JamieC
Member
I just had my second Auto Drum screw up on me. At the bottom, the two metal 'ends' that sort of capture the thumb wheel spread enough that when loading powder into a cartridge, one climbs up a bit onto the thumb wheel, cocks, jams and doesn't let the drum return to get another charge of powder. The first time this happened, I wasn't paying enough attention, about 20 rounds got through, spread fairly evenly over two different boxes of ammo. I didn't realize it had happened intermittently before, ended up with several hundred reloads I couldn't trust for anything other than range use. Needless to say, my brass 'squib rod' got lots of use. Sent it to Lee, they sent me a new one. In the mean time, I used a second one I have, it just screwed up, same issue. I have the new one they sent, there is a lot of play between the thumb wheel and the 'legs'. I made a spacer out of a strand of .035" safety wire placed between one leg and the thumb wheel which keeps it from moving far enough to climb up onto the thumb wheel. It tends to push towards one side while loading, the internal spring of the Auto Drum has some tension to it. Of course this happened on the weekend, no way to contact Lee till Monday. Wonder if I'm the only one this has happened to?