So I got mine early last week and had a chance to set it up and play with it a little on Friday. I got a Lee quick mount with it, to mount it to my reloading table/workbench. Typical lee quality, not sure there is much more to say (some pot metal, lot of plastic). I can see the parts some reviewers have mentioned broke or wore out also being a concern long term. As they said, they broke or wore out either A) intentionally being used wrong and/or B) after many, many thousands of rounds. And generally the press continued to work with a little bodging.
Anyway, Lee sells all their parts on their website. I plan at some point to pick up a spare for a few of the plastic bits since all it'll cost me is $20-40 and then no worries about something breaking and the part being out of stock or waiting a week or two to get.
Anyway, I set it up to resize 9mm. It took me about 90 minutes to install the mounting plate and setup the press. Yes, the instructions say "DO NOT USE FOR RESIZING". Everyone I can find on the internet is using it for resizing.
The cases were getting stuck in the pass through shell holder and marking the rim (but not destroying it). About 3 in 5 cases were getting stuck. Since several people mentioned lubricating all cases, I tossed a couple handfuls in a large plastic bin and sprayed them a bit with some Hornady One Shot. Tumbled around a bit, waited 2 minutes and loaded it back up. First few got stuck still, then ran pretty smoothly after that. Somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 are still getting stuck and I am having to tap it light downward to get it loose and ejected with the next case in position. Tapping it to the side works too, but then it gets ejected across the room, rather than dribbles out of the press.
To do this effectively, you need to be keeping an eye on it as you work the handle and tap the case. It makes it hard to use your other hand to keep feeding the case feed tube as you work the press. You can kind of sort of do it, but not well. The tube fits, IIRC, 22 9mm cases. I could generally run about 30-35 cases before I'd need to stop and then refill the tube all the way up again as I couldn't keep up with how fast I was working the press and topping it off, with the occasional tapped out case.
Having a bin mounted to the press or on your bench is good. I used one of my large bins I have for storing components sitting on the floor and most cases fell in to it (but louder, and some still missed meaning after 200 or so cases, I had to chase the dozen that missed out from under my bench and around the room). I got a DIN aluminum rail off Amazon and over the weekend mounted it right next to the press with one of the small Akro bins and it is positioned perfectly (for $5 and change, plus the cost of the bin which I already had). Catches them every time (well, maybe not if it launches one, I only ran another 30 cases to check function).
After using it for about 200-250 cases for resizing, I swapped out the die and ran them all through the expander. There it was rare any got stuck (no new lubrication, but I didn't clean off what was on there). I think I had half a dozen total that needed the light tap and off they went. I did have maybe 4 or 5 cases that fell out of the feed tube and turned sideways jamming the press and needing to be cleared.
I think a combination of adjusting the feed tube position and being more careful that I am FULLY moving the press arm through a complete stroke will fix that issue. I was working it really fast and that was usually when it happened. Not when I was a bit more methodical.
I have not tried 45acp brass, or any other pistol or rifle calibers. I say 45, only because I have seen universal positive reviews of running 45 on the press and most of the negative comments I've see are about 9mm.
One thing I will note about the pass through shell holders, the tolerances are kind of loose. Which likely is allowing it to work pretty well (I had no cases hung up trying to enter the shell holder). But it also means less contact with the case rim, which is allowing that pressure on the up stroke to bind the rim on to the shell holder with 9mm. 45, the case to shell holder fit is slightly tighter and certain much more rim contact with the much larger case rim.
I've seen no complaints about sizing rifle cartridges.
If I had done a more careful job lubing cases that might have also prevented any issues. Rifle cases I carefully place them in a case tray all nice and upright and spray each one holding the can at a 45 degree angle and do a quick pass on one side, then rotate the tray 180 and do another quick pass, wait 2 minutes and start sizing brass. This time it was litterally just through the 9mm brass in a medium/large bin, a light squirt of lube, shake it up, another squirt. Rinse and repeat a couple more times. Let sit 2 minutes, and run them.
I'd imagine if I had been more careful it would have run better. But, meh. I don't have the time in my life with pistol brass to carefully lube all of the cases taking several minutes to set them all up and spray them. This worked well enough.
I ordered the lee collator and feed tube assembly based off many reviews. I haven't done it, but several have recommended cutting a short section of 1/2 PEX to insert in to the collator to get 9mm to feed properly base down every time. A lot of people have provided the feedback though of "it usually feeds them properly, even with 9mm so I never modified mine. It is easy to spot and pull out an upside down case running the press".
So not sure if I will do that or not. The collators are like $12 from Midway, so if it happens a lot I might just buy another and modify it.
All in all I am very happy with the press. Even with all of the added goodies I have bought, I think I am in no more than $150 (Lee App, the 3 extra shell holders I needed to cover all of my calibers (it covers 32acp, 38spc, 9mak, 9x19, 45acp, 7.62x25, .223, 6.5G, 7.62x39, .308 and .30-06), extra set of 4 breech lock die holders, collator and bullet feeding tube for collator).
Compared to running this on my Lyman T-mag, just now, getting used to it and with hiccups for resizing and expanding I am running cases through at a MINIMUM of 2x faster. If the collator/feeder works out and tweaking setup and stuff works out it'll probably be more like 3-5x faster. Even taking in to account lubing pistol cases, which I don't do normally. I could see sitting down with 1000 cases and running them through resizing and expanding all of them in less than 2 hours from the time I walk in to my gun room to the time I am flipping the lights back off.
I did also order some stuff from In-line fabrication to help my organization. They have a replacement roller handle that is cheaper than Lee's roller handle and has excellent reviews. So I got that also. I can absolutely see the complaints that the handle that comes with the App is going to raise blisters if trying to run it for many hundreds of rounds in a sitting.
Anyway, if you've got a progressive, this might not be worth it for you. At least with my workflow, I don't really want a progressive. In no small part because a lot of my brass has crimped pockets and I run a lot of range pickup brass. So all of that needs to be processed first at a minimum. I also prefer using a hand primer (though the Lee Acp primer press modeled after the App is intriguing, but I'll probably pass).
I was not able to get the Lee swage kit for the App. I certainly will as soon as I can. So sadly for now, it is swage/ream pockets by hand. TBH I am mostly going to set aside brass that needs that done and just use the brass that doesn't required it and save it till I have the swage kit and can just quick run it all through the App.
This would probably not be worth it if the press was many hundreds of dollars. I do have concerns about long term durability.
But I am still in for no more than $200 if you include the roller handle I just ordered and swage kit. If it eats a $8-20 plastic part every several thousand rounds, *shrug*. I'd prefer it not, but that ends up being fractions of a penny a round (and several people have said they've run well upwards of 10k rounds on one without breaking anything yet).
For those that shoot a lot of lead, this also looks rather useful for resizing bullets in volume.
I'll try to update when I've had a chance in the next couple of weeks to run .223 through it as well as more 9mm.
Anyway, Lee sells all their parts on their website. I plan at some point to pick up a spare for a few of the plastic bits since all it'll cost me is $20-40 and then no worries about something breaking and the part being out of stock or waiting a week or two to get.
Anyway, I set it up to resize 9mm. It took me about 90 minutes to install the mounting plate and setup the press. Yes, the instructions say "DO NOT USE FOR RESIZING". Everyone I can find on the internet is using it for resizing.
The cases were getting stuck in the pass through shell holder and marking the rim (but not destroying it). About 3 in 5 cases were getting stuck. Since several people mentioned lubricating all cases, I tossed a couple handfuls in a large plastic bin and sprayed them a bit with some Hornady One Shot. Tumbled around a bit, waited 2 minutes and loaded it back up. First few got stuck still, then ran pretty smoothly after that. Somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 are still getting stuck and I am having to tap it light downward to get it loose and ejected with the next case in position. Tapping it to the side works too, but then it gets ejected across the room, rather than dribbles out of the press.
To do this effectively, you need to be keeping an eye on it as you work the handle and tap the case. It makes it hard to use your other hand to keep feeding the case feed tube as you work the press. You can kind of sort of do it, but not well. The tube fits, IIRC, 22 9mm cases. I could generally run about 30-35 cases before I'd need to stop and then refill the tube all the way up again as I couldn't keep up with how fast I was working the press and topping it off, with the occasional tapped out case.
Having a bin mounted to the press or on your bench is good. I used one of my large bins I have for storing components sitting on the floor and most cases fell in to it (but louder, and some still missed meaning after 200 or so cases, I had to chase the dozen that missed out from under my bench and around the room). I got a DIN aluminum rail off Amazon and over the weekend mounted it right next to the press with one of the small Akro bins and it is positioned perfectly (for $5 and change, plus the cost of the bin which I already had). Catches them every time (well, maybe not if it launches one, I only ran another 30 cases to check function).
After using it for about 200-250 cases for resizing, I swapped out the die and ran them all through the expander. There it was rare any got stuck (no new lubrication, but I didn't clean off what was on there). I think I had half a dozen total that needed the light tap and off they went. I did have maybe 4 or 5 cases that fell out of the feed tube and turned sideways jamming the press and needing to be cleared.
I think a combination of adjusting the feed tube position and being more careful that I am FULLY moving the press arm through a complete stroke will fix that issue. I was working it really fast and that was usually when it happened. Not when I was a bit more methodical.
I have not tried 45acp brass, or any other pistol or rifle calibers. I say 45, only because I have seen universal positive reviews of running 45 on the press and most of the negative comments I've see are about 9mm.
One thing I will note about the pass through shell holders, the tolerances are kind of loose. Which likely is allowing it to work pretty well (I had no cases hung up trying to enter the shell holder). But it also means less contact with the case rim, which is allowing that pressure on the up stroke to bind the rim on to the shell holder with 9mm. 45, the case to shell holder fit is slightly tighter and certain much more rim contact with the much larger case rim.
I've seen no complaints about sizing rifle cartridges.
If I had done a more careful job lubing cases that might have also prevented any issues. Rifle cases I carefully place them in a case tray all nice and upright and spray each one holding the can at a 45 degree angle and do a quick pass on one side, then rotate the tray 180 and do another quick pass, wait 2 minutes and start sizing brass. This time it was litterally just through the 9mm brass in a medium/large bin, a light squirt of lube, shake it up, another squirt. Rinse and repeat a couple more times. Let sit 2 minutes, and run them.
I'd imagine if I had been more careful it would have run better. But, meh. I don't have the time in my life with pistol brass to carefully lube all of the cases taking several minutes to set them all up and spray them. This worked well enough.
I ordered the lee collator and feed tube assembly based off many reviews. I haven't done it, but several have recommended cutting a short section of 1/2 PEX to insert in to the collator to get 9mm to feed properly base down every time. A lot of people have provided the feedback though of "it usually feeds them properly, even with 9mm so I never modified mine. It is easy to spot and pull out an upside down case running the press".
So not sure if I will do that or not. The collators are like $12 from Midway, so if it happens a lot I might just buy another and modify it.
All in all I am very happy with the press. Even with all of the added goodies I have bought, I think I am in no more than $150 (Lee App, the 3 extra shell holders I needed to cover all of my calibers (it covers 32acp, 38spc, 9mak, 9x19, 45acp, 7.62x25, .223, 6.5G, 7.62x39, .308 and .30-06), extra set of 4 breech lock die holders, collator and bullet feeding tube for collator).
Compared to running this on my Lyman T-mag, just now, getting used to it and with hiccups for resizing and expanding I am running cases through at a MINIMUM of 2x faster. If the collator/feeder works out and tweaking setup and stuff works out it'll probably be more like 3-5x faster. Even taking in to account lubing pistol cases, which I don't do normally. I could see sitting down with 1000 cases and running them through resizing and expanding all of them in less than 2 hours from the time I walk in to my gun room to the time I am flipping the lights back off.
I did also order some stuff from In-line fabrication to help my organization. They have a replacement roller handle that is cheaper than Lee's roller handle and has excellent reviews. So I got that also. I can absolutely see the complaints that the handle that comes with the App is going to raise blisters if trying to run it for many hundreds of rounds in a sitting.
Anyway, if you've got a progressive, this might not be worth it for you. At least with my workflow, I don't really want a progressive. In no small part because a lot of my brass has crimped pockets and I run a lot of range pickup brass. So all of that needs to be processed first at a minimum. I also prefer using a hand primer (though the Lee Acp primer press modeled after the App is intriguing, but I'll probably pass).
I was not able to get the Lee swage kit for the App. I certainly will as soon as I can. So sadly for now, it is swage/ream pockets by hand. TBH I am mostly going to set aside brass that needs that done and just use the brass that doesn't required it and save it till I have the swage kit and can just quick run it all through the App.
This would probably not be worth it if the press was many hundreds of dollars. I do have concerns about long term durability.
But I am still in for no more than $200 if you include the roller handle I just ordered and swage kit. If it eats a $8-20 plastic part every several thousand rounds, *shrug*. I'd prefer it not, but that ends up being fractions of a penny a round (and several people have said they've run well upwards of 10k rounds on one without breaking anything yet).
For those that shoot a lot of lead, this also looks rather useful for resizing bullets in volume.
I'll try to update when I've had a chance in the next couple of weeks to run .223 through it as well as more 9mm.