Do all of your spent primers drop in the tube on Lee Cast & Cast Turret?

[UnderDawgAl]

I've got an older Lee Turret with the aluminum base, for which I've drilled an opening on the mounting boards for catching spent primers in a box mounted underneath. Tonight, about 15 primers out of 190 failed to make it through the slots in the base because they bounced around the ram. They ended up on the floor.

What's your success ratio for the new primer disposal system for the Lee cast presses?

 

[AirplaneDoc]

I wish I could get 15 of 190 in the box. My ratio is the opposite, Shopvac works quite well sucking them up.

 

[Grandpa Shooter]

I run about 50/50 in the trash can between my feed and on the carpet. 2 Gallon Craftsman shop vac gets the rest. Even on my Dillon 550B they don't all drop in the cup.

 

[Telperion]

I have the new classic turret and the primer disposal system is basically 100%. The only time I've had a primer jump out is when I removed the priming lever and a primer bounced off the pivot bar. With the priming lever installed, the spent primers will bounce the other way and fall through the ram.

 

[NuJudge]

100% with Classic Cast if priming system in place

Out of several hundred .38 Specials I just did, precisely one primer got out, the rest went down the tube. All the dust and ashes did too.

CDD

 

[The Bushmaster]

I have the 3 station Lee turret with aluminum base and I took one of the plastic box edge protectors that are use the protect the edge of a cardboard box from steel binding. Modified it to make a fence just high enough to deflect the spent primers, but not interfer with the reloading operation. I bolted it to the extra threaded hole on the left front of the base...All of my spent primers make it to the old fashioned aluminum ice tray under my bench...

 

[rbernie]

I get about 75% in the tube if I don't have the primer gizmo installed, and about 95% in the tube if I do.

 

[Bitswap]

There's a trick to this.

I use the Lee 'O' type press with a Lee Depriming Die. The throw on this thing is pretty far. That means when I'm working on .308, I don't need to completly push the handle to it's home position... get the idea... the ram is far enough up so I can put some tape over the opening where the primer arm goes.

Since your not using the primer arm, you may be able to put 'something' in that slot to block the primers from jumping out if your using it progressivly. Or just put your thumb over the slot.

But to answer your question, they do pop out that slot and not in the tube.

 

[strat81]

Lee Classic Turret with about 99% success. It's not perfect, but it's better than 98%.

 

[Rod B]

On the LEE Classic Turret I find that 99%+ of the spent primers go down the tube.

I have the same results with the Classic Cast single stage. I do not prime on the press with the single stage & removed the priming arm. (I prefer to use a hand held priming tool for rifle cartridges.)

To avoid the primers spilling out of the open gap, I cut a piece of 1/4" key stock to length & epoxied this into the ram. It works very well & I cannot recall any primer escaping the tube.

BTW. It's amazing the ammount of dirt & residue that accumulate in the spent primer collection tube.

 

[UnderDawgAl]

Interesting responses. Thanks, guys. I should have qualified my 15 out of 190 in the original post. I did something similar to The Bushmaster above. First, I taped part of an index card along the left and right sides of the press, extending about 1.5 inches above the base. After a few primers popped out the front side, I taped two more pieces of index card to the base, one just to each side of the primer arm.

Because I decapped and resized in one session, I noticed that I don't have to drop the ram very far to remove and replace brass. Next time, I might put a piece of tape over the slot in the ram, at least over the top couple of inches. That should force all primers to drop down.

Another thing I've noticed is that some primers come FLYING out of the primer pocket. Working the ram more slowly inhibits that, to a large degree.

The reason I asked about the two LEE cast presses is that I might consider getting one or the other. As Rod B noted above, a lot of residue is removed when decapping. It might be worth it to me to have most of that residue go down the tube instead of all over the press and me.

 

[stubbicatt]

Get the CC Turret press. It really is an amazing bit of engineering and manufacture, and it is still inexpensive. With the spare turrets, caliber change is as easy as less than a minute.