Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles I just ordered a Lee Auto Bench Prime

which looks like this.



I doubt that anyone has tried it yet. For $30, it's too tempting not to try.

Looks like a pretty inexpensive solution. Let us know how it works for you.

I will. A lot of people trash Lee, but I've had good luck with a lot of their stuff. I am hoping this works well.

Where did you order it from

Titan Reloading.

That use the regular auto prime shellholders?

I went to their site and it takes the auto prime shellholders. Looks like just the ticket for small primer stuff for me. Hornet, 204, and 223. Continue the large primers on my T7.

Hmmm, that looks like something I need to investigate further.
Thanks for the "heads up"!

edit. out of stock, but I'll be searching now!

Going to keep my eye out for it too, if I don't like it I'll give it to my son, looks like the cats meow

They must have sold out pretty quick. I'm glad that I managed to get one. Got plans for it.

I have not seen one in person, but they are making a new version of the hand held that has that "V" shaped primer holder. I hope it is better than the square one. I have a couple of the old round ones and love them. miles

I got it in the mail today, but haven't tried it. It is designed to mount to a reloading bench, or a piece of wood that you can clamp to a bench.

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The primer comes with large and small primer adapters (The things with the springs on them), two mounting bolts, a primer tray and instructions.

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Everything goes together easily. It is similar the Lee's handheld primer in that the LG/SM primer adapters and shell holder slide into the red tool body. The primer tray is used for any size primer. No need to swap out LG and SM trays anymore. It slides into place as well.

There is a little spring on the LG and SM adapters that is called a primer agitator. I assume you flick this with your finger in the event the primers bridge.



The plastic primer tray opens up and the contents of any manufacturer's primer box can be dumped into it. The little ribs to flip the primers is built into the tray. Once properly oriented, you fold and close the tray.

With previous Lee primer tools, the primers could slide out, unless you kept your finger over the primer feed ramp. With this, they incorporated a ON-LOCK-OPEN switch.

Set to OPEN, the tray flips open into a square and the primers are dumped onto it.

Once the primers are oriented correctly, close the tray and set it to LOCK. You can insert the ramp into the tool without the primers coming out.

Once it is in the tool,, set the switch to ON and they will slide onto the plunger.

The only thing I see that might be a problem is the ON-LOCK-OPEN switch. It may wear or break, but I suspect if this is a problem, replacement switches will be cheap.

Gee Steve, seems a little overkill compared to a hand primer I've been using for decades.....

but hey, enjoy it...

No overkill. It's $30, and a simple design.

My belief is they incorporated a few changes that people used to complain about.

It's bench (or board) mountable.
They eliminated the need for two trays.
They provided a way to stop the primers from sliding out of the tray.

Steve, Can I ask where it was made?

Looks like a typical well thought out Lee product. Not always the highest quality, but their stuff just seems to work.

Only thing I don't get is how the "auto prime" or this priming system is simpler/better than just priming on the Lee press? I bought an autoprime from a guy just to see what I was missing, and I find that priming on the press is just easier for me.

There is nothing on the packaging or the tool itself, but this is on the Lee Precision page.

"Lee Precision products are cast, machined and assembled in the USA."

I have no cause to think otherwise.

Last pictures for now. And before you say thing, the cartridge is a dummy I use for adjusting my seating die. IOW, there is no primer or powder in it.

The first pic shows the tool mounted at 45 degrees. I did not tighten the mounting bolts down, but will.



I attached it to a 2x4 and countersunk two holes for the bolts. About 0.8 inches deep, or about halfway.



The last pic is another view of the tool mounted to the 2x4.

That's awesome! I really figured at the price point, it was made over seas and half expected to get flamed for asking the question.

I think that some people had issues with the feed slide on the Autoprime. The primers had to be helped along quite often. i used a pencil to push them toward the shell holder. This seemed to be a problem when there weren't too many primers left in the tray/feed slide.

This updated method eliminates the problem of having that 2 or 3 inches of slide from the tray to the shell holder.