The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - What's faster/more reliable? Lee auto prime or safety prime?

azredhawk44 · February 20, 2008, 01:07 AM

Sevens, I did it too.

Re: safety prime or auto prime.

I'm on my second auto prime. The first one had the zamack/pot metal thumb lever snap off, and the second one is starting to show just a hint of bend in it. I've probably run about 20K primers through the combination of both of them.

You can buy spare thumb levers from Midway, no reason to own a whole extra autoprime. I found that out after the fact.

I have an RCBS Rockchucker, and I'm not familiar with the safety prime product... I've seen it on the website, but never seen one in person.

I find that the autoprime tool will fail to fully seat a large rifle primer at times. I also sometimes get high pistol primers that bind up my revolver. I think it's too tight a primer pocket on the part of my brass; I'm not using milsurp brass when this happens though (predominantly Federal, but some Winchester and Remington in there too, all segregated by headstamp and age in lots). CCI tends to be "tighter" than Winchester primers, too.

As a result, I favor Winchester primers for my large pistol loads since they load easier. For large rifle loads where I must use CCI #34 primers, I do my "initial" seating with the autoprime and use the basic priming feature of my Rockchucker to fully seat the primer to avoid high primer / slamfire potential in my M1A.

There isn't enough leverage (and/or reinforcement on the lever) in the little autoprime to accomplish the job, it seems to me. I have chosen to augment its leverage using my own method. If you're a "progressive" kind of guy, you might think differently. I mostly favor single stage loading, but I'm thinking about progressive presses this year for pistol loading... I don't know if I'd ever trust a progressive (or myself on a progressive) for rifle loads though.

I tried the RCBS equivalent of the autoprime; it was a piece of junk. Changing shell plates on it was a major pain the the rear, the priming stroke was done "from the side" rather than squeezing "down" like the autoprime and had less leverage. Mine had a nasty hitch in the priming stroke that was outright painful to listen too and made me flinch for an impending explosion from the primer each time, but it was just plastic rubbing on plastic. Feeding primers from the tray also sucked since the orientation of the thing was all off. Poorly designed tool all around.

Hope this long-winded series of anecdotes helps.

February 20, 2008, 01:07 AM	#6
azredhawk44 Junior member Join Date: September 28, 2005 Location: Mesa, AZ Posts: 6,465	Sevens, I did it too. Re: safety prime or auto prime. I'm on my second auto prime. The first one had the zamack/pot metal thumb lever snap off, and the second one is starting to show just a hint of bend in it. I've probably run about 20K primers through the combination of both of them. You can buy spare thumb levers from Midway, no reason to own a whole extra autoprime. I found that out after the fact. I have an RCBS Rockchucker, and I'm not familiar with the safety prime product... I've seen it on the website, but never seen one in person. I find that the autoprime tool will fail to fully seat a large rifle primer at times. I also sometimes get high pistol primers that bind up my revolver. I think it's too tight a primer pocket on the part of my brass; I'm not using milsurp brass when this happens though (predominantly Federal, but some Winchester and Remington in there too, all segregated by headstamp and age in lots). CCI tends to be "tighter" than Winchester primers, too. As a result, I favor Winchester primers for my large pistol loads since they load easier. For large rifle loads where I must use CCI #34 primers, I do my "initial" seating with the autoprime and use the basic priming feature of my Rockchucker to fully seat the primer to avoid high primer / slamfire potential in my M1A. There isn't enough leverage (and/or reinforcement on the lever) in the little autoprime to accomplish the job, it seems to me. I have chosen to augment its leverage using my own method. If you're a "progressive" kind of guy, you might think differently. I mostly favor single stage loading, but I'm thinking about progressive presses this year for pistol loading... I don't know if I'd ever trust a progressive (or myself on a progressive) for rifle loads though. I tried the RCBS equivalent of the autoprime; it was a piece of junk. Changing shell plates on it was a major pain the the rear, the priming stroke was done "from the side" rather than squeezing "down" like the autoprime and had less leverage. Mine had a nasty hitch in the priming stroke that was outright painful to listen too and made me flinch for an impending explosion from the primer each time, but it was just plastic rubbing on plastic. Feeding primers from the tray also sucked since the orientation of the thing was all off. Poorly designed tool all around. Hope this long-winded series of anecdotes helps.