bozo699
Gold $$ Contributor
I love having two reloading rooms as well
Wayne
What Priming Tool to Buy
- Thread starter chefmossy
- Start date
Wayne
drop_point
Silver $$ Contributor
Its two hours away from home, but I can shoot and load on site. That'll save some time and money.
bozo699
Gold $$ Contributor
I do all load development at the ranch as my reloading room is on my range but after I develop the load, I can load in town if I want. Makes it nice, glad you also have that opportunity
Wayne
lttac
Gold $$ Contributor
I have nothing but good things to say about these items! I bought the Alpha primer tubes with the primer filler gadget and it is a time saver for sure! I have limited time in the loading room due to travel for work and efficiency and accuracy are at the top of my list. Well worth the money spent!
Finally got around to setting up and using the PCPS primer tool. It works slick and seats extremely uniform. I've used a K&M for many years for BR and my Lee I got back in 1990. Always by hand and feel. Getting older sucks! Anyhow...I set the PCPS up on a Harrells BR press I had laying around. It's not set up exactly how I wanted, but I got it to work well. Downside is, I need to use my finger tips to turn micrometer adjustment. I'm sure I can mill some press away to make it more accessible, but not like you need to adjust it alot. Set once and forget.
I also needed to face off about .05 thou from the shellholder ram to allow the primer tool face toward me and allow the press to cam over.
I use my dillon primer pick up tube fill the primer tubes I made for the PCPS.
I won't go back to hand priming my SR BR loads ever!
I also needed to face off about .05 thou from the shellholder ram to allow the primer tool face toward me and allow the press to cam over.
I use my dillon primer pick up tube fill the primer tubes I made for the PCPS.
I won't go back to hand priming my SR BR loads ever!
Got my PCPS set up on my Zero press this week. This primer tool works really well and by my calibrated eye, very consistent. My only gripe is that the turret head will not rotate completely as the tool hits the body of the press the way I have the tool set up. We'll see how much of a gripe this remains.
muleystalker
Silver $$ Contributor
You don't need the press to cam over, your not sizing brass. The ram can only go so far and then then is hitting a hard stop that you set on the primming tool, no matter how hard you pull its not going to go any further. Its just seating primers... you were doing it with a hand primer before and it sure wasn't camping over,LOLIf it was me I would put a locking collet on the ram so the ram would only come down 1/8" to 1/4" from touching the bottom of the primming ram, that way the throw on the handle will be taken up and save a bunch of un needed motion on the long handle stroke making primming a lot quicker. If you cam over on the setup you are just going to put more wear on the primming tool and press without any gain in priming
Actually after looking at your photo you probably don't need a collet, you need to screw the priming unit all the way down on the press, that will get the priming rod closer to your ram shorting the handle stroke needed to seat the primer and making the process faster and saving a lot of unnecessary movement by your hand and arm. Also by screwing the unit deeper into the press you will gain better access to the micrometer for adjustment.
It does need to cam over slightly. I know and fully understand exactly how the press and primer tool works! The small harrells press does NOT have the leverage other presses have. I've tried a short stroke...sounds funny, but the handle being that high doesn't have much force yet. You'll pull the press right off the bench! The handle on these presses are short anyhow, so no biggie on the travel. Only way to screw priming tool down deeper is to shorten the ram on press. Not doing that. I choose to take the least off the ram plate. I can probably face more off ram holder for maybe a turn or two. Probably the only way you will understand this is to try it on a Harrells yourself. It's not the same as a conventional press...
muleystalker
Silver $$ Contributor
I know what you're talking about, I have 2 Harrells presses that size, a Sinclair, and a Harrells 4xTurrent press. great presses buy the way. I would just bolt the Harrells to the bench, The Primal Rights handle isn't any longer than a Harrells handle and works fine. Might have to do with its position but I think either way it's going to need to be bolted to the bench. For sure the way it's clamped now just bearing on that narrow wooden door shim isn't going to help. It's defiantly something that can be worked out, once it is it looks like it should workout quite nice. Keep us posted.
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Works fabulous how I have it, haha. The shim is there because the top countertop has raised radius on the end. The shim was in arms length laying around and it works to make it clamp solid. If the clamp on press was a tad further back, it would clamp solid. It's right in alignment if the countertop lip. There is no effort in priming how I have it set up and don't want to bolt it down. The fulcrum, load, effort is all in different locations, so handle length can't be a comparison. That's why the harrells need the stroke length how I have it. Haha
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This past winter I really focused on getting consistent primer seating depth. IMHO, there are 4 kinds of priming tools. ones that index off the rim, and ones that index off the case head, which is more accurate. Ones without a stop that go by feel, and ones that have a stop, which is more accurate.
First a good tool for measuring the depth is needed. My digital calipers were not good enough.
I found that my bench tool that goes off the rim and my feel, gave me a ES of over .010. My "feel" sucks.
I am now using a tool with a stop, that goes off the rim, in the press, and am getting .0025 ES. I can get it smaller if I want by measuring each case and going back into the press, but with the stop it cannot go any deeper, just shallower by my feel.
I can live with the .0025 for now, but have another set up that I have not finished that indexes off the base, and has a stop.
First a good tool for measuring the depth is needed. My digital calipers were not good enough.
I found that my bench tool that goes off the rim and my feel, gave me a ES of over .010. My "feel" sucks.
I am now using a tool with a stop, that goes off the rim, in the press, and am getting .0025 ES. I can get it smaller if I want by measuring each case and going back into the press, but with the stop it cannot go any deeper, just shallower by my feel.
I can live with the .0025 for now, but have another set up that I have not finished that indexes off the base, and has a stop.
I set the die so it will clear the press when you turn the turret, and just put some blue tape on the priming ram to hold it up, turns fine.
So to go to the Cliff’s notes on his research: bottoming the primer in the pocket produced the best results. The primer not being fully seated or seated to “crush” saw negative results.
With any good priming tool ( Sinclair or PMA) u can certainly feel when thr primer “ bottoms” out in the pocket. With the Sinclair tool, it captures/ holds the case and u can adjust the seating depth with the length of the seating stem. While the Sinclair tool does not have a calibrated seating stem, it still is micro adjustable to the brass u are using.
If u have not uniformed the primer pockets to a consistent depth, then the fixed depth priming tools are providing a variation ( less than fully seated) in depth.
That is what I took away from the video.
Sandstorm
Gold $$ Contributor
Always do your own testing to be certain it fits your application is my motto.
YMMV
rijndael
Silver $$ Contributor
I think the answer is to not seat to flush.
If you seat to something like .004" of crush, and you come up with a slightly deeper pocket ... say .003" deeper, you'll be at .001" of crush .... the key is you're still crushed.
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