Lee and their close enough shell holders.

Hornady's shell holders suck to. They are to tight, sharp edges and all I get done is fighting trying to get the cases in and out of them.
RCBS makes the best shell holders on the marker.

I like Lyman, never any trouble with them.

I only have a standard Lee shellholder in 9mm. It works fine. I use several of the Auto Prime shellholders which work OK, but are often irritatingly loose or tight depending on the caliber.

tightgroup tiger said:

RCBS makes the best shell holders on the marker.

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I agree... I have less problems with RCBS holders than any others.

King Medallion said:

I like Lyman, never any trouble with them.

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I bought a full set of Lyman shell holders many years ago... they are reasonable, but I have one or two that give me fits, sometimes.

??????

I have Lee shell holders for 32, 380, 327 Fed, 9mm 40 SW, 45 ACP, 38/357 44 mag, 10mm 223/556, 308 , 30carbine, 30-30
Probably some other I forget, they all work as they should.

I have a mix and prefer the rcbs. The Hornaday have a larger through hole and are the only ones that work on their trimmer. I use a universal primer so that's covered.

My issue with Lee shell holders was the old round handheld primer too that used shell holder different to the press ones (no "stem" under the holder). 44Mag would accept some cases, the others I had to use a different holder (45 Colt maybe, I cannot recall).

Press shell holders have been fine for me.

tightgroup tiger said:

Hornady's shell holders suck to. They are to tight, sharp edges and all I get done is fighting trying to get the cases in and out of them.
RCBS makes the best shell holders on the marker.

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I thought that too till I measured the rim on the brass. The brass was 0.002" over spec making it tight.

I just started using an RCBS Bench Primer and coincidentally started loading 32 H&R mag at the same time. I have a set of Lee dies for the 32 Mag and as we know, a shellholder came with the dies. I began priming cases using the RCBS Primer tool and the Lee shellholder and I was having an issue where the case would slip out of the shellholder and be catapulted across the room. At first I thought it was operator error as I became accustomed to the new tool but upon examination I discovered that the shellholder was just ever so barely small enough to contain the rim if held centered in the holder. I have since obtained an RCBS shellholder (#23) and have had no more issues. The RCBS is a much better fit on the rim of the brass casing.

What "32" are you loading? If 32acp you should be using shellholder #7. #4 is for 32 S&W. I load 32 S&W Long with shell holder #4 (came with the carbide die set) and I do not have the problem you are having.

I bought a basic Lee set of shell holders to start out with but I'm upgrading them to other brands now. I had some Hornady left over from when I was using their case trimmer and needed their specific shell holders (dumb, and a bad trimmer, I changed to RCBS) and when I started with 30-30 I got an RCBS shell holder for that.

Instant uptick in the quality of case concentricity from expanding to seating. The Lee ones are fine for a newbie but they have to much play in the tolerances, both in the connection on my RS5 ram and the case in the shell holder.

I'm like Charlie98. I have had less trouble from RCBS than any others. I do have a few sets of Redding dies that I bought their sheelholders for and they have worked fine.

I load 32ACP, 32 S&W Long, 380ACP, 223 with a Lee#4. Have had absolutely no issues with 4 different shell holders.

In fact, like some above, all my shellholders for 25 different calibers are Lee and no issues with any of them. Always amazes me when others have different experiences.

I’ve used all of the above and the only knock I have on any is the tighter Hornady don’t fit fired brass from imperfect chambers as well as the others. It’s a very minor difference though.

tightgroup tiger said:

Hornady's shell holders suck to. They are to tight, sharp edges and all I get done is fighting trying to get the cases in and out of them.
RCBS makes the best shell holders on the marker.

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This has been the case for me with Hornady shell holders for .308, .243, and .223. replaced them with rcbs shell holders and they're all good to go again! The Lee shell holders I have (9mm, 44 Mag, 45-70) are pretty good, the 9mm feels a little loose compared to the other two though.

CoalCrackerAl said:

Yeah the Lee #19 works fine in 9mm,40sw and 10mm.

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…and it’s too big (obviously because 10mm fits) for 9mm and if you try and prime without having a die to center the case in the oversize shellplate, it is an absolute disaster, in the Loadmaster.

I’ve been reliading since 1980 or so. Lee shell holders that were for particular catridges worked well.

But, when Lee made shell holders that work with multiple cartridges that may not seem to be a good fit, I’ve had issues.

I’ve settled on shell holders from RCBS and Redding. I have used RCBS shell holders modified for the primer size being seated in my APS primer tool. The plastic primer sleeve RCBS provides does not provide a lasting solution.

Rcbs is my favorite shell holder I have a couple of Redding ones I like also

I mostly own Lee shell holders. The only problem I have had is the 30 Carbime one has peeled apart twice when removing the brass from the die. Then I only was able to find a RCBS replacement locally, so far that has worked fine for about 12 years. I thought I would be ripping the brass rim out first but that was not the case. And yes I was lubing that 30 Carbine brass in the carbide die.

I wonder if this is a problem exclusively for progressive reloading setups? I know I don’t have problems with any brand shell holder but I’m strictly using single stage presses.