I need a replacemet for my Lee Auto Prime that broke the lever, and I was thinking of a bench mounted primer like the Forster primer or a Hornady hand held primer similar to the Lee.

For those with personal experience with these two, what is your opinion of these tools?

The hand held primer tool I have (RCBS) doesn't work well with small primers (it puts little semi-circle dents in them; makes me nervous), so I use the Forster on my 22 hornet loads. It's not as fast as the hand primer, but does a nice job.

-nosualc

You may want to check out the reviews at Midway.

The Forster Co-Ax Bench Priming Tool doesn’t get high marks, 2 ½ stars from 3 reviewers.

The RCBS APS Bench Priming Tool doesn’t fair much better than the Forster, 6 reviews 2 ½ stars.

The RCBS Automatic Bench Priming Tool (the old standard tool) on the other hand gets pretty good marks. Thirteen 5 star reviews and one guy that call it a good tool but only gave it 4 stars.

I can talk about the RCBS automatic bench priming tool, I’ve owned one for 30 years, I don’t know anything about the other bench tools though.

i dunno but i've used the bonnanza (forster) tool since i got out of the service in 1969. in fact i keep 2 on the bench, one for small and one for large. no adapters to buy, no shell holders to buy etc etc. kinda like a co-ax. never had a bit of grief & I hate to think how many hundred thousand rounds they have primed, In fact i did get into an argument with clarence purdie (the inventor) of which was better, I always liked to "feel" the primers in and he preferred the priming device on the co-ax. it was his idea that noone could feel in primers as well as they could do it by a set machine

quote:

Originally posted by Rammag:
I need a replacemet for my Lee Auto Prime that broke the lever, and I was thinking of a bench mounted primer like the Forster primer or a Hornady hand held primer similar to the Lee.

You can buy the lever if you like the Lee primer tool, I have two, one each for large and small primers, that way I have a spare for parts too...which I've never needed, BTW.

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewP...productNumber=227351

Ditto to Wrongtarget.

My Lee primer tools are both about 20 years old, never broke the lever on either.

But i have checked why it was being hard to seat quie a few pimers; figgered pushing harder on the lever wasn't the ideal way to get keep going...

I have tons of experience with the Lee. It is one hell of a tool for the price. The K&M primer gauge hand tool is more than worth a look.

I switched from my Lee hand primer to an RCBS Universal hand primer (with the square tray), and like it much better. It has universal shell holding jaws (no shell holders to buy or change out). The large, removable square primer tray is easier to load from the factory sleeves, and it lays flat on the bench for easier loading too.

I now have two, one set up for small primers, the other for large primers. The best part is, the trays work for either size, so I have two trays, each of which will easily hold 200 primers at once.

Highly recommended!

Andy

I use the old-style RCBS hand-held tool made with no tray, because it's the most comfortable in my hand. I also like the Lyman 310 tong tool because I can actually see the primer being seated, although I always rotate the case 180 degrees and clamp it again with the tong tool to ensure full seating. Both of these allow the user to feel the primer hit the bottom of the pocket but are relatively slow compared to the ones with the trays.
Regards, Joe

I have the auto prime set up for my Rockchucker,the RCBS hand prime,Lee ram prime and HAD the RCBS bench auto prime. (Didnt much care for that one)The Lee ram prime is TOPS for less than say 100 rounds at a sitting and the hand prime is great for big batches but it is a bit of a pain to set up for 20. The feel on the Ram prime is perfect and the hand prime is pretty good in that aspect. The hand prime does malfunction now and then. I love the Ram prime---I get two containers set up , put the primers in the flipper tray then wash my hands and get a 2 handed rythum going --cartridge in one hand and set the primer with the other and crank them out, It is cheep and is the Mcoy for medium to small batches.

quote:

Originally posted by nosualc:
The hand held primer tool I have (RCBS) doesn't work well with small primers (it puts little semi-circle dents in them; makes me nervous), so I use the Forster on my 22 hornet loads. It's not as fast as the hand primer, but does a nice job.

-nosualc

Make sure the insert rod of your hand primer is inserted flat side up. I mistakenly used it rounded side up once and experienced indentations on my seated primers.

The hand-held RCBS with the universal shellholder is a piece of sh*t. .222 cases were rocketed all over the place. Also the seating stem for SR primers had a fit which was too loose. This resulted in every second seating operation to a failure because ofr the seating stem being misalligned with the primer and pocket.

I now use a Hornady hand-held and will lve happily ever after ...

After years of using the Lee autoprime tools, I've retired them and bought two of Sinclair's hand held priming tools, one set up for large primers and the other for small ones.
The Sinclair tools works well, and seats primers better than the Lee.

quote:

Originally posted by DMB:
After years of using the Lee autoprime tools, I've retired them and bought two of Sinclair's hand held priming tools, one set up for large primers and the other for small ones.
The Sinclair tools works well, and seats primers better than the Lee.

I prefer to spend my time at the range rather than placing each primer into the tool individually. But hobbies vary ...

I have and use the following 3 priming tools:

1) RCBS bench mounted APS priming tool and the companion APS strip loading tool.
These tools work, the strip loading tool is a little fiddly.
It seems to me all the tools require you to learn the art of using them. Follow the directions carefully and they work fine.

My only complaint with the APS bench priming tool is the primer seating depth control screw.

RCBS used a screw with too course a thread, which make setting the primer depth a little fiddly.
But someone could drill it out and re-tap it with from some very fine threaded screw.

2) Ram Prime tools, I have both the LEE and the RCBS.
I bought the Lee first, it's made of aluminium and it works well.
The RCBS ram prime unit is made of steel and works just as well. Of course you have to treat it like a steel die and oil it up after use, so before you can use it again you have to put the part part in a wire kitchen sieve and spray them with brake cleaner to degrease them.

The only problem is setting the primer seating depth, it is a little fiddly because the die must be raised or lowered such small amounts and with the course thread of a standard die moving the seating depth .001" is a little fiddly.
Once the die is set production is quite quick.

3) Priming on the press using the priming arm system that came with the Lee classic cast press.
I prime this way as a separate operation on already cleaned, sized and trimmed cases.
It is a fast and easy way to prime with this system.
Lee seems to have engineered the system in such a way that when the ram bottoms against the linkage stops the primer is seated to the perfect depth, no fiddling required so it is faster.

I don't mind handling the primers, I wear a surgeons latex glove, it give great dexterity.
___________________________________________

I have always shied away from the hand squeeze plier type because I heard they don't have a positive stop at the correct depth. You have to feel the primer bottom in the case.
Thats not the way I want to work, too much skill or art in required.

I like the RCBS tools best. My favorite is the APS model with the universal shell holder, you just stick in a strip of primers and go with it. I don't know that I'd reccommend it now since it's hard to find the primers already loaded on the strips and loading the strips is a bit of a chore but worth it IMHO.
Second favorite is the new model RCBS with the Universal shell holder. The square primer trays will unload the larger federal primer box and again with the slightest bit of care the universal shell holder will work for everthing from 223 to 458 Lott. I've loaded 10's of thousands of rounds with the RCBS tools with no major problems.
I wore out the Lee tools and didn't like the feel in hand as well as the RCBS model.
I tried the Bench mounted tools but prefer the hand tools since I'm well used to priming and using feel to determine proper depth.......................................DJ

+1 K&M priming tool.
Its more robust than Lee autoprimes but it still retains the "feel" factor.
It uses the Lee shell holders as well.