Primer seating tools?

[jccinohio]

Tomorrow I take delivery of an RCBS ram prime.. It will be sssssslllllllooooowwwww... But I'm retired and have more time to reload than money to buy components. I'm thinking with the ram prime and the PMA micro die adjust I should be able to control seating depth to .001".

 

[Acyr]

21st Century for me

 

[Bat Rastard]

I have the rcbs bench mounted.
Bench mounted is the way to keep your wrists happy.

 

[dcali]

I went from an old Lee hand tool, to an RCBS hand tool, to a 21st Century. The RCBS is crap. The Lee worked fine, but I don't much care for having a tray of primers next to my hand while crushing one. Like much of Lee's stuff, the design is good, but the materials are cheap.

I have a very hard time believing spending more than I did on the 21st century tool would show up on the target. It's very nice and single loading isn't as slow as you might assume. I'm pretty paranoid about bulk primers, especially in tubes, so single loading is a plus. There's a cool video on youtube that shows what happens when a tube of primers goes off on a dillon - it's a flippin' bomb. For me, that alone puts the Primal Rights out of contention, even if it was reasonably priced. It doesn't have any shielding. Sure, an accident is unlikely, but it's possible.

 

[MGMIAM]

I have 2 RCBS hand held , one set up for large primer, the other small, they both have the universal shell plate holder, i too like to go by feel with the hand held

 

[ToddKS]

The best priming tool I have ever used is a Dillon 1050 on an autodrive. 2000+ cases primed per hour, adjustable seating depth, no sore hands

 

[Timeless61]

After uniforming primer pockets, measuring them and the primers is really nothing more than a one time operation to seat them accordingly. . . even after multiple firings of a lot.

Can you explain how measuring the primer is a one time operation? I would have thought you have to measure every primer. Primers can vary quite a bit in height.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I went from an old Lee hand tool, to an RCBS hand tool, to a 21st Century. The RCBS is crap. The Lee worked fine, but I don't much care for having a tray of primers next to my hand while crushing one. Like much of Lee's stuff, the design is good, but the materials are cheap.

I have a very hard time believing spending more than I did on the 21st century tool would show up on the target. It's very nice and single loading isn't as slow as you might assume. I'm pretty paranoid about bulk primers, especially in tubes, so single loading is a plus. There's a cool video on youtube that shows what happens when a tube of primers goes off on a dillon - it's a flippin' bomb. For me, that alone puts the Primal Rights out of contention, even if it was reasonably priced. It doesn't have any shielding. Sure, an accident is unlikely, but it's possible.

CPS instructions caution you to only load 10 primers at a time, and if thats not enough they do have a solution for an explosion although i have never seen it. It must be some type of shield

 

[Dave M.]

Had two RCBS hand primers. Spent the coin on a 21st Century and dollar for dollar some of the smartest money I ever spent.

Lloyd

Better groups? Or scores?

 

[Straightshooter1]

Can you explain how measuring the primer is a one time operation? I would have thought you have to measure every primer. Primers can vary quite a bit in height.

I haven't found them varying quite a bit in height within any brick . . . usually ~ +/- .001. I'll measure a good sample size from each brick and label the brick with the measurement that's in the middle of the range, which takes care of the amount of crush I set my seater to. When I seat my primers, a difference in .001 of crush either way is of no concern to me.

 

[603Country]

I use an old Lee (Auto Prime?) for pistol primers. Broke a couple of RCBS primer seaters, which RCBS replaced. Finally bought the Frankfort Platinum and really do like it. Fast smooth and has depth adjustment and comes with 12 or 14 shell holders. Solid piece of gear. Of course, if you have weak or arthritic hands, squeezing this thing a couple hundred times at a sitting might not be good for you.

 

[Chaotik]

I use the K&M tool, although I have the 21st Century tool, like it alot, and used that for years. The K&M tool is the only tool that I know of that matches the primer height with the primer cup depth and allows one to seat to a precise 2-3 thousands of crush.

 

[mikecr]

The most accurate is the indicated K&M

 

[1shot]

Better groups? Or scores?

Lower ES/SD which translates to better scores. I lose enough points on the line, I'm trying not to leave any on the reloading bench.
i hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[RiflePainter]

I use the Forster Co Ax primer tools. I have a few of them and absolutely love them!

 

[Bronsin]

The most accurate is the indicated K&M
View attachment 1422002

I have this one as well. Bought it for the indicator and all the "crush .xxx" hype, but took it apart and found a spring inside. The real magic of this tool is it pushes the primer in until it bottoms out and the tension or crush is determined by the force it takes to compress the spring. All primers are seated to the same preload no matter their height.
Try this to see for yourself. Set it all up and seat a primer to "0", then keep going till the indicator stops moving, which is about .004. Then keep pressing. The lever keeps moving, but the indicator doesn't. That's because you're compressing the spring

 

[ptboat]

I’ve been using an old RCBS priming tool that is much like the old LachMillers for 30+ years. These tools have excellent feel. I even bought an extra one because I like them so much, haven’t been made for many years. You can pick them up for around 80 bucks on EBay now and then. Excellent tool.

I’m sure the CPS is wonderful but I honestly don’t think it would improve my groups or speed things up much. Used one of these for a long time and when in a good rhythm you can prime and feel at a good pace.

I this same one works great.i also have the bald eagle bench primer.that also works great.if you can found one.

 

[One Eye Pete]

As with most long time reloaders I have had quite a number of priming tools. I used to prime by feel and never gave too much thought to actual primer seating depth or consistency until I bought an Accuracy One primer depth measuring tool. This kind of opened my eyes. I go to great lengths to get headspace and seating depth consistent so having uniform primer depth certainly can't hurt. Now what does hurt is my old hands when I use a hand held priming tool for too long. Therefore I went to bench mounted tools. The first one I tried was an RCBS #9460. This is a well made unit but it lacks a way to set primer depth. Darrel Holland makes a nice attachment for it to set primer depth but since I am retired and looking for stuff to do I designed and built my own attachment. It works well but every so often I do get some inconsistency.
Then I heard about a bench mounted priming tool that Lee makes called the ACP that indexes off the base of the case head instead of the groove. I bought one and played around with it. Out of the box it seats primers to a depth of .003 and does it VERY consistently. I then saw a F-Class John you tube video where he came up with a hack to be able to vary the primer seating depth. I tried it and it works well (Thanks John).
The ACP is supposed to feed cases automatically but it requires quite a bit of time and effort to get it to work well with large rifle cases. For me its just as easy to feed them by hand. The auto primer feed does leave something to be desired but using a RCBS primer tray I was able to get it to work fairly well. You can also feed the primers individually by hand.
What this thing does do extremely well is give VERY consistent primer seating depth and save me from a lot of pain in my poor old hands.
As far as how primer seating depth shows up on target I'm not 100% sure but I have definitely seen reduced ES and SDs when the given primer is set to the correct depth.
I'd also like to give a shout out to Accuracy One their primer depth gauge and bullet seating depth comparator are great tools that have really helped my reloading process.

 

[209jones]

My old round tray Lee priming tool has never given me any issues except handle and body breakage, so, I grab spares wherever I can for it. Actually found a new one stashed in a store corner last year. I picked up a first version 21st Century that used round Lee trays, that is what the Lee should have been all along, pesky to adjust depth, but, a nice unit, should have bought two while they still made them.
My venture into a 450-400NE got me looking at other tools, as neither of the ones I had would work with it, and I don't like single handling primers on the press, head on them wasn't big enough for the rim dia. on Lee or 21st.
Grabbed a Hornady first, that was a bad buy, unfinished barrel in it would be an understatement.
Grabbed an RCBS that uses shellholders, RCBS shellholders wouldn't work in it, good thing I had a Hornady to try, it worked, plastic nub the ram comes up thru was oversized, even the Hornady was tight on it. Works OK, but, not a fan of its ergonomics. The universal version jaws wouldn't work, not big enough to open that far, and casting didn't have enough room for the big rim, and it cocked the cases on other cartridges, which I wasn't thrilled about. It works, but, meh.
Picked up a Forster bench unt, and a Franklin hand unit, tried the Forster first, loading tubes takes a little getting used to, works nice though, haven't done enough to get a good rhythym going on it yet.
Haven't got around to trying the FA, strikes me as heavy though, like the way it adjusts.
Also found a new RCBS bench mount for a ridiculously cheap deal, picked that up, Haven't used it yet.
Can't wrap my head around a CPS yet, but, sell some excess tooling I have, might happen one day.

 

[nmkid]

I this same one works great.i also have the bald eagle bench primer.that also works great.if you can found one.

I have 2 of the BE tools. They work great except that the minimum adjustment is .002