Lee Loader Update

[Art]

Well, I'm a few hundred rounds into the Lee Loaders now. I have one in .303 Brit and one in .30.06.

I load in two phases on separate days. One day I de cap, re size and prime. On another day I charge with powder and seat bullets. I've gotten a lot faster with practice, not as fast as with the Rock Chucker but not agonizingly slow as it was at the start either. Most of the slowness is from trickleing up charges since the scoops won't give me the load I want just by dumping and since I use IMR 4064 powder I wouldn't be able to get the consistency I want anyhow.

the good: I've found I can get an adequately accurate load using this system. It doesn't take up a lot of space and is cheap. Cheap is important because, in my case, once I use up all my existing components I'm going to be selling it off. Most important my wife doesn't have a problem with it since its mostly out of sight and out of mind.

The bad: There are quirks. One is due to the fact that you're doing everything by impact. An online video said safety glasses are a good idea since it is possible to set off a primer when seating it... yup, it's happened to me twice which brings me to another issue. The first primer I popped I decided to salvage the case by decapping it. Bad Idea. I got the decaping rod stuck in that resized neck and couldn't get it out. The replacement is cheap but aggravating none the less. Also, the pins on the decappers are stout looking but not the hardest. This means they won't break, but if you don't actually get them into the primer pocket they can bend. It's easier to do this on a wide at the head case like .303 British and yes that happened to me too.

I bought some 168 gr. Hornady ELDs at a good price. Prior to that I only used Sierra Match Kings or Game Kings. Using the same data I don't seem to get quite the same accuracy with the ELDs but I haven't shot a lot of them either. They also shoot a bit higher than the Match Kings, for me at least? . As I said I haven't shot a whole bunch of them so we'll see.

Also, get a good rubber headed mallet if you're going to use one of these. They're cheap and what the instructions call for. I see people on line using claw hammers and such on their Lee Loaders. Whacking tool steel with tool steel isn't recommended (obviously.)