I have been looking at hand primers on Midway USA and reading some reviews etc. I did a search here but .......

Since looking on Midway USA i see a lot of different hand priming tools.

What is recommended?

Pro's / Con's

Thanks,
Jim

Most will do a good job but I favor the RCBS hand priming tool.

Pros:
Strong and well built
Easy to use
Good leverage
Uses the same shell holder as your press

Cons:
None I can think of

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

I used the older Lee (without the primer tray) for years until the lolipop wore out. Now I have the RCBS hand primer and am even more satisfied with it. The only area of concern is the thin safety bar that tends to bend easily.

Everybody has there favorite that they swear by. I think the one that is the all time best seller was the Lee Auto Prime which is no longer made. However, they can usually be found on ebay. I tried several others after mine broke (after 20 years) and did in fact go to ebay and bought another. I'm happy again.

I had a old Lee Auto-Prime and gave it to a new reloader and I replaced it with the new Lee Auto-Prime XR hand primer. The older Lee hand primer worked well except for me, there wasn't enough leverage built into the primer handle. It was just too hard for me when loading a lot of cases at one sitting, getting old stinks! The RCBS hand primer is much easier on my hands. I keep the Lee hand primer as a backup because you never know when something will break.

If you're young with good hands you can save some money buying the Lee and it will perform well for you.

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

You want a hand primer that uses:

- the Hornady handle (best ergonomics, even stands up by itself),

- the Lee tray (quickest at flipping most brands of primers), and

- the RCBS Universal feed ramp, head, and ram (no shell holders, never jams on small primers, never flips a primer when running the primers back into the tray).

Wait! You can't buy that because no one has figured out that's the best hand primer lol. So the best compromise is the RCBS Universal Hand Primer.

The squeeze length is not as "right" for my hand (YMMV) as Hornady, but its not an issue. The tray is a bit slower to flip primers than Lee. And when new the tray cover is a tight fit, snaps into place, causing primers to dance. But that disappears with use, or a small piece of fine sandpaper applied to the tray center post.

If you do multiple cartridges, you will *love* not needing shell holders. Your shell holders can stay where they belong, with the die set, regardless of where you do your hand priming. Highly recommended, without buying all of them like I did

The Lee Autoprime works great for me, once I learned to work it right, priming got to be a breeze.

Lee is making the XR version of the autoprime, which has some 'improvements', some of which are considered to be un-improvements.

I don't think the Lee is the 'best', it just works and does a great job. You will have to buy shell holders for it.

I must concur. I saw just the other day they have about doubled in price since I bought mine at $20.00 many years ago. I would still buy one if I needed it. Hmmm- do they ever wear out??

my vote is for RCBS as well...great product

__________________
SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

RCBS,

Also an RCBS Automatic Bench mounted (C-Clamped) unit.

I never prime in a Press, I prime cases ahead while doing other things, like listening to the radio or watching TV.

__________________
NRA Pistol/Rifle Inst. RSO

Like many, I'm biased toward the original Lee design. I have 4 of them that I leave setup for my common apps.

I also have one of their "New and Improved" ones. If this was all that was available I'd give up on hand priming. I don't recall seating primers sideways or upside down with anything, but the new Lee sure will.

I see Lyman has one in their lineup now. I'd like to test drive one.

If you can find an original Lee at a decent price, go for it. Keep a little lithium grease on the pivots and they run forever.

__________________
GOA
USA Shooting Supporter

Sinclair hands down. Best made; Works best; Best seating feel;most expensive

I'd take the RCBS Automatic Bench Primers over the Sinclair Hand Primer any day. The RCBS unit is cheaper, uses same shellholders as press, gives you the same feel for seating depth, and is faster.

And purchase a couple of extra primer tubes, load them in advance and you can knock out 300 primed cases in minutes.

Hello' Jim* .. I just want to say that I Just tried out my new
"RCBS Automatic Priming Tool" last night, & man is it
Sweet! .. I don't see how it can get any better than this.*

---> Cabela's: RCBS® Automatic Priming Tool

---> RCBS Automatic Priming Tool - YouTube

~ Joe

Been using the RCBS hand priming tool for almost 20 years now and it's been great. Large pistol and rifle primers does give the hand a workout though.

I used the original round version LEE for a long time. They I decided to upgrade and spend money so I bought the RCBS Universal hand primer. Still liked the old round one better., for the price you could buy a few. Never broke anything.

Of course the RCBS is much better built as to materials but really does not work any better. Takes a bit to figure out changing from large to small.


RCBS Universal Hand Priming Tool

Now I prime on the press, never understood the whole "feel" part? (on primers) It's seated or it isn't.

Have not tried the new LEE version guess they have two now.

Now the Sinclair, I find it pretty funny that the over $100 tool uses LEE shell Holders. Maybe it's good for bench rest shooters, but who wants to pick up individual primers and hand feed the "best over built" tool on the market????

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

I use the RCBS hand primer. I always squeeze the handle just enough to see the primer before I put a case in. I have a problem with tilting my hand while priming so I always check the primer before seating it. Just a tip. This always happens when I am using it to seat small rifle primers not large rifle primers.

I use the RCBS hand priming unit. Works fine, I have no issues at all. Takes all of 20 seconds to change out the shellholder.

I sort of collect reloading tools, the odder the better. Although I have an RCBS tool that uses the strips of primers, and an old Lachmiller, and the 310 tool with many shell holders (which, BTW, I like a lot) and I can pick up whichever hand priming tool is handy and use it, if I am batch loading revolver cases (most recently 32 S&W Long and 327 Fed Mag) I like the old aluminum Lee with screw-on shell holders. I really like my Jake Simmons ("Pope style") tool, but since his passing would have to replace it with the similar Allen-made tool. Both of these have the advantage of being able to decap, clean the primer pocket, and recap the shell all with the same tool and while holding the case one time. If I only had one hand priming tool, this is the style I would choose. JMHO, YMMV.

Froggie

I got the RCBS hand prime that uses shell holders as that was was came in the RC supreme kit. It works ok and I used if for a while. Then I got a used new to me RCBS bench mounted setup and I've not used that hand unit ever since. It's so much better that I may never again use the hand device ever again.

Link to said machine ?

Thanks,
Jim

Sent from my Nexus 7

Good morning Jim

Thanks a bunch Joe.

Sent from my Nexus 7

While the hand priming tools are good. After priming 100 45acp cases with a Lee Hand Primer, my hands were aching like crazy--darn arthritis. I can't say enough good things about the RCBS Automatic Bench primer.

Thanks Joe-I was on my tablet and must have missed your link.

Liked the video and looks really easy. Nice set up.

I just ordered the RCBS tubes and attachment to go on the RCBS Jr3 but I'm thinking the bench priming system will be quicker. I can always put the tube set up on the JR2 I just finished working one/freed up

Thanks everyone for the comments/help,
Jim

Hey' Jim, .. almost forgot
This little video was helpful for the parcial assembly required*

----> RCBS FAQ: Assemble and use the RCBS Automatic Priming Tool - YouTube

~ Joe

My daughter keeps asking me what to buy me for my birthday this past month so I think this would be a good choice.

Thanks again,
Jim

Sent from my Nexus 7

That is a nice base plate under the powder drop/primer tool

Okay after you mentioned this priming tool the other day in another thread I had to go looking for mine. It has been in storage in a box for about ten years or more. Well I found it with all the parts and used it last night. I forgot what a sweet little invention this thing is and you can feel the seating depth and resistance with it —both very important features for good accuracy. Anyway thanks for jogging my memory and reminding what I already own

Otherwise I have several brands of hand priming devices from Lee, Hornandy and Sinclair. The latter is pricey for sure and was a big hit with the benchrest crowd but honestly I like the Lee's. Yes they can fail after thousands of rounds the pot metal handle breaks off but they don't cost much and I have several for parts. Like all hand tools of this type you get more feel of what you are doing and with primers this is really important.

A big press absorbs all that information and you never know what is going on. I can however tell you this — if you crush a primer in a tight or dirty pocket where the anvil is disturbed you will negatively affect the performance of the primer and accuracy.

Regards

Most people like my grinding job on the counter-top. One good thing about the base-plate is that it gets the priming tool up off the bench a little ways so you can sit it futher back from the edge of your bench--you have to mount it closer to the edge so that the arm can make the full swing down to seat the primer. Mounting it further back helps prevent accidentally tagging oneself.

Can't say it any better!

Jeff

How does most expensive make it the "Best" sure it's over built and really well made but feeding it one primer at a time with your fingers? Do You shoot 10 rounds a month or less?

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

I am with you on the Pope style priming tool but for the straight walled cases of course. I never owned one personally but have some old schuetzen friends that do and once you get the hang of them they are a joy. Meacham makes a knock off that from what my friends say is functionally the equivalent if not improved but of course of less value. I know there have been many many more who have taken this design and made copies but I am sure you know a lot more about these than myself. A friend of mine has one made in Michigan somewhere by a guy named Zoyt perhaps not the correct spelling but this tool has a bone charcoal finish and is quite nice. If I can get a picture of it sometime I will post it.

Regards

I don't want to come to the defense of the Sinclair tool even though I own one and have for fifteen years or more. But I think you are missing the point. The hand priming tools like the Sinclair and others offer a very precise method of seating a primer into the pocket. Since the primer is a rather sensitive and very critical, if not the most critical element, of cartridge ignition the seating is very very important. Slam a primer or partially crush it into place using a big powerful press and trust me you will have variations and deviations in your performance. To the guy who is just shooting to be shooting whether it is a high cap semi-auto rifle or a revolver and could care less about ultimate performance and accuracy then no problem prime with your press. But those interested in accuracy, real accuracy and not just hitting one of the scoring rings, know that primers are critical. They are very delicate and yet very powerful and when treated correctly can make a big difference.

+1

I have always loaded (& primed) on Dillon presses. No Issues w/ there priming system, except recently took up .357 loading. Switching back & forth from large to small primers on the 550 is a bit of a PITA - for me, at least.

Bought the RCBS Unifor SP primers, & like it a lot.

__________________
Regards - GCF

You're using gloves to handle those primers too when you feed them in the Sinclair tool, right? Oil from your fingers can contaminate the primer too. Don't touch a single primer seating them with my RCBS Automatic Bench Primer, and don't need to wear gloves. Just to be argumentative, I'd like to see 5 rounds primed with the Sinclair and 5 rounds primed with the RCBS ABP, and see if there was any discernible difference--besides the RCBS being faster.

Just a guy shooting to be reloading.

Not being a bench rest shooter and not having any verified statistical data. I can not really discuss if the use of one primer tool over another makes a differance. I find it unlikely that it is measurable other than psychological. I do not uniform primer pockets either. The primer is in or it isn't. (to me) There are too mny other variables at work that I feel make more of a difference. No doubt it is an excellent tool but not practical for the average shooter that wants to go to the range and shoot for a day or even to shoot in competition. I would think the oil for a persons fingers would upset the primer compound.

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

I understand what you are saying and you probably represent the way most on these boards think but with all due respect there is much much more to learn than you may know right now. Primer pocket dimensions. Primer cup thickness and dimensions. Primer ignition or as they call it 'brisance' is variable hence different classes of primers. Powder burn rates and the various ' Kindling ' temps or the temp where the powder ignites vary and thus require different primers for best performance.

If you ever shoot off a good rest and really know how to shoot off a rest at the range, or ever get a chance to put your handgun in a Ransom rest you can play with primers and primer hits and see immediately that vertical stringing is related to ignition. It can be primers hits that are too light, way off center, firing pin shape, a primer not seating to full depth so it moves when hit, or seating crooked so the flame is off, crushed so the ignition is irregular all of this directly affects the way the powder in the case burns or does not completely burn. It all happens in thousandths of a second but nevertheless there is a cause and effect relationship between every component part of a cartridge.

Think of a primer kind of like a fuel injector since it has to spray a flame pattern into a cylinder for ignition. You say you don’t do any prep work to primer pockets so I don’t know if this is because you think it is all “psychological” and of no substance ? But think about how most brass is made and you must know there are a lot of inconsistencies from thickness and weight, to primer pocket sizes, flash hole burrs etc . In fact if you cut a case in half you will see a big burr where when they punch the flash hole —the soft brass does not cut cleanly. Unless you go in and de-burr the flash holes the primer flame can be misdirected to one side or the other. Believe it or not this is delicate stuff and not “psychological “ . Flash hole sizes are inconsistent at best and do not vary in size because you want to load a ball powder with a mag primer that needs a lot of fire. Almost all of my brass is carefully measured, weighed and pockets reamed and de-burred. It is time consuming but I like reloading and find it relaxing.

Is hand or body oil going to affect the primers ? Not likely since you would have to somehow work the oil into the anvil area of the primer and under the protective foil cover. If you are using an RCBS, Hornandy or Lee hand priming tool you shouldn’t be handling the primers anyway. Load onto the tray and off you go so where is the exposure ? For the sake of argument if you did handle a primer it would be the cup or shiny side and so what if the oil gets on this part of the primer. Every time you handle a loaded round this can happen and with gun oils and cleaners it is likely to get worse. In other words the hit side of the primer or cup is pretty much oil resistant and the other side or hot side is recessed and protected from finger tips.


To a lot of people here reloading is just nothing more than assembly work and a way to save some money and get out to the range and shoot. The more shooters the better as far as I am concerned but after a while you may want to get a bit deeper and go looking for accuracy. Maybe you just want to know was that flyer me or the ammo ? But you have to know that originally hand loaders did so not to save money but instead to tailor their ammo to their guns and improve performance both for target shooting and hunting. Once you start down this road it gets kind of complicated and the more you learn the more you learn what you don’t know.

Reloading and shooting to me is as much science and experimentation as I get in my daily life. When I shot IPSC years ago I had to feed my habit with Star loaders and bulk buys on powder, primers bullets etc etc. . I eventually learned that without deep pockets or a sponsor there was no realistic way to jump to the next level or from local to national. Too costly all the way around. Even bench rest shooting boils down to money and the time to drive all over the country to compete. So I can live looking for real accuracy from my safe full of guns and some thirty-five various cartridges. Each one is different, each gun is different so the challenge is there and like I said I like the science and experimentation of working up the perfect load which by the way I have not found —not yet.

Regards

So is it recommended to de-burr or ream the flash hole ?

Is there a tool to make your brass uniform in regards to the flash hole ?

Thanks,
Jim

This wasn't directed at me but this is the same unit that shipped in the kit I bought:

RCBS Hand Priming Tool

Note that you have to use your shell holders in this tool or order extras of them.

If you are in the class of loader as Garbler then the answers to uniforming flash holes and primer pockets are available from Sinclair and are rated fairly high.

I bought the Sinclair primer pocket uniforming tool and it does a great job at what it does.

BUT...

If you are a reloader that is really that worried about the level of performance where you are getting into these tools then you are already out of picking up left behind range brass and are likely ordering fresh brass from someone like Lapua or similar. Lots of guys feel that once brass has been used you will never get the same accuracy from that case again. And as for uniforming holes you will be removing metal from the case so you get into if case dimentions are off and really you are just sorting everything into your own lots instead of trying to alter them. If you ever really want to be at Garbler level then there are a hundred other variables to worry about. But that's best left to those in f class competition or something similar that actually has any real value in that level of reloading. So yes as he said for most reloaders that kind of loading isn't needed. But it is good to know at least a little of it because some of their tricks help really up the quality of your loads. That may or may not help you equal out to making the 400 yard shot when you might not want to stretch out passed 300 yards most days.

Sinclair makes a primer pocket uniformer that is pretty well made, but it is expensive--guessing because it says Sinclair on it. You can find them at Brownell's. I use a primer Wilson pocket reamer to clean the crimp out of my .223 brass, this works in my Wilson case trimmer. I would not worry about doing this for handgun cartridges--unless you are bench rest shooter, and I don't trim my handgun brass either--but then again I don't shoot my handguns from a bench or rest.

You can also debur the flash-holes in the primer pocket, weigh each case, keep the cartridge oriented in a certain position if you find a powder that sensitive to position, shoot only when it is a certain temperature out if the powder is temp sensitive. This from a reloading that doesn't have a clue when it comes to benchrest shooting.

I am not trying to sell anybody on anything here just trying to turn on the light in the closet so you can all see what is on the shelves so to speak. Like I tried to say earlier there are so many possibilities to making good ammo or ammo that will shoot in a particular gun that it can be a turn off to many and to nut cases like myself — bait. I am however a real believer in proper primer care and installation since I truly believe that these little explosive devices must direct their fire correctly or everything else can go wrong to one degree or the other. The primer is the beginning of the whole process.

You do not need to spend a lot of money on case prep tools. Primer pocket uniformers and flash hole deburring tools used to be made by RCBS, Hornandy, Lyman all the usual suspects. Then some of the smaller shops like K&M, Dewey, Whitetail Machine and of course Sinclair. Once you buy one of these tools they last forever really and are a good investment. The flash hole deburring tool is 4th from the top. I seem to always have a problem with images loading sideways ?

Regards

http://smith-wessonforum.com/attachm...1&d=1364316634

Attached Images

phot[1].jpg (99.0 KB, 45 views)

Hope you don't mind Garbler, I got it rotated for you. Your flash-hole deburring tool is the 4th from the left and 4th from the right--commonly known as the middle.

I have the same Lee primer pocket cleaner, which fits in a power drill quiet nicely.

That would require the proper Sinclair photo editing and posting tool.

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

Thank you very much and a skill I should learn.

I have the Lee and the RCBS, I prefer the RCBS, it's a little more to change from small to large primers but it's not a big deal. It fits my hand better and just works better but I use both. I keep one set for small and one set for large.Hornady also has one that looks good but I've never seen one in person. One of the things I like about hand primeing is that you can feel the primer seat and how much resistance there is. I loaded 200 rounds of 38 today and the primers were a little tight seating so I know I need to clean primer pockets on those cases next time.

I have the Lee and used it for most of 30 years. Then arthritis
in my thumb joints started kicking in. I got the Sinclair and love
the extra leverage and "feel" this tool affords. I also like the fact
you can get extra heads to set up different rounds rapidly.
I only load the large primers so that change over is not so important to me.
Thanks to the above posters for reminding me to use gloves.
I can get the thin medical kind at work.

---
Nemo