Exploding primers and the Lee Collet Neck Sizer

[RacerX]

So I finally get my Lee Anniversary kit in the mail and drive an hour out of town to the nearest reloading center to pick up some components for my very first reloading attempt.  I have my used Federal 308 Win fire formed brass so all I needed was IMR 4895, Sierra 168 BT, and Federal primers (I’m using their brass so why not their primers).

I already have a couple concerns I'd like some help with;

1.  The instructions for the Lee Collet Neck Sizer say that 25 pounds of force is required to close the collet and size the neck.  I'm pushing down pretty hard on it (at least 25 lbs) and I don’t feel any change in pressure or movement to size the neck.  As it's my first time, I'm not sure what I should be feeling anyway.  Do I need to stand on the handle or try to break it off to get the neck sized properly?  Am I missing something or is it already sized?  I attempted to size a batch of 40 of my own fire formed brass and they all felt the same (no diff when neck sizing with no lube per instructions).  I realize this is different from full case sizing which I’ve never tried either.

2.  So I figured I'll move on to the next step assume the neck is fine and prime the brass but before I can start that I read the instructions with the Lee Auto Prime which repeatedly say to never use Federal primers and to only use CCI or Winchester.  They clearly say the Federal primers tend to blow up in the primer and should not be used.  So I'm planning on heading this advice and driving all the way out of town to replace these Fed primers, but I was curious if anyone had any experience with this?  According to the instructions these Fed primers are more powerful than others and also tend to crush in the Lee primer.

Any advice?

Thanks!
Rob

[Double D]

Federal primers are a  more sensitive primer.  But when I blew my Lee hand primer up I was using CCI.  I was cheap back then.  You can tell I was using LEE and CCI.

It is interesting to see LEE now admitting that it happens.  Back when I did it they denied it.  That was 25 years ago.

[TCShooter]

I have been using a Lee Anniversary outfit for a few years now.  I bought it to get me started and see if I would like reloading.  I have had no problems with mine except I am not real happy with the powder measure.  It doesn't meter correctly all the time so I weigh every charge to be safe. (not a bad thing I guess)  

As far as neck sizing, you really wont notice or "feel" anything, I don't anyway.  You are changing the diameter very little.  If it is set up like they instruct it should hold a bullet with no problems.  I have never had one move once pressed in place and I don't crimp.

In the hand primer I have not used anything but CCI primers and have had no trouble.  Not being a foolish man though I press them in as far away from my face and body as I can.  

All in all I guess the steps I take are none different than I would with any other brand or set up.  Just practicing safety.  

Good luck and be safe.

[myronman3]

is that
1 .    you ALWAYS wear safety glass when you reload.   cheapest insurance you'll ever get.  

2.   dont ever get in a hurry.  if something doesnt seem right, STOP! check things out.  

3.    when loading rifle or high pressure pistol rounds i use the powder measure,  and i weigh every charge.   it takes alot of time.   but when i chronographed rounds,  the biggest difference in velocity was about 25 fps.   i have been told this was pretty good.  

4.    GET A RELOADING MENTOR!!!   i have two.   someone who is right there with you can teach you so much more than someone can through conversation,  e-mail or snail mail.   it shouldnt be hard for you to find someone in your area to help you;  considering the giving nature of those who share this interest.  

hope this helps.   good luck!

[Possum]

I am new also to reloading, but I can tell you I had the same thoughts you do when it came to using the neck sizer.  I found out that it does NOT take a lot of pressure to neck size.  If you are wondering, take a piece of brass and full lenght size it and feel the difference.  

You are correct about the powder measure.  I had a time with it dropping charges that were different.  However, if you read the disclaimers about the accuracy, it is probably within the .1gr it is claiming.  Using the same scale you are using I found that the .1gr seemed like a tremendous discrepancy.  I started measuring each charge out and it took forever.  I am upgrading (after 1 full loading session) to a digital scale and maybe to a electronic load dispenser in the next few months.  I believe a powder trickler will be in order also.  The turret press seems to work great.  I have no problem with it.  

One more thing.  After running about 1lb. of powder through the powder measure it seems like the charges are getting a little more uniform.  Of course Lee said to run a hopper or two through it.  It just takes a little longer than I thought it would.

[ricciardelli]

Don't know about the Lee handprimer, I use the RCBS.  I load all makes and sizes of primers with it and have never had a problem with any of them...

[The Shrink]

Rob

I concur with the idea of getting a mentor.  You should be able to find one at your local gun store, or, if you are in the sough part of LA county go down to South Coast Gun Club - if they are still there, it was 20 years ago that I shot there - and ask around.  You will find plenty of reloaders there, assuming it's anything like it used to be.  

I used to live in South Whittier, got my doctorate from Biola University in La Mirada.

[Plumbrich]

I also agree get someone to give you on hand experience.I started  loading in the early 80"s and thought if it cost more it must be better.I use Redding wilson and Rcbs equipment.I moved 500 miles and realized i forgot 2 boxes of my equipment it would be 4 months before my son would come for a vist an bring my stuff.I went out and bought the lee kit to get me through.After 5000 or so primers with the lee hand held no problems.These were mostly cci br-4 primers and fed #155's.I have found the lee collet dies crimp and neck sizing work better than my 75.00 dollar dies.I hate the beam scale.The perfect powder measure was a pain to start with but, now it does just that perfect throws.The press i do not like but,the little 20 dollar presses make perfect decappers.The little lee kit will open the door for you and will produce just as high quality rounds as any other.As you go you will find some things better than others.On the neck sizing die i took out the mandrel and put in drill and sanded i down a litle for a tighter neck.Just dont by into the if thats all you can afford crowd.I can afford and have more expensive stuff but as i get older i get what works if it is cheaper all the better.

[BruceP]

Ok I'm going from memory here and sometimes thats not good but here goes. I think in the Lee manual they say the reason they dont recomend Federal primers is that the compounds used in them are different and if or when one does go off in the handprimer it is a more violent (my word not theirs) detonation, with a greater posability of injury to the user. Like I say this is from memory. I will try to look it up later and give a better answer. Your kit should have came with a primer for the press. if you only bought 100 primers and not a brick of 1000 I think I would just prime the cases one at a time using the press priming tool untill these are gone. It beats driving an hour for two dollars worth of primers.
BruceP

[GypsmJim]

In the 30+ years of reloading I have logged in over 50,000 rounds, each and every one priimed with a Lee Hand Tool.  The first 100 or so I pounded in using a Lee Loader, but then quickly switched to a hand tool.  In later years I got the new model Tool, and now use the one with the tray and attached to the press.  Never 1 detonation!  Never heard of anyone else having one either untill I started reading the forums.  A few years back I wrote to Lee and asked them if I was just careful, or if I was living on borrowed time.  Never really got a good answer back, they just told me to keep following the directions.

At first, for $9.99 the Lee Loader seemed the only way to go because I couldnt afford a press.  I dont think lee even made presses in the '60's.  When they did come out with a press, I bought it not because it was cheap, I was just impressed with their products.  Never used anything else, and don't intend to.

[RacerX]

Well thanks to all the advice I got on this forum I decided it was safe enough to proceed with my first loading experience.

The method suggested of using a bullet to test the neck size was very helpful to me, and I quickly found that my necks had not been sized.  I now assume all the pressure is found at the bottom of the lever stroke and not an option as to where you want to adjust this in the stroke.  Initially I thought mid stroke would be a good place for placing the die.  Anyhow, I did what I now believe to be the proper die/press set up and believe I’ve properly sized my necks as the bullets no longer drop right into the case and now can not be forced in by hand.  I would like to have some way of calibrating neck size uniformly for every neck sizing.  The hand dial calibrator has too much variation for my taste, but I believe with time I will learn better procedures.  

In the meantime, I felt it was best to proceed and get my first load completed under my belt, so to speak.

Next I moved on to the priming step (the scariest for me since I’ve never even seen this done before), and decided to learn how it feels to properly seat a primer by using spent/fired primers on 5 cases first to get the right feel for it.  I was happy with the practice so I moved on to live primers but only put one primer in the case at a time and carefully inspected the seating and the pocket before each press.  It went OK, I think.  I wish I could calibrate and uniform every seating, but I’ve read there are problems associated with that attempt as well (pocket variation).  Anyhow, I think the Lee hand primer has a nice feel to it now, but what would I know.

Then I moved on to powder.  I went through a feeding container of powder (IMR 4895) through the throw to coat the mechanism as instructed.  I then tried to follow the instructions for calibrating the throw to 40 grains.  I found the instructions clear enough but the actual device to be confusing.  So I decided to forget the numbers and just adjust it until it throws the 40 grains I wanted.  It didn’t take very long until that happened, so I started loading my cases.  I weighed every throw before loading each case and was actually surprised by how consistent every throw was.  I’m happy with the equipment, but I still don’t have faith in the numbered calibration.  Until I can figure that out, I’ll just adjust till I get what I want.  Thank goodness for throws though, because hand trickling every load would be very time consuming.

Lastly I seated the bullets (Sierra 168 bt).  Now the seat adjuster has no number calibration, so I had to just twist a bit and measure with the hand caliper until I got the 2.8 I wanted.  That went fine, seemingly.  But in 40 rounds I only got about 15 that were exactly 2.8, and then ten that were a tiny bit over (o.oo2) and about ten that were a tiny bit under and about 5 very over and 5 very under (0.006).  I would like to learn how to exact every seating.  Perhaps it has to do with case length as well?  

Regardless, I assume these results are OK enough for my first attempt and I look forward to testing the result against factory ammo at the range next week.  

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and please keep it coming.
Best wishes,
Rob

 :roll:

[GypsmJim]

I have 2 powder measures.  Both have a dial indicator.  I calibrated each unit with every powder I use, at settings that were a whole number apart.  Then, I plotted the data on an Excel spreadsheet and used the best fit curve to calculate every single point on the dial.  The results were remarkable good.  (The R-squared values were all above 0.95 if that means anything to you.)  Now, when I set up to load, I refer to my graph and when I weigh the first cvharge it is right on 99% of the time.  Even switching powder lots, so that must say something about powder consistency.

I usually set the cartridge length well below the max, so i dont worry about case length variation.  I suppose that impacts accuracy, but you cant prove it by me.

[Plumbrich]

Rob sounds like you are well on you'r way.The seating depth is about average.Even with my Redding competition seating dies i get some difference this is becouse the bullets have some difference.I also use alternate seater plugs on my pistol cartridges.When i get real serious i weigh my bullets and measure each one and seperate into lots.On the powder measure i do the same thing and turn till it gives me what i want.I mostly use my #3-BR measure but,it makes me mad sometimes that the plastic 20.00 lee does just as good.

[Alice Cooper]

rob. another tip, if you use different powders, is to slap a piece of masking tape on the measure hopper and write what's in there, just in case you have to leave it for a spell,so you got no confusion over what's what when you get back to loading.or maybe you're not old enough to get scatter-brained yet....but never too early to develop habits you'll need later in life!

[BruceP]

I did go back and read about the handprime and primer type in the Lee manual. I was fairly close in my first post.(Dont expect that from memory to often) They said that if a tray full of CCI or Winchester primers go off it will "only" blow the cover off the primer tray. (I dont think I want to test that) But that others, Federal, Remington etc. will blow the priming tool apart causing it to become shrapnel and increaseing chance of injury. Having told you what they say in their manual let me say I have loaded CCI,Winchester, and Remington primers in mine and I have yet to have a primer detonate. Just use caution and like someone said, if it dont feel right stop and see what is causing the problem.
BruceP

[The Shrink]

Rob

I gather you're the engineering-machinest-scientist type with your interest in precision.  Think about the purpose of your reloading and shooting.  If you are reloading for hunting and general shooting, 2MOA is good enough.  You don't need this degree of precision for that.  If you are reloading for varmint hunting or casual match shooting, 1-1.5MOA is probably enough.  Matched bullets and precisely measured powder matched to the rifle you are shooting- that is, finding the load your rifle likes - should accomplish this.  Only if you are into competitive shooting or very long range shooting do you need to go to the trouble of standardizing primer pockets, precise OAL measure, neck turning, etc..  Of course, if you have fun doing, this, by all means go for it no matter why you shoot!