2023 bench primers. Any good options

I rarely reload but Looking at maybe getting another primer. I have the rcbs hand primer, the old one that you have to dissassemble to switch out the large or small ram and use the correct shell holder for each round (works but I don't love the shell holder swapping . I have two single stage presses I can prime on... for small batches I don't want to do on a progressive

I had an old bench primer but in one of my moves I've misplaced it or took it to the dump. (and many other things). It was the slow tube pickup type, id rather just use the press if that's all there is. Which is why it took many years to figure out id lost mine

Are there any good bench primer out now. Or even possibly even a better hand primer but I think id prefer bench

 

I am not a Lee person but I do like some of thier products. For small priming lots I have four of the older style Lee hand priming tools set up and labeled.
Small Pistol
Large Pistol
Small Rifle
Large Rifle.

For larger priming lots I have two of the Lee Bench Priming tools.
One is set up for small primers.
And the other is set up for large primers.
I like this set up for foing volume priming.
You can't just slap them out with it with a lot of force. But Iit works good and the primer tray is EASY to load.

I bought the small 4 piece pick set from Harbor Freight and use the small straight pick for turning any primers that get sideways or get flipped over upside down.


The priming tool can be bought either on ebay or on Amazon for about $45.
The pick set cost 3 or 4 dollars and come in handy for other reloading purposes.

 

If doing over 50 or 100 I'll use a progressive press. I have looked at that Lee bench unit. I've nothing against Lee myself. I have a couple of their tools and have no issues.

How hard is changing the shell holder on that unit and changing large to small primers

The reason I'm shying away from my hand primers is that years of wrenching and building has took its toll on my tendons, ligaments and forearms. They still work and produce good grip but I can tell that damage was done and I figure any less squeezing is a good thing

 

Years of using screw drivers and cordless tools and this is where I'm at. Can't hold on to things and constant pain.
That's why I use a single stage press and a Lee Auto prime 2. Unfortunately they are not made anymore, but there are other similar setups out there.

 

That's exactly where I'm headed too I think. And why I want to minimize any more, or slow it down. I still restore cars and run a shop for a hobby. My life has been pretty hard on my arms. Everything from breaking and riding horses, riding motorcycle and atv, playing competitive basketball for 20 years, power lifting, shooting thousands of rounds through big bore magnums, then a career of industrial maintenance and a hobby/ side job of wrenching..... lol.

Also why i don't want another tube pickup set up. My precision use of my hands is pretty limited. Lol. No more model cars or precision steering of a primer tube. I'm like a bull in a China shop now. I don't take a bolt out near an open oil fill hole or uncovered carb anymore either.....ask me why. Lol

 

The shell holders are easy to swap out on the Lee Bench Prime.
It takes the flat priming shell holders that the hand prime takes.
Swapping the little primer ram is easy too.
But I reload a lot so I bought two of the bench primes and leave one set up for small primers and the other one for large primers.
I also bought extra primer trays so I can just leave primers in what ever one I'm using and just put the other primer tray in whether it be rifle or pistol.

The primer tray opens up square and it can take a whole large sleve of primers. Where the old round style of the Lee auto prime wouldn't.

Being a Lee product you can't cowboy it.
Just get use to how it operates and have at it.
I don't do the loading up the primer tube like on the RCBS bench primer.
In fact I gave my RCBS bench prime to my son and stuck with the Lee Bench Prime.

It's well worth the $45 apiece I paid for them.
If you buy one get the little pick set from Harbor Freight, it comes in handy.

Another good thing to hsis the Hornady electronic powder trickler for another $45 or so.
Hand trickling SUCKS.
PUSh THE FEED SWITCH AND ITS DONE.

 

Best I can tell, my Auto Prime II will outlast me. May not be the fastest thing on the market but it works well. Use mine mostly on 223Rem.

 

I like the Lee safety prime on a single stage - universal decap, clean, resize and prime. It seems like extra work, but I never have problems with primers. When I’m loading I like to worry only about the charge.

 

Another vote for the Lee bench primer if you dont want to deal with tubes. A friend has one and they do work quickly, you just have to be aware that some parts are made of plastic so you cant get rammy with it, or you will break it.
I vote the RCBS bench primer (which I own) but it does require tubes. I use a FA primer tube filler for that annoyance.

 

I like the primer tray on the Lee Bench Prime.
My eyesight isn't what it used to be.

 

I have both, the Lee bench primer and the RCBS bench primer. The Lee is easy to use, easy to swap shell holders, easy to load the primer trays, and easy to swap from small to large primers. The shell holders however are proprietary and it “feels” cheaply made.

Lately when I tried some Ginex (small pistol) primers (they are ever so slightly larger than US made primers) the Lee had a hard time seating them in my 9mm cases and required you to push the handle much harder than felt comfortable. Also, if a primer drops in the “loading port” sideways and goes unnoticed and then you try and seat it, it can be a bear to remove the crushed primer.

The RCBS is easy to use, easy to swap shell holders (uses standard type shell holders) is a little bit of a pain to fill the primer holding tubes, but fairly easy to swap from small to large primers. The RCBS had no problem seating the Ginex primers. Primers inadvertently seated sideways in the RCBS are just as much a pain to remove as the Lee.

Overall, I like the Lee better. It lets me prime cases faster and is smooth to operate. It is also less obtrusive than the RCBS, but the RCBS is more stout of an apparatus and you need not buy special shell holders.

 

That's what I had/ have. Lol. It could well be in a box in one of our buildings or houses. It did work well but I know if I had to use the tube id probably just use my rcbs hand primer or prime on press. I like the hand primers feed box/ flipper on the rcbs hand primer.

 

I agree with both of these opinions.

I have the Lee Bench primer. Over all I like it. However - one cannot just zone out and prime cases bam bam bam. Attention must be paid to the tool.
Watch the primers feed, watch to make certain the primer 'stages' , ready to slide into the ram channel.
The handle wants to be operated fully. Short stroking will get you in trouble in a hurry: if a primer gets sideways it is a trick to get it freed of the bind.

I see the ads with someone priming with two fingers. Ain't gonna happen.

That being said, it does indeed work well. I would buy another if I needed to.

 

I really like my RCBS bench primer.

 

Honda hit it right on.

 

Lee bench primer, I love mine, the tray is easy to load and it's just easy to use, very reasonably priced IMO

 

The only bench primer that I have used was the RCBS and it was not mine. It worked ok but I would just as soon use the priming feature on my press. I mostly use a Sinclair hand tool. I'm not sure how it would work for you if you are having issues with your hands.

 

I've never used it for handgun cases, so perhaps that's the difference.

Certainly you aren't suggesting I have pansy-fingers?

 

Another vote for the Lee bench primer from me. The only little niggles I've had with it are that primers can stick in the tray around the on/off/open tray lock and if you don't fully cycle the lever primers sometimes will not feed into the ram.

Pretty simple solutions to both I've found is to give the tray a flick every once in a while and to lift the handle gently to the top of it's stroke... nothing too annoying. Once you get in the groove with this little thing you can really crank out cases... for me it's one of the fastest single step processes in my routine with much less hand/finger fatigue for the same amount of cases done with a hand primer that came in my Lee Challenger kit.