This kind:
I have some suggestions for Lee, the primary one being to give more detail in the setup instructions. Not all parts are visible in the little photos and as a consequence it's not always clear what to do with them until after stumbling about for a bit. Also, it would be nice if these were mentioned/shown somewhere:
They came in the little baggie. I have no idea what to do with them...
Entertainment value: Well, the press has a nice little catch basin and tube for the primers as they are knocked out. The problem is that there is a much bigger groove on the opposite side that encourages the primers to pop out on that side instead. I think 5 out of 100 actually went where they were supposed to.
Annoyance value: The nice wood knob handle for the end of the press lever lasted about 5 cartridges. After that it got tossed onto the table because I was tired of it coming off in my hand.
I've got 50 .30 carbine and 50 9mm cartridges de-primed and ready for the next step. I went through and measured each one quickly and found that while the 9 mm shells are within the tolerances given in the Lyman book, the .30 carbine shells are too long:
And what they've given me to deal with it seems to be this:
Which they show being used by hand to grind down the casings to tolerance. Um, maybe someone with much stronger hands than me. I just managed to ding it a little. I may be ordering .30 carbine until ML gets a little free time and can come over and demonstrate for me.
Next adventure this weekend is the rest of the steps with the 9 mm, since they are sized correctly. There's the whole figuring out and measuring gunpowder thing yet to come.
How is that wood platform working out? With the clamps, is it stable enough.
ReplyDeleteCurrently fine. But if it starts showing an inclination to loosen up I'll just bolt it to the table. I needed to extend the edge in order to bolt down the press.
DeleteHopefully NOT that last pic... That'd be a mess to clean up...LOL
ReplyDeletePrimers over HERE, powder over HERE, all possible sources of sparks over THERE.
DeleteDon't feel bad PH, The instructions for the Hornady press were a bit lacking too.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am not mechanically inclined.
DeleteGlad you're getting a bang out of it. (/poor humor)
ReplyDeleteOuch...
DeleteThe two little piece's of metal are your press primer tool's, one for small primers, the other for large primers. They mount on the frame and are pushed forward under the shell case during the priming cycle.
ReplyDeleteThanks! The rest of the primer tool is in its own box, which I haven't yet opened (it being a completely outside stuff weekend).
DeleteFWIW, Lee makes a widget that you can use to chuck the case trimmer into a drill to trim your cases much, much easier.
ReplyDeleteMeasuring gunpowder: I used the scoop to weigh out charges into the scale, and when that got old (in about .6785 seconds) I invested in Lee's Perfect Powder Measure. Marketing Hyperbole aside, it does work, although I still have to weigh charges with some powders.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice - things got stalled last week because I had another project I had to work on. Then the weekend went sideways. Hoping to restart the project this week.
Delete