OP
OP
Stefan A
Member
I feel like I am now having success with doing it on the press. If it works I may as well do it that way.
Finicky Lee Turret Press
- Thread starter Stefan A
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wmgeorge
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- Mar 28, 2017
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I took off the auto index and just turn by hand. I also have extra disks and once I have the dies set correctly, never need to change, another caliber, another disk. Works for me, once again the Lee priming system... any of them suck. Hand prime and clean pockets first.
Priming on my LCT has always been good-- I can feel the primer seat to the bottom of the cup, and I can tell if I get a cup that is still crimped and stop before destroying the primer. The only thing I would note is that tiny cups that hold the primers can wear out with a lot of use. You can get replacements for the cups and stems from Lee, or you can just get replacement primer arms with the spring, cup, and stem ready to go. If you just need the cup, it's the cheaper way to go and Lee will send you a few for little cost (shipping). With all that said-- prime the way that seems best to you-- It really doesn't matter as long as it fits your process.
The process is key. I want to run my 9mm as quickly as is safe. That dictates priming on press. If I manually indexed it would be a double or no charge waiting to happen for me. I bought this press specifically for the auto index feature, with the ability to single stage when needed. Poor man’s progressive, I guess.
Shivahasagun
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- Jul 12, 2021
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- 934
I'll just toss in one Tip. A thing that I did early-on that smoothed the overall operation of my LCT. Perhaps someone has already suggested this. So far, I have only read the OP. I plan on returning when I have more time to read the rest.
I was experiencing a small number of nagging issues. I paused and did a thorough inspection of my LCT . I discovered that the ram was not centered on the die holes.
After making a final tightening of the LCT bench bolts, I spent about 30 minutes one day carefully loosening & tightening those 3 column top-screws whilst trying various minor-variation combinations of component orientation until the ram was finally solidly centered.
Most of the annoying Bothers (I could not even list them from memory now) disappeared after that.
That was in the beginning of 2015.
Best of luck getting your LCT tuned!
Hmm...I'm going to check mine for this. My Lee 4 hole (been reloading since early this year) has always been just a tiny bit off. As in dies are a tiny bit off-center. Not enough to matter but it would be nice if things lined up perfectly.
I'm going to check those 3 post bolts, that could be the issue, thanks!
Also, it seems no press or system is perfect.
It might as well be simple and inexpensive like Lee stuff.
I do small amounts of several pistol calibers. 50-200 at a time. Swapping die sets easily with the disc system, the powder-through dies, and the simple priming system are the highlights for me.
I have about 40K through a lee 4 hole, almost all of them using the auto index, and know the press and its personality pretty well. I will give what advice I can.
If SPP primers don't seat correctly in .357, but do in other cases, its most likely the brass. It could also be the shell holder. The retracting collar may be jammed on the shell holder.
Primers on the floor are usually a product of the safety primer being too high or too low. If this is not an issue with LPP, most likely your decapping die needs adjusting. The decapping die controls the primer arm position and relative height to the safety prime. With the 4 holes, each die does not need to line up with the others, so this shouldn't be a problem.
As annoying as it sounds, with longer cases, and shorter or looser cases, you have to get a feel and guide the case into the sizer. This is very easy once your in the habit, and can still allow good speed. I do this and run about 180 rounds per hour. I need to do this with .357, and .380. Just the way it is. The nice thing, you sometimes have to hold pressure on the case to get them to prime straight (maybe part of your above issue as well?) and can keep your thumb in position to put light pressure on the case going into the die, and priming. Again- I know this is awkward, but it pays off.
The auto drum.... I'll get to that at the end, but long story short, get an autodisk, or whatever replaced it. The auto drum is not a great measure in general.
The clunkyness of seating and crimping SCREAM to me that your not flaring the case enough when charging. This is an easy adjustment, and will indeed result in that. It can also ruin brass.
That scraping going into the seating die should be the flair getting pressed out from the charging station. Maybe its something else, but there is always a scraping drag on seating flared cases. I'm guessing you don't have enough flare to get the bullet in smoothly, but enough to feel/hear resistance.
Most importantly with the Lee auto indexes, replace the square ratchet when its worn out. They cost .50-2.00$. Once you have the motions figured out, they last a very long time. I'm about 20,000 rounds on my current ratchet. My first lasted 300 rounds -learning curve. Second lasted a few thousand. Third lasted many thousands, 4th is current.
NEVER half stroke. Always all the way up, all the way down.
Do not be afraid to put a wrench on the index rod, and turn the die turret. Sometimes those turrets just don't line up, and that nut on the top of the index rod is adjustable. Its very tight, but is adjustable. Those adjustment are why my first ratchet lasted 300 (I didn't know at the time. Lee instructions didn't core it), and current is on 20K.
Sometimes the weather effects how they run. I have found with high humidity but no rain, my press gets finicky. Runs great when its raining, runs great in low humidity. This isn't superstition, the Lee's use a couple Nylon parts in the index system, and Nylon absorbs water and acts funny. Maybe I'm exaggerating in my mind, but there is something there. When it does that, I can make more adjustments, or load another day.
On to the auto drum....
So I got a free auto drum powder measure, and WOW! was it bad. I use it now, but It took work. I'll tell you what I did, but can't say you should.
1: The auto disconnector is junk and shouldn't be used. I don't think you can anyway on a 4 hole. You put the screw into plastic part to lock it out. I talked to Lee.... they pretty much agree.
2: Some powders will leak. No way around it.
3: The threads on mine only engaged for 4 threads. Way to little for aluminum, with a 70lb cycle load. This was a product of trying to make the measure "universal" AKA sucks at everything equally. I fixed this in my application by cutting down the internal drop tube to where I could get it threaded a reasonable amount. This dramatically improved performance. It also limited its ability to charge other cartridges. I used a standard cheap pipe cutting tool to get it square.
4. The plastic inserts are "as-cast". I put the screw shaft in an electric drill and turned it with 800 grip paper. After that, ran a few dozen charges to get the graphite coating. Leaks dropped 99% And it did leak before. Around 10% of powder dropped leaked. Yes really. its sucked that bad. 25 grains in .223=3 grains on top of the die. This combined with better die engagement took me from 2-3 grains off per charge -Yea definitely in the dangerous range to now in the 0.2 range. Well within safe if your not running max loads.
5: I don't know if you have this problem, but mine did. Some do, some don't. The above mentioned 70lb cycling. The charge return spring on my came in at appx 70lbs force to compress. This buckled many 223 cases. Straight wall would do better. I took the measure apart and crushed the spring. This can be extremely dangerous so I won't go into it, but this took the spring down to about 15 lbs of force, similar to a normal measure. If you have this problem and a safe way to stress the spring down to normal, it may be worth it. I have seen people grind them to weaken them, but I didn't like the idea.
I hope some of this helps, and feel free to PM me for clarity, or any question. I know this board has many experienced with this press, and I'm sure some of your questions have been answered, but I wanted to address all of your issues from my perspective.
If SPP primers don't seat correctly in .357, but do in other cases, its most likely the brass. It could also be the shell holder. The retracting collar may be jammed on the shell holder.
Primers on the floor are usually a product of the safety primer being too high or too low. If this is not an issue with LPP, most likely your decapping die needs adjusting. The decapping die controls the primer arm position and relative height to the safety prime. With the 4 holes, each die does not need to line up with the others, so this shouldn't be a problem.
As annoying as it sounds, with longer cases, and shorter or looser cases, you have to get a feel and guide the case into the sizer. This is very easy once your in the habit, and can still allow good speed. I do this and run about 180 rounds per hour. I need to do this with .357, and .380. Just the way it is. The nice thing, you sometimes have to hold pressure on the case to get them to prime straight (maybe part of your above issue as well?) and can keep your thumb in position to put light pressure on the case going into the die, and priming. Again- I know this is awkward, but it pays off.
The auto drum.... I'll get to that at the end, but long story short, get an autodisk, or whatever replaced it. The auto drum is not a great measure in general.
The clunkyness of seating and crimping SCREAM to me that your not flaring the case enough when charging. This is an easy adjustment, and will indeed result in that. It can also ruin brass.
That scraping going into the seating die should be the flair getting pressed out from the charging station. Maybe its something else, but there is always a scraping drag on seating flared cases. I'm guessing you don't have enough flare to get the bullet in smoothly, but enough to feel/hear resistance.
Most importantly with the Lee auto indexes, replace the square ratchet when its worn out. They cost .50-2.00$. Once you have the motions figured out, they last a very long time. I'm about 20,000 rounds on my current ratchet. My first lasted 300 rounds -learning curve. Second lasted a few thousand. Third lasted many thousands, 4th is current.
NEVER half stroke. Always all the way up, all the way down.
Do not be afraid to put a wrench on the index rod, and turn the die turret. Sometimes those turrets just don't line up, and that nut on the top of the index rod is adjustable. Its very tight, but is adjustable. Those adjustment are why my first ratchet lasted 300 (I didn't know at the time. Lee instructions didn't core it), and current is on 20K.
Sometimes the weather effects how they run. I have found with high humidity but no rain, my press gets finicky. Runs great when its raining, runs great in low humidity. This isn't superstition, the Lee's use a couple Nylon parts in the index system, and Nylon absorbs water and acts funny. Maybe I'm exaggerating in my mind, but there is something there. When it does that, I can make more adjustments, or load another day.
On to the auto drum....
So I got a free auto drum powder measure, and WOW! was it bad. I use it now, but It took work. I'll tell you what I did, but can't say you should.
1: The auto disconnector is junk and shouldn't be used. I don't think you can anyway on a 4 hole. You put the screw into plastic part to lock it out. I talked to Lee.... they pretty much agree.
2: Some powders will leak. No way around it.
3: The threads on mine only engaged for 4 threads. Way to little for aluminum, with a 70lb cycle load. This was a product of trying to make the measure "universal" AKA sucks at everything equally. I fixed this in my application by cutting down the internal drop tube to where I could get it threaded a reasonable amount. This dramatically improved performance. It also limited its ability to charge other cartridges. I used a standard cheap pipe cutting tool to get it square.
4. The plastic inserts are "as-cast". I put the screw shaft in an electric drill and turned it with 800 grip paper. After that, ran a few dozen charges to get the graphite coating. Leaks dropped 99% And it did leak before. Around 10% of powder dropped leaked. Yes really. its sucked that bad. 25 grains in .223=3 grains on top of the die. This combined with better die engagement took me from 2-3 grains off per charge -Yea definitely in the dangerous range to now in the 0.2 range. Well within safe if your not running max loads.
5: I don't know if you have this problem, but mine did. Some do, some don't. The above mentioned 70lb cycling. The charge return spring on my came in at appx 70lbs force to compress. This buckled many 223 cases. Straight wall would do better. I took the measure apart and crushed the spring. This can be extremely dangerous so I won't go into it, but this took the spring down to about 15 lbs of force, similar to a normal measure. If you have this problem and a safe way to stress the spring down to normal, it may be worth it. I have seen people grind them to weaken them, but I didn't like the idea.
I hope some of this helps, and feel free to PM me for clarity, or any question. I know this board has many experienced with this press, and I'm sure some of your questions have been answered, but I wanted to address all of your issues from my perspective.
I've been using the old Lee Autodisk measure for many years, as well as the Aptly named Perfect powder measure. While the Autodisk is discontinued, the "pro autodisk" seem to work the same way. They don't offer infinite adjustability, but do have a good range.
https://www.amazon.com/LEE-PRECISION-Pro-Auto-Disk/dp/B0014DZQZQ
https://www.amazon.com/LEE-PRECISION-Pro-Auto-Disk/dp/B0014DZQZQ
CoalCrackerAl
Member
I got sick of replacing the ratchets. I too manually index. It would nice if someone would make a metal indexing assy and ratchet. I know the ratchet is supposed to be expendable if something binds. But if you feel something binding just stop. And correct the reason.
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