Do You Like Your Lee APP Press

[hotshot357]

I'm thinking about buying a Lee APP press, how do you like or dislike yours?

 

[GW Staar]

It isn't perfect, it isn't heavy duty, and it isn't green. But it is easy to use, to mod, and it's the only single station anything to have a case and bullet feeder......and that makes all the difference.

Literally it's more than twice as fast to do prep operations than on my Rock Chucker....even with a case kicker. And my fat hands never get in the way. Just read all the mod posts that make it even better.

Finally.....all that for less than $100.

 

[BBarn]

Didn't vote. I like it in some ways, but am disappointed in others ways. So far I've used it to de-prime and expand/bell 45 Auto cases. Works well for that. Also plan to do some work with 38 Spec./357 but it didn't come with that shellholder and I haven't bought one yet.

I don't like the included case/bullet feeder. Different tubes and cavities for different cases. Seems like this press should have come with the standard 4-tube case feeder, but perhaps that wouldn't have worked for bullet feeding.
The single tube feeder offers too little case capacity.

Also don't care for the case/bullet feed adjustment. It needs to be changed/adjusted for most cases and the process is slow and cumbersome. Certain mods can help simplify that a bit.

 

[GW Staar]

Didn't vote. I like it in some ways, but am disappointed in others ways. So far I've used it to de-prime and expand/bell 45 Auto cases. Works well for that. Also plan to do some work with 38 Spec./357 but it didn't come with that shellholder and I haven't bought one yet.

I don't like the included case/bullet feeder. Different tubes and cavities for different cases. Seems like this press should have come with the standard 4-tube case feeder, but perhaps that wouldn't have worked for bullet feeding.
The single tube feeder offers too little case capacity.

Also don't care for the case/bullet feed adjustment. It needs to be changed/adjusted for most cases and the process is slow and cumbersome. Certain mods can help simplify that a bit.

I wasn't impressed with those things either. But, it was super easy to to add the 4-tube which I already had, and super easy to improve the feed adjustment. Look at the following video to see what I mean. And the stock tubes and cavities are useful too for feeding bullets........name me any press so easily modded to do all that. I deprime pistol, rifle. Debulge .40 S&W. Swage military .223 and .308 and with the case feeder, do it 3 times faster than any other way. Heck I haven't yet sized boolits, since I don't cast them, but there are many who do.

It's so versatile it depends on the reloader as to what it makes him smile about. But I guarantee, if you use it for what I do, the simple mods I've done makes it shine....and they are all easy.

So fix the case/bullet feed from slow to pretty darn fast.....just have to buy a little cheap hardware.

 

[presspuller]

I think it is pretty much an engineering marvel to be had for $80. Yes, I wish parts of it was beefier and more metal, but I don't know if that is really needed and would definitely increased the cost a lot. The vast majority of my stuff is green, but I have no issues at all with this red one on my bench as well.

 

[GW Staar]

The vast majority of my stuff is green, but I have no issues at all with this red one on my bench as well.

Me too. I have a gold Forster Trimmer, a Hornady Pistol Bullet Feeder, and now a Lee APP..........red goes with green.....like Christmas....and gold works too.

I'll be honest.....I bought the APP to see if there was a way to steal the idea and add a feeder to my RCBS Summit...........and it's possible......but not anytime soon.....very happy with what the little APP does for me! Bling for instance (tumbling with pins) is so much faster to prep for.

 

[whughett]

AAP. Automatic Prep Press. It’s designed IMO for three tasks, size and decap, primer pocket swedging, or bullet sizing. Properly set it it does the first amazingly fast. The second and third I haven’t tried. It will accept any die so I assume it will do all the loading tasks.
I bought because it was cheap and I wanted to prep a large quantity of 9MM range brass. It works and works well in that respect.
It will never replace my blue progressive.

 

[AR-Bossman]

[QUOTE="whughett, post: 11540679, member: 65649"
It will never replace my blue progressive.[/QUOTE]

Really? An $80 C clamp Lee press won't replace a Dillon full progressive?

 

[whughett]

[QUOTE="whughett, post: 11540679, member: 65649"
It will never replace my blue progressive.

Really? An $80 C clamp Lee press won't replace a Dillon full progressive? [/QUOTE]

I wet tumble fired brass. To take full advantage of its ability to clean inside and primer pockets it needs to be de-capped. So instead of the old way of one at a time in the orange press it goes thru the APP in a fraction of the time. So no , it doesn’t replace the blue press, or the red progressive for that matter.
Hope that clears it up.

 

[hotshot357]

I'm not going to reload on the APP, I've got two Dillons for that. I'm looking for something to decap and size brass and size coated bullets for now.

 

[maxxhavoc]

I hope I like mine, it should be on it's way soon. Looking to decap and remove Military crimps on .308, 30-06, and .223 mostly. So it should be a winner.

 

[GW Staar]

I'm not going to reload on the APP, I've got two Dillons for that. I'm looking for something to decap and size brass and size coated bullets for now.

Then run don't walk.......I had more than 200 rounds of 9mm that my Grandson brought over to load last Thursday.....the plan was to load them Saturday afternoon. You should have seen his face when he came over and saw 200 rounds of new brass deprimed and so bright it hurt his eyes.....he wasn't expecting that. He was amazed I'd spend so much time to do that for him.

Well I didn't. Depriming using the four-way on the APP took 20 minutes including setup time. Went to bed smiling.....next morning I filled up my Thumlers with pins, a gallon of cold water, a 2 second squirt of Dawn dish soap, a .45 acp case full of Lemishine (how I was taught) and of course all the 9mm brass. Set the timer for 2 hours, turned it on......and headed to work for a few hours.....came home for lunch, drained the soapy water, separated the pins in about 2 minutes....rinsed, and spead out all that brass on my back patio to soak the sun for the afternoon .... went back to work. Result:


Two drudgeries....I didn't even feel. Won't be selling the Automatic Processing Press....ever....or the Thumbler's tumbler for that matter.

We reloaded the 9mm which took a lot longer (3 hours), but that was because this was my grrandson's first experience and I wanted to teach him reloading on single station presses so he could experience each step so it would sink in. I think he's hooked. This week he's coming back over to do it again on the Pro 2000 with feeders.....for sure he will swallow the hook!

I hope I like mine, it should be on it's way soon. Looking to decap and remove Military crimps on .308, 30-06, and .223 mostly. So it should be a winner.

It will, but you may have to be patient, and mod the feeder a little. See the last APP thread for how I made it work smooth and fast for rifle. Maybe yours will be perfect, but unless Lee has done away with beveling the edge where cases drop....probably not. The link below is where I talk about feeding rifle.....
[URL="https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/lee-has-a-new-single-stage-press-coming-out-lee-app.858477/page-9#post-11433855"]lee has a new single stage press coming out Lee APP[/URL]

 

[mmb617]

I just got mine two days ago and so far I really like it. I don't expect it to do a lot, all I want is to decap/size and expand 9mm and .45 acp cases. It handles those jobs fast and easy. I was really glad to see that both calibers feed through the same tubes so the only adjustment I have to make when switching is the feeder height which takes maybe 30 seconds and a die swap which also goes fast with the breech lock bushings.

I am slowly expediting the parts of reloading I didn't particularly care for. Running pistol cases through the decap/size dies, then later through the expander dies was very monotonous with my single stage press. It's much better now.

 

[hotshot357]

I want to thank all for your input. You made my decision to buy a Lee APP easy!!! I ordered it from Titan Reloading this morning. It should arrive Friday. The membership here at The High Road is "top shelf" and this is the best forum on the internet !!!!!! Thanks again and "be safe & have fun" sincerely hotshot357 (Steve)

 

[TTv2]

It will never replace my blue progressive.

Really? An $80 C clamp Lee press won't replace a Dillon full progressive?

That's like saying a Prius isn't going to replace someone's Ford Super Duty pickup.

 

[TTv2]

I love resizing with the APP, but the time it takes to adjust the height of the drop tubes and/or the height of the case slider is not something I enjoy. Lee needs to find a better way to adjust the tube height because using a wrench and some nuts is not a good solution.

Once the APP is all set, it's a breeze to do sizing and mouth flaring and that's all I bought it for and it was mainly for .32 and .38, but I have done 10mm and .40. The only cases I'm not doing are .45 Colt because the #11 holder is out of stock everywhere and I tried using the #14 holder, which Lee claims will work for .45 Colt, but doesn't, at least for sizing.

For the money, it is, IMO, one of the only single stage presses worth buying. Even if you don't use the case feeder, it's still a single stage press and can be used as a single stage press. Compared to the other C frame Lee press, the APP is a robust and accurate design with way more functionality.

I had been hoping it was a way to load for all the calibers I load for, but after using it, I decided that it's not the press I want to be doing 10mm/.40 on and .45 Colt/Schofield I have good success with on the LCT I have, so while it's a jack of all trades, it's not a master of all either, but the pros outweigh the cons.

 

[DanK3Pos]

Just like everyone else has said, it is a mixed bag. While swaging .223 it occasionally shoots a case out and into my 'done' bin. No way to easily tell which one it was, so later it jams me up when priming. I'm totally underwhelmed with all the plastic. That being said, I deprimed and swaged a lot of .223 in a remarkably short time. I'll also admit, I'm spoiled. I started loading on Dillon and Redding presses.

 

[Varminterror]

I’m planning to add an LPP with a Hornady or Dillon case feeder, and a motor to run the arm, simply as an automated decapper. Seems to be about as cheap as that can be automated.

 

[GT1]

I don't have one, but want one. If a person has a Dillon or LnL with a casefeeder it is easy to piggyback the casefeeder to the APP as long as it is close. The video of the guy decapping 9mm fed from one sold me as soon as I saw it.

 

[GoldieMI]

I got mine installed today, and got it dialed in for 223/5.56
managed to rip through ~500 rounds of LC Brass in about a hour - installed the pistol tubes/collator and they work just fine. The inline fabrications mount was great.
Dry graphite dust on the slider rails for the case pusher
really the only issue I have is the crappy handle...that thing rubbed my hand raw where the halves meet up and bolt together.

 

[hotshot357]

Well, I got it Monday !!! I spent some time getting attached to the bench and getting the the finished case bin mounted.I had a little problem with slide but some smoothing of the surface with a finger nail file and some graphite, problem solved. This press is pretty fantastic. Will it last as long as my Dillons, probably not. But for the money, it's great !! This thing is well built. It looks OK View attachment 926542 View attachment 926542 on the bench. All I need now is a white one and I'll have "red, white & blue" !!! LOL

 

[GW Staar]

Just like everyone else has said, it is a mixed bag. While swaging .223 it occasionally shoots a case out and into my 'done' bin. No way to easily tell which one it was, so later it jams me up when priming. I'm totally underwhelmed with all the plastic. That being said, I deprimed and swaged a lot of .223 in a remarkably short time. I'll also admit, I'm spoiled. I started loading on Dillon and Redding presses.

The permanent fix for that is to get rid of the bevel that surrounds the drop. For the cases to "always" drop straight down they don't need a bevel to first tilt the case, cause it to hang, the pressure builds then wang! The case comes like a missile. Will have my 3D Printer in a week or so and the first "thingie" I build will be a new shuttle with NO bevel. I used a Dremel sander and ground the bevel off mine but the problem is it grinds almost to the point of ruining the piece.....still it cured it and it works perfect for .223 and .308 both.



Looking at your picture, it was interesting to me that Lee finally added more Company Red to the press by making the bottle top red. I wondered if the handle and shuttle was enough for John!

BTW, the main reason I added clear drops was so I could see what was going on during the drop......and the other reason was that I could make the four-way a quick change between .308 and .223. See the video at post #4. As you will notice in the video, I did not have to make a time wasting vertical adjustment between the two.

 

[AR-Bossman]

l

 

[DanK3Pos]

The permanent fix for that is to get rid of the bevel that surrounds the drop. For the cases to "always" drop straight down they don't need a bevel to first tilt the case, cause it to hang, the pressure builds then wang! The case comes like a missile. Will have my 3D Printer in a week or so and the first "thingie" I build will be a new shuttle with NO bevel.

Once you get it perfected, I'm in for one!

 

[GW Staar]

Maybe AR-Bossman will do one first and I can just print his! Would not hurt my feelings! Hint hint! He's already a 3D printer pro.