Lee autoprime fail!

[JWCalgary]

Ugh. I just knew it. I bought the above mentioned last year to start reloading. Lo and behold 250 primes later I noticed things getting a little sloppy. Primers sticking in the feeder, etc. Well just before the range on Saturday she packed it in. The plastic housing cracked and is now kaput.. lesson learned.

Now moving to the 21st century priming tool. Looks a little more beefy.

Just putting it out there as a PSA.

Cheers

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[Pathfinder76]

I’ve got an old Lee Autoprime that has literally primed tens of thousands of cases. No issues yet. That said, I hate the new ones.

[TangoKilo]

I’ve got two Lee auto Primes....
One set up for small rifle, one for large.

I couldn’t even hazard a guess at how many thousand rounds of ammo I have loaded with them over the past 15-20 years!!

My guess is that if you contact Lee, they will ship you a new tool.

[crazy_davey]

Originally Posted by chuck

I’ve got an old Lee Autoprime that has literally primed tens of thousands of cases. No issues yet. That said, I hate the new ones.

The same experience here.

[Quest206]

I've used the auto prime for years without any type of failure. Just recently bought a bench prime and I'm getting to like it a lot. No more tired hands from squeezing 100 primers at a time.

[260 Rem]

I use both the old Lee auto prime with the round bin ...probably 30K rounds loaded with no issues and still going strong. Only had the newer with the square bin w/feed separator model about 5 years ...it also works well, less mechanical advantage than old reliable ... I also prefer the old version.

[32-40win]

I bought one last year, that I am still trying to get the patience to work on to get it to feed a primer to the plunger. The "safety stop" comes up and no primers get thru. Tempted to just remove it, old ones didn't need it, no other tool needs it.
Tried out a Forster bench primer tool with small primers, works OK, takes a bit of getting used to though, need the Forster tray to load the tubes. I still have 2 old round tray Lee's left though, all the lids are looser n a goose, no spare bodies left, they are pretty well worn. Also have an RCBS with metal body, have to use Hornady shellholders, with the large hole, to get them down over the plastic collar. Finally acquired all the shellholders I needed for that.
And the 21st Century one, round tray version, set up for large primers, still like it the best, of all the ones I've tried. Don't make tray versions anymore though.

[elkhunter11]

My old Auto Prime finally broke after many years, and I replaced it with two RCBS Universal Priming tools, which I much prefer. They are smoother, and require no shellholders.

[Bushrat]

Wore out a couple of old round tray ones thru the years. The slot where the shell holder slides into the body split on one and the pin that holds the lever wore down on the other enough it would not fully seat primers anymore. Got a new square one a couple years ago, it didn't last half a dozen primers before the body split at the slot where the shell holder sits. Have heard good reviews for the Frankford Arsenal priming tool, anybody use one?