By 

M. Cracco (Waterbury, CT) –

  

I’m a big fan of RCBS and have been handloading for more years than I care to admit.

For years I used the RCBS press mounted tube feeder that came with my Rock Chucker press. It worked, but the problems were 1)loading primers in the tubes was a bit tedious, 2)the last 1-3 primers in the tube did not feed right as there was no weight on top of them, and 3)it took more force than one would think on the up stroke of the press to seat a primer.

A number of years ago I graduated to a hand held Lee Auto Prime. This is the old one with the round tray. It worked very well. Nice feel, primers seat easily, and I can watch TV while I prime a bucket of cases. Problems started when I began shooting IDPA and buying once fired brass. The slightest burr on the head of the case will prevent the head from sliding into the tight Lee shell holder. The same case will slide easily into the RCBS shell holder and will chamber and fire no problem. And as I struggle to mount cases in the Lee I am spilling primers, flipping primers, etc. Need something better.

That’s what lead me to the RCBS APS Press Mounted Primer. I also bought the APS strip loading tool at the same time. Strip loader takes some getting used to as some finesse is required to shake the primers in place. After a couple strips though it goes pretty well.

Cannot say the same about the APS seating tool. My first session with it all I managed to do is jam the assembly about a dozen times (requiring a full dis-assembly to clear)and prime exactly zero cases. I called RCBS customer support and they send me out replacement guts for the unit and new strips. After rebuilding and very carefully readjusting, my results are better but not good. Problems are:
* Seating ram will frequently jam in the plastic strip requiring one to remove 4 screws on top to clear
* Height adjustment is very sensitive; fine line between correctly seated and deforming primer. Almost impossible to achieve with mixed, once fired brass.
* No feel to the seating operation as there is with the Lee hand tool, or even RCBS press mounted tube system.
Mind you, I am pretty mechanically inclined and spent quite a bit of time adjusting and tweaking but I succeeded in minimizing the jam and seating problems, never eliminated them. At least every other strip had me disassembling the tool or depriming a case with a live primer. Not good.

So, I am giving up on this unit as I cannot afford be mangling primers for loads I shoot in competition. Or that I pay good money for.

Instead I am going to try the RCBS APS Hand Priming Tool. I am hoping the strips will prevent the primer spills, the universal shell holder will not care about burrs on the case head, and the hand tool will give good feedback on the seating depth.

Probably a lot to expect….

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