the Lee tool was somehow unsafe.

I'm not sure who held out the olive branch first, but Federal changed its packages (thank goodness, since they were a bitch whether using the Lee tool or otherwise), and Lee created the square (vs. round) primer tray which is better adapted to most primer packaging.

There never was a safety problem with the Lee tool.

picked one of them up in my last order to miday which i recieved last week. i haven't actually primed a case with it but i gotta say this thing feels way better than the old lee hand primer i have. i was actually kind of suprised at how much nicer it was made than the old one also. it has a nice smooth finish the 2 seperate trays fit in easily theres no taking anything apart you just drop in the small or large primer tray and slip a shell holder in and your ready to go. not sure if it will flip primers as well as the older spiral trays as this one has a bunch of little nubs sticking up insetead of the spiral grooves but i think all in all this thing is going to be an improvement over the old one. im due to start a batch of 223 shortly so i will report back after about 1k of those to let everyone know what i think about it then.