A review of Lee's cheapest press, 90045

I bought one and use it as a decapping press. Its fast, easy to feed, and it was inexpensive. I added an auto ejector on it that works pretty well up to about 308 length cases.

Well, I am one of the few that did start with a Dillon press, and use it for all my semi-auto pistol rounds. But I have a Lee Classic Turret on the other end of the bench that I use for everything else, including decapping all brass before I wet tumble. So, every piece of brass I use goes through that press. And in the middle, I have that cheap Lee C press, most of the time I have a collet bullet puller installed.

The biggest complaint I have with the C press is how it handles spent primers. I much prefer the LCT since the primers drop through the ram and out of the bottom. None of the primer residue gets on the lubricated parts of the press, which keeps maintenance down.

WestKentucky said:

I had one for a long time and it served me well for most of that time. I cracked the press and tried to repair it but it broke again.

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Call Lee Precision 262-673-3075. They will replace it for free.

As much as people look down their blue (or in my case Lyman orange) nose at them, their product do work and they have great customer service. And yes I use a classic Lee turret and Lee dies regularly. The old crusher single stage has been relegated to specialized duties like collet bullet pulling. It's a much more solid press especially for larger rifle cases, but single stage is just too slow and headaches to reset dies compared with Lee turrets.

I use Lee because it is inexpensive and I am cheap.

I have this press set up in my garage and I use it exclusively for decapping range brass before I clean the brass. For the money this is a great functioning press. For my reloading as I don't load thousands of rounds in an hour I use the Forster Co-ax.

I have one mounted upside down for cast bullet sizing. works well.

I have the Lee beginner press and the Lee Loading Manual that was sold by MidwayUSA abut 6 years ago for $20. I use the Lee press for loading 45-70 ammo. I only neck size, use an RCBS bench mounted priming tool, a Dillon powder measure to bell case mouths and dump powder, than seat and crimp the bullet. I like the open C-frame for those big cases and bullets. I resize about 100 cases at a time so spent primers aren't an issue. It is a great budget starter press.

My opinion of both the press and reloading manual is that at $20 it was still over priced. I got spoiled on a Rock Chucker in 1974, and really spoiled on my first Dillon 450 in late 1982. I will also commend Lee for getting a lot of people started in reloading and bullet casting with minimum investments.

This was my first press and I still use it. It sure has reloaded a lot of ammo over the years.