Prieming Tool

D

D.Dascher

Guest
Hello all,I am ready to upgrade from my Lee Auto-Prime,I am looking at hand held tools from Sinclair and K&M.Any thoughts or opinions on each,is the Dial Indictator on the K&M tool a worthwhile feature,or does it overly compliate a realitevely straight forward task? As always thank you for your time and help,Dee.
 
Dee,

I have both, but I also have a certain amount of arthritis in my thumbs. I can feel a small rifle primer into perfict position with my Sinclair with just the one hand on the lever. With LR primers, I need the extra force of two thumbs doing the job, at which time I lose seating sensitivity (gorilla with a putter thing), so I use the K & M with a dial gauge.

If I was free of the arthritis & buying now, I'd probably go for a standard K & M without the measuring gear because it's cheaper, but dang, the Sinclair is neat.

John
 
Prefer the RCBS tool with the square tray and universal cartridge holder. It's a automatic tool that still gives the single primer feel. Reasonably priced too.
 
for most of my benchrest and accuracy loads i prime single...with the old lee tools with the screw in shell holder.....i use the press for volume( dillon 550's)....i do use a lee tray model for some stuff...not much any more.

mike in co
 
I have both the sinclair and K&m, actually a couple of each. The K&M is really hard to beat, as its
just about indestructable and has very good feel. The Sinclair has slightly better feel, but is more than
twice the price. I have used both kinds daily for years and don't think I'll wear one out soon. The lee
is ok for what it is,works well, but can fail in a heartbeat. I wouldn't prime in a press for anything
but shot shells
 
OK, so which ones have adjustable seating depth? I need to adjust seating depth for two of my cartridges.

al
 
every time i see this, i say what the f***??
the primer should be seated to the bottom of the pocket and then a slight crush...well just a firm push....
any primer not seated to the bottom of the primer pocket is going to use firing pin momentum to finish seating the primer prior to firing it....
????????
mike in co
alinwa said:
OK, so which ones have adjustable seating depth? I need to adjust seating depth for two of my cartridges.

al
Click to expand...
 
I've gone to the K&M deluxe because it lets me feel when the primer is bottomed out and the gauge allows me to set it to a fairly uniform crush after that. So yes I'm pretty much setting my crush off the height of the primer. Not where it should be, which is off of the bottom of the anvil. At this time I haven't gotten around to using the more time consuming pointed dial indicator on the K&M to set the crush for each individual primer. I just go by feel and add .002" on the gauge. I'm saving testing using the K&M their suggested way for sometime in the future. BTW Federal and CCI techs will both tell you they want around a .002" crush on their primers. Ironically the CCI and Lapua manuals will give a certain depth past flush as the correct way to seat a primer. And I can sort of understand why they'd use that simplified explanation.

I've sorted a couple 1K count boxes of primers, mostly by weight and cup height, this year in various ways after an epiphany brought on by this thread.

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?74018-Who-makes-a-priming-tool-that-works-off-of-the-case-base

The cups I measured in Federal Small Rifle Match and CCI Small Rifle Match didn't only vary .009" in cup height, but also you'll find the legs of the anvil inconsistently sticking up and in or positioned unevenly to the cup. Not only that, but it looks like the legs are bent at different angles. So using a pointed dial indicator to take the measurement off of a point down on the anvil legs isn't an exact way of doing it either. But yes, probably better than the way I do it. The CCI tech told me it is the crush from the tip of the anvil that you want to set consistent. If you get that right I'm guessing all you have to worry about would be a good uniform priming mixture.

So if you can get away with using child labor and their good eyes to sort through primers that you have already sorted by cup height and weight. I'm guessing you'd be on your way to running accurate tests to see how much of a crush your load likes using the K&M Deluxe tool. Nothing to it.

Some of the K&Ms are nicer than others. A friends that I had barrowed originally was very nice and smooth. With the one I bought, I need to use an o-ring or an odd washer under the upper body to raise the shell holder high enough so I can insert a case without it hitting the primmer holding sleeve. I needed to be lap the sleeve to smooth it out. So I'm guessing I need to run the sleeve to a machinist with a good small lath to have it shortened evenly.
 
I have both. I prefer the Sinclair because the feel is superb compared to the K&M. However, using the K&M with the dial guage doesn't depend on feel and is probably more precise than the Sinclair but is more time consuming. I have also tried both the Lee Auto Prime and the 21st Century Shooting handheld priming tools. Neither gives very good feel in my opinion and I experienced a lot of primer feeding problems.
 
I use the Lee Auto Prime. They are cheap but do a passable job. They do break. I am on my 3rd one. They also miss feed periodically.
I don't like handling primers with my hands at the range since I usually have some king of lube or cleaning chemical on my fingers. So that is why I have stuck with the Lee. That and I am lazy and load 10 or 20 at at a time in the Lee.
I have tried the RCBS Universal hand priming tool and don't care for it.
I am going to try the 21st century priming tool, when I get around to ordering one.
http://www.21stcenturyshooting.com/Priming_Tool.php

I have used a borrowed K&M at the range and really enjoyed it. It worked very well and I would have gotten one but for my phobia of contaminating a primer and my terminal affliction with "Bone Idleness".
Ted
 
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D.Dascher said:
I am looking at hand held tools from Sinclair and K&M.Any thoughts or opinions on each.
Click to expand...

I have owned both and both are first rate tools. Unfortunately I find the K&M operating lever to be a little on the short side and with my older weaker wrists I find the K&M takes too much effort so I sold it. The Sinclair has a mechanical advantage being a little larger so I kept it in fact I own two.
Dick
 
TedH: You wrote that you have the RCBS Universal tool and don't care for it. Why, specifically, do you not care for it?

Jim
 
I once wrote to Lee

and told them if they would make their priming tools a bit more robust, folks woud pay, within reason, whatever the cost was. Looks like someone has proven it, eh?

I blew up a Lee Priming tool a number of years ago now. Blew up my left thumb leaving 3rd degree burns and a mangled mess! It was my fault though. I didn't read in the instructions where it said to not put in more then 10 Federal primers.

After that experience I purchased an RCBS ( the one before the universal ) because it has the flash gate in it. When the universals with the square tray came out I bought two of them and that is what I use. I bought a Forster bench model but the primer tube doesn't hold enough for my taste. It works good though. I need to have a big Tag Sale on some of this stuff!
 
jim b. said:
TedH: You wrote that you have the RCBS Universal tool and don't care for it. Why, specifically, do you not care for it?

Jim
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to have any better feel than the Lee and the guide arm that sticks out from the side causes two issues. It makes it hard to take apart to store in my range box and it gets bent all of the time,
 
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I think the 21ST. Century priming tools are first rate. I bought two of them and really like the feel. Also you can adjust them for seating depth if you want too. They are certainly well made for ease of use. You can,t get two primers in a time. This is a nice feature in my opinion. One for large and one for small so you don,t have to change them around. Hope this helps.

John
 
Pete Wass said:
and told them if they would make their priming tools a bit more robust, folks woud pay, within reason, whatever the cost was. Looks like someone has proven it, eh?

I blew up a Lee Priming tool a number of years ago now. Blew up my left thumb leaving 3rd degree burns and a mangled mess! It was my fault though. I didn't read in the instructions where it said to not put in more then 10 Federal primers.

After that experience I purchased an RCBS ( the one before the universal ) because it has the flash gate in it. When the universals with the square tray came out I bought two of them and that is what I use. I bought a Forster bench model but the primer tube doesn't hold enough for my taste. It works good though. I need to have a big Tag Sale on some of this stuff!
Click to expand...

EEKS........ in other words I should not load it up with enough primers to load for a entire 2 gun???????????????

Minimum I put in it is 100 primers and mine is the OLD Lee without the arm that isolates the seating primer from the rest.

Calvin
 
I recently purchased the K&M Deluxe (with the indicator). It's definitely more time consuming to use as directed, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad.
 
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