Lee Turret Frustration

This has been discussed before

Happens to a few people. Most have just used some "ingenuity" such as letting thier thumb guide the primer arm as it goes down. Some have glued a washer or popsticle stick at the based to help guide the arm in. Other than that mine has functioned perfectly.

For some reason the small lever prime arm gets jammed up on the down stroke of the ram (in other words, instead of pivoting under the shell holder and raising straight up into the primer pocket, it lifts up and strikes the outside of the shell holder, jamming the whole thing up).

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I had a similar problem with mine when new, but it was very easy to fix.
You probably have a burr somewhere on the priming arm. Take the priming arm out and dress the edges with a fine file or emory cloth. You don't need to take much off, just enough to soften the edges a bit.

I take the priming arm off during resizing-only operations.

This is what I did (I used glue to keep the bullet in place).

+1 on the lube. While yours is new, in time you'll be amazed at how filthy that arm and channel get.

I had much the same problem- as the ram descends and the primer arm enters the slot in the ram, the top of the primer drags on the bottom of the shell holder, sometimes to the point of jamming. The primer arm seems to actually rise a little bit at the end of its travel rather than follow a smooth arc. I emailed Lee and got this response: "Look at the base you may find a small bump or sand like projection between the locator bumps on the base, file away any bump or rotate the end of the ram that hold the shellholder and primer arm a small amount left or right to prevent your problem."

I didn't realize that the top of the ram can be rotated- just stick a flat bar in the slot and pry slightly- it will move. Tweaking it left or right corrected the problem and centered the lever arm between the locator bumps, which prevented it from hanging up ever so slightly and catching the bottom of the shell holder. It seems to have corrected the problem, but I haven't put hundreds of shells through it either, so we shall see. Hope this helps.

I used a folded piece of paper and some tape. Just stick something in the slot for the primer arm that will allow it to cam forward sooner.

make sure the primer lever arm is positioned exactly in the middle of the two raised notches on the base of the press. you can rotate the top part of the ram to make it so. this is all i had to do to fix mine.

I used a felt bumper for a drawer about 1/2' dia. works great.
Floydster

In addition to the cleaning-deburring solutions discussed above, check to see your press is level.

If there is a slight pitch "forward," that can hang up the primer arm on the shell holder as well--even if both are clean and have no burrs.

Be sure to swab the ram channel clean--both from the front and the back.

Jim H.