Lee Bashing.....NOT

[MBTcustom]

Lee has made several tools that I consider top notch in the design department, and good enough to excellent in the materials/workmanship department. These tools stay on my bench and I use them all the time and I enjoy them very much.
Examples include:
1.Factory crimp dies (those used on rifle cartridges which are totally diferent than the pistol variety people like to bash).
2.The Lee hand priming tool. I've tried several, but the Lee is the easyest to load and use, it's light in the hand, and very well designed.
3.Lee 6 cavity molds. By far, the best six banger that has ever been devised by man. None of the ones I have gotten needed "leementing" or anything of the sort. They work, and they work well. I just wish I could get the same thing in brass with a steel sprue plate! (sigh)
4.Lee 6 cavity mold handles. Honestly, these are just really great tools! Easy to use, and easy to modify to fit any mold perfectly.
5. The Lee hardness tester. Ive checked mine against calibrated instruments, and while it strays slightly on the upper and lower end of the spectrum, in the hardness that I usually run my alloys (10-30 BHN) it's very accurate and repeatable.
6. The Lee loader. Don't get me started on the epic awesomeness of this tool! Not only does it do what it's supposed to do, and do it well, for cheap, the design is infinitely customizable to any configuration I desire. I have made one of these kits from scratch for a couple of my wildcats, and I even made the only one you'll ever see that reloads the gigantic 500Jeffery. I have started more people into reloading with these inexpensive and effective tools than I have any other system. It's easy to use, easy to understand, and make ammo that is more concentric than anything a standard die set could produce due to the guided boolit from the top, brass from the bottom design. Someone who gets started with a Lee loader has both an appreciation for a more automated reloading setup, and a standard to judge it by.

Now that said, there are quite a few things Lee makes that you will never see on my bench.
Powder measure: junk
Scale: junk
Loadmaster: dangerous junk
Two cavity and single cavity molds: junk that can make decent boolits sometimes. (I will caveat this by saying that I will often buy a two cav Lee mold to try a design before buying a real mold.)
Actually, if there was anything else Lee made that I was truly impressed with, it would be on the like list up yonder. These tools here were all of genius design, but I believe they cut quality so deeply, that the design was compromised in the process.

All in all, I'm not in anybodies camp. I was raised and taught to reload on a bench that had nothing but RCBS and Redding on it. Since then, I have acquired a regular fruit salad of colors. Both reds, both greens, grey, and all three blues (that's Dillon, Pacific, and Star) I have use for all of them, and find complete satisfaction with none of them.

[TXGunNut]

I think my first Lee tool was the Auto Prime, wore out a few over the years and even kept a new spare in addition to one set up for each size primer. My mentor sold me on being able to feel a primer seating in the pocket. I've had a new design primer sitting on the shelf for awhile, getting curious about it. Back when it was feasible to reload 12ga shotshells I used a Load-All to good effect, still have it around here somewhere.
I'd forgotten about the hardness tester. Getting harder to use every year but it tells me what I want to know if I'm patient. The case trimmers that index off the shoulder don't make sense to me, that's why I like the Lee Trimmer system...even that silly looking Zip Trim. Works as fast for me as a cordless drill, a bit less clumsy as well.
I only have a few 2-cav moulds, one was a test mould to see if my .45's liked the design and another design is not made in a 6-cav. My ball moulds are 2-cav as well and they keep my frontstuffers well-fed and happy. I don't like the old alignment pin system but if I do my part and pay attention to mould block alignment they work just fine. None of the guns they feed are picky eaters, basically plinkers and fun guns.

[GhostHawk]

Well I got out of guns, reloading, hunting etc when I got married almost 19 years ago.

Last January I got a big piece of, well lets call it early inheritance. Since then I have been investing slowly but steadily in a few guns, molds, sizers, lead pot, the works.

#1 on my "I love Lee" List is my hand press. I have a small inexpensive bench press, my Lee flaring tool pretty much lives in it.

My Lee hand press gets used for everything from boolit sizing to full length resizing of full size rifle cartridges.

Because it is a hand press it educated me pretty quickly on a few things. Like the need for lubrication, like cleaning the insides of my dies every so often.

If I had to shell out 90-100$ per mold I would have 1, and I would feel like I was still paying for it.
Currently I have 3 and I'm looking hard at #4, and in my opinion molds #1 &2 have totally paid for themselves, having created something close to 1000 rounds.

My newest mold a .358158 TL round nose arrived, got cleaned, got the leading edge of the sprue plate lightly filed smooth. Chambers lightly smoked and the sprue lubricated, before the pot was hot the mold was ready to go. The far cavity throws perfect bullets almost instantly. The close one likes lots of lead poured on the sprue plate to keep it hot. Ok, I'm listening, I can do that. 50 some nice boolits later I said that is enough for today, and shut it down. I had probably cast a total of just over 60, so a few culls, but It is teaching me how it wants to be used.

The new boolits got sized, lubed (Not TL yet, but will experiment with it soon) and a couple of dummy rounds made.

After doing a lot of reading about 158 gr boolits in 9mm (38/.357 will be coming after christmas) and the majority saying it doesn't work I decided to test for myself.

Well hate to spill it to you, but they sure appear to chamber just as smoothly and just as deeply as a factory round.
Yes it passes the plunk test.

So yes I will try out a very limited trial run of 5 or so, 3 grains of Red Dot, CCI small pistol primer, 158gr Cast boolit sized to .357 and loaded into a once fired 9mm brass case.

FYI Lee sizers look to be still throwing a smidge small. Just checked my finished boolits and they are all showing .356 which explains why they chambered. (Note to self, don't size for the .357)

To have done all I have done in the last year without Lee, I would have to have spent 3-4 times as much money for each and every tool.

That being said, sometimes it is worth it to spend the money. Like my RCBS Universal priming tool, No shellholders, easy to switch between large and small, works perfectly, and looks to last a LONG time.

Conclusion, there are many paths, choose wisely.

[John L]

How do I view an attachment? Each of those here take me to a page that says invalid attachment, contact.....
I would sincerely like to see the bullets.

John

[TXGunNut]

How do I view an attachment? Each of those here take me to a page that says invalid attachment, contact.....
I would sincerely like to see the bullets.

John

Something odd going on with links and stuff with me tonight but my firewall is going off like a shotgun on an Argentinan dove hunt.

[KuunLB]

lee makes it possible for us noobs to get in the game without having our lights cut off

[tmanbuckhunter]

I have a bunch of lee stuff, some of it I hate, a lot of it I love, but it's not my first choice. With that being said, I have a bunch of lee molds that work really well but now that I'm much more experienced and know what I'm doing I'd much rather have higher quality molds. Lee will get you started, and that's exactly what it's good for.

[captaint]

Everybody raise their hand whose first mold was NOT made by Mr. Lee.........

[ShooterAZ]

My comments on all this....I have quite a few Lee molds. All of the ones I currently own cast well. BUT...I have sent more Lee molds back to Midway than I currently own. Midway is great, no questions asked. Now that I have discovered NOE, I probably won't be buying any more Lee molds. You get what you pay for. Lee still needs to focus on quality control in my opinion, but still is capable of making some keepers.

[sparky45]

Lee has made several tools that I consider top notch in the design department, and good enough to excellent in the materials/workmanship department. These tools stay on my bench and I use them all the time and I enjoy them very much.
Examples include:
1.Factory crimp dies (those used on rifle cartridges which are totally diferent than the pistol variety people like to bash).
2.The Lee hand priming tool. I've tried several, but the Lee is the easyest to load and use, it's light in the hand, and very well designed.
3.Lee 6 cavity molds. By far, the best six banger that has ever been devised by man. None of the ones I have gotten needed "leementing" or anything of the sort. They work, and they work well. I just wish I could get the same thing in brass with a steel sprue plate! (sigh)
4.Lee 6 cavity mold handles. Honestly, these are just really great tools! Easy to use, and easy to modify to fit any mold perfectly.
5. The Lee hardness tester. Ive checked mine against calibrated instruments, and while it strays slightly on the upper and lower end of the spectrum, in the hardness that I usually run my alloys (10-30 BHN) it's very accurate and repeatable.
6. The Lee loader. Don't get me started on the epic awesomeness of this tool! Not only does it do what it's supposed to do, and do it well, for cheap, the design is infinitely customizable to any configuration I desire. I have made one of these kits from scratch for a couple of my wildcats, and I even made the only one you'll ever see that reloads the gigantic 500Jeffery. I have started more people into reloading with these inexpensive and effective tools than I have any other system. It's easy to use, easy to understand, and make ammo that is more concentric than anything a standard die set could produce due to the guided boolit from the top, brass from the bottom design. Someone who gets started with a Lee loader has both an appreciation for a more automated reloading setup, and a standard to judge it by.

Now that said, there are quite a few things Lee makes that you will never see on my bench.
Powder measure: junk
Scale: junk
Loadmaster: dangerous junk
Two cavity and single cavity molds: junk that can make decent boolits sometimes. (I will caveat this by saying that I will often buy a two cav Lee mold to try a design before buying a real mold.)
Actually, if there was anything else Lee made that I was truly impressed with, it would be on the like list up yonder. These tools here were all of genius design, but I believe they cut quality so deeply, that the design was compromised in the process.

All in all, I'm not in anybodies camp. I was raised and taught to reload on a bench that had nothing but RCBS and Redding on it. Since then, I have acquired a regular fruit salad of colors. Both reds, both greens, grey, and all three blues (that's Dillon, Pacific, and Star) I have use for all of them, and find complete satisfaction with none of them.

Not anymore. With the mods by "magic mike" out of Texas this machine WILL rival my Dillon 650 on loading quality ammo. That's www.mikesreloadingbench.com . He's a fantastic Engineer and a Match Benchrest Shooter. Check it out.

[dkf]

Everybody raise their hand whose first mold was NOT made by Mr. Lee.........

My hand is raised.

[cbrick]

Everybody raise their hand whose first mold was NOT made by Mr. Lee.........

That would be me, not the first or 10th or 20th or 30th or . . .

Rick

[MT Chambers]

My first mold was a Lyman, the first of many and won't be my last.

[FergusonTO35]

Overall I like Lee very much. Their die sets, Pro Auto Disk measure, and molds are my most used reloading tools. Their presses work really well for being so cheap. I upgraded to a Lyman only because I got a great deal on it and then sold my Challenger for more than I paid for it. Some products I think are done better by other companies. The Lee scale is, I think, a good concept poorly executed. It is too small and hard to read. The Perfect measure leaks powder more than others, is gritty in operation, just won't work at all with some powders. My RCBS Uniflow measure and scale are way better.

Lee push through sizer dies are great but not much use without a complimentary way of lubing. The only bullet lube system Lee currently offers, to my knowledge, is LLA which isn't suitable for every application. It's rather odd that most of Lee's bullets have conventional lube grooves when Lee doesn't offer a suitable way to lube them. Given how Lee can come up with a cheap, simple way to do everything I don't see why they don't offer any other way to lube boolits. They even make lube sticks for lube sizers, for goodness sake. I finally broke down and bought a Lyman 450 because I just don't have time to pan lube anymore and Lee is apparently not going to try anything in this regard.

[KuunLB]

welp, my first mold is gonna be a Lee, can't say i'm sorry, i just hope i get one of the better molds. just ordered it. can't wait.

[jayjay1]

Well, the 6-cav molds I have are way more valuable, than the 2-cav molds I have.

But what can I say?
The bullets, dropping out of LEE molds or others, which are costing the multiple, look and do pretty much the same.

Casting with a LEE 6-cav mold for three hours, what comes next?
But doing the same with an iron 4-cav, and I´m almost done.

[MBTcustom]

Everybody raise their hand whose first mold was NOT made by Mr. Lee.........

My first molds were RCBS, Lyman, and Hensley & Gibbs. Used only them for about 15 years before I decided to try an aluminum Lee mold. It was a RB mold, and felt junky as heck, but cast good RBs. Didn't think much of it, till I found castboolits and see so many people actually buying these molds and making them work.

[dragon813gt]

Everybody raise their hand whose first mold was NOT made by Mr. Lee.........

Raises hand. I've only bought a few over the years. After finding this site and the custom makers they were all sold off. To say I had bad luck w/ them would be putting it lightly. I'm glad others can make them work. My money is better spent elsewhere.

[GhostHawk]

My first mold was actually a Lyman round ball double cavity in .445. After that I played with a lot of different fishing sinker molds. Love the do-all molds. I have a lindy type walking sinker that does from 1/8 oz up to 2 oz including 1/4,3/8,1/2,5/8 and up. Once molded a couple of whacks on the anvil with the big hammer flattened them nicely for river fishing. If you fish a river much you quickly learn that anything that you throw in there will sooner or later not come back.

So I learned to do the minimalist approach to fishing.

I do wish that Mr Lee had something in between his cheap molds and the competition's expensive ones.

Something in the 50 dollar range with bigger blocks, better fit, finish, hardware.

[jmort]

"Not anymore. With the mods by "magic mike" out of Texas this machine WILL rival my Dillon 650 on loading quality ammo. That's www.mikesreloadingbench.com . He's a fantastic Engineer and a Match Benchrest Shooter. Check it out."


I was thinking the same thing. That is a great site. But, he notes that most people will have problems with their Loadmaster. His mods/fixes make the Loadmaster a viable option and fantastic press.