I bought a RCBS hand primer a few weeks ago.
When I tried to use it with a LEE shellholder,
the primers would not feed into the hand primer.
It seems the ram on the hand primer is sticking up just enough through the shellholder to not let the primers slide into place. Does anyone use this combo successfuly or do I need to buy RCBS shellholders to make it work? Jimmy

I have a RCBS single feed type.
The plunger inside has a screw thread and the problem you are having can be adjusted out.
I am not sure if yours is the same type.
Rob T.

I have the same hand primer tool and have used RCBS, lee and Hornady shell holders in it. Occasionally it will have the problem you described. I take it apart and lube it a little and the problem goes away. (tell you the truth, I never even thought the problem might be the different shell holders )

Couldn't find any threaded parts for adjustment.
I tried putting a little oil in it but this didn't solve the problem. I wound up taking a small round file and filed the outside of the
tool a little so the lever would open a little more. This let the ram drop down enough to let the primers feed. Thanks for your replies. Jimmy

Yep, I have the same problem. It is do to the fact that the RCBS shell holders are tapered on the bottom inside (does that location make sense?) and the Lee are not. The plastic part on the RCBS prime is tapered when it first comes off the plastic body and then strighten out for the little metal rod to go through. Look at the bottom of a lee holder and an RCBS, then look at the plastic part that goes in the priming tool, you will see what I mean.

I still use the Lee, and just tap the priming tool to get the little bar to go back down. A quick chamfer with a grinder/dremel tool should make them work fine, I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info guys. I asked the same question on another forum but apparantly no one knew for sure if another brand of shell holder would work in the RCBS hand primer.

I even sent a email to RCBS and asked but the reply I got was that RCBS has a different taper or something and they didn't know if other brands would work or not.

I used the Lee hand primers (2) for years without a mishap and used every brand of primer in it. But I'm getting too old to have a primer tray explode and like the idea of primers being seperated when pressed into the case.

Most of my pistol and revolver dies are Lee that came with the Lee shellholder. But I have Lee and Redding dies and shellholders for rifle calibers. I have one older RCBS shellholder for the 38/357 and one for a 7WSM and would hate to try and buy all new shellholders at this stage. BM

I talked to RCBS directly about my hand primer. They informed me that the reason I was having primer depth problems was because I was using non RCBS shell holders. Made sense to me so I bought a Lee auto prime. I still keep the RCBS for those odd ball calibers or when I am only loading a few. Once I switched to using only RCBS shell holders my problems went away.

-M

Older RCBS shell holders won't work with the RCBS hand primer either (different taper on the inside of the base). RCBS will swap out the old shell holders, but I haven't gotten around to sending mine back yet .

My RCBS hand primer did work with the only Lee shell holder that I tried in it.

Jim

[ 08-17-2003, 00:20: Message edited by: mbogo375 ]

I have the RCBS handprimer and a Lee shell holder set. This is the combo I always use to prime cases and I have never had a problem.
Regards
Rick

I HATE TO RAIN ON YOUR PARADE...!
In my openion, you made a mistake. See if your dealer will take it back.
I was trying to prime on the press and it 2 systems would not do what I wanted. Smooth every time priming. I use:
RCBS Auto Priming Tool
[Bench Mounted]
Part # 09460 for about $60.

Madison,

I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean the other brands of shellholders will not work on the RCBS handpriming tool or that you prefer the primers in a strip and the tool that mounts on your bench? BM