Loads for 9mm, .45, and .223

[Jonnin]

You can deprime with any old punch -- even just a long thin nail -- , dunno if you need a full lee loader for that. And the priming tool is available seperate, and lots of people use that to prime on the side of tv or whatever. The lee loader thingy is meant to load the ammo fully and will have more than you need, though its not too expensive.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I have a real old "hammer deprime" tool set from long ago. Guess it is a lee but its been so long dunno. It is a little ring of metal to hold a shell off the table, and a steel thing that looks a lot like a center punch.

It works fine but in my experience is much slower than a universal deprime die in the hand press. When first got the idea to try depriming and priming away from the press, I was depriming with the punch and a hammer, and it was rather slow and annoying to do hundreds of cases thataway.

edit-- When I first started looking for a hand deprime tool better than the hammer method, was looking to see if anybody had a tool like funky hand-pliers. Something like that, if spring-loaded and truly ergonomically designed, would probably be the fastest way to git er done. One hand constantly holding the deprime pliers and the other hand manipulating the brass. Can't recall but think I found a couple of oddball tools kinda like that, but were expensive enough "on a gamble that they would work" that the lee hand press seemed a better bet.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Lumber_Jack]

This is true. Heard of any problems with the loader itself?

From everything I've heard, it works fine. Just slow and takes some strength in some applications. Let's face it, for the money, even of you only deprimed with it, it wouldn't be a bad investment. Edited April 22, 2012 by Lumber_Jack

[gjohnsoniv]

Well I also have some other reasons why I want it. I see it being useful for efficiency, but also for when it could be beneficial to have a reloader with you, like at a base camp or something. I dunno.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I have not tried fully loading ammo with the hand press. Mainly decapping, though I got a couple of other specialty dies to play with. A primer pocket reamer die that works, but didn't do exactly what I expected it to do. And a couple of Lee "factory crimp" dies I'll play with sometime if the dies on the SDB manage to not crimp good enough in some cases. The SDB crimps fine for everything so far except some problematic .380 loads. One of these days will experiment to find out if post-processing those .380 loads with the factory crimp die will fix it.

There are many youtube videos of the hand press. Some are fairly complete demos showing the complete loading cycle of a couple of calibers, and at least one video showing complete loading of 9mm with the hand press.

I don't have a bench single stage and my sdb won't handle rifle, only pistol. Was thinking maybe could get my feet wet fooling with .223 full reloading on the hand press, but it doesn't look like much fun. Would probably either buy a single stage bench press, or bite the bullet and get a dillon 550, 650, 1050, or Hornady progressive if I decide to do .223.

The guy on youtube demoing 9mm loading-- He's getting the job done, but you can tell he's using quite a bit of elbow grease "ooomph" to resize the 9mm. I figure if you have to push pretty hard with the hand press to resize 9mm, that it would be a real good workout on .223.

But the little hand press is real well made and I really like it for what it is.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[gjohnsoniv]

I'm getting a basic turret press from one of the guys on here so I thought the hand press would be a good or decent addition to it.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I'm getting a basic turret press from one of the guys on here so I thought the hand press would be a good or decent addition to it.

I certainly don't regret buying my hand press.

[gjohnsoniv]

Well that settles it then, thank you Lester.

What's dividing line between "small pistol/small rifle primers" and "large pistol/large rifle primers?" I know that's probably a stupid question to ask but it's been on my mind. I'm assuming the small would be .220, .223, .223, .17 Swift, 9mm, .380, and the like, while large would be .308, .45, .454 Casull, etc?

Edited April 22, 2012 by gjohnsoniv

[Lumber_Jack]

Well that settles it then, thank you Lester.What's dividing line between "small pistol/small rifle primers" and "large pistol/large rifle primers?" I know that's probably a stupid question to ask but it's been on my mind. I'm assuming the small would be .220, .223, .223, .17 Swift, 9mm, .380, and the like, while large would be .308, .45, .454 Casull, etc?

Nothing is universal. But you have it pretty good. Some calibers can be either small or large primer, such as .45 for example. But it's noticeably different in size.Also magnum rounds use magnum primers. But there are some brands that make large pistol/magnum interchangeable. That's what I use in Winchester. I can load .45acp or .41 magnum and don't have a ton of magnum dedicated primers. Edited April 22, 2012 by Lumber_Jack

[gjohnsoniv]

Ok. I knew nothing was universal but I just wanted to ask.