REVIEW: Lee Automatic Processing Press (APP)

[Rookie]

I've been looking for a better way to swage once fired brass, and I think Lee has the best/fastest swager out there. Before, I was using a Lyman case prep. While it worked, it was slow, messy, and my hands were hurting after 100 pieces of brass. So, I ordered the Lee APP and the Lee swaging kit.

First step is to deprime your brass. Make sure to use the deprimer that is supplied with the swaging kit because it slightly flares the brass which is important for the swaging step. If you don't, you will have to reprocess 500 pieces of brass (ask me how I know). The dies use a breech lock method which makes quick change easy.


This takes about 15-20 minutes to deprime 500 pieces of brass. The slowest part is feeding the tube. I had my wife help me feed and it went a lot quicker.

Next step is swaging.




This took 30-45 minutes. It's a little slower since there's not much room for the die to enter the case mouth. About 1 in 10 required me to align it by hand, but it's still faster than reaming.

One modification I did make was to the piece that goes into the brass. When I first tried it, I couldn't get the die to go into the brass. I noticed the large die had a chamfered edge, so I did the same to the small die which had no chamfer. This is the large pin...



All in all, it's a great set up for depriming and swaging. Titan reloading had the best price that I found.

 

[Abominator]

The videos Ive seen of that press are pretty cool. Glad its working out for you thus far.

 

[TWEAKD4]

Thanks for your review and tips. I was interested in this press as well to remove those pesky swaged primer pockets.

 

[dieselrealtor]

Couple it with a Dillon casefeeder to make the feeding quick.

I have used the Super Swage 600,
Swage-it for Dillon 650
& a Dillon Super 1050.

So far the Swage-it for the 650 worked the easiest with the least amount of tinkering. I would put a dab of lube on the swager about every 100 round or so, processed a few thousand rounds this way & didn't notice any more force required than a tight primer pocket. NOTE; Dillon won't warranty any damage caused by the Swage-it, I had no issues.

I didn't know that Lee made this, may have to look into it further.

 

[SSE]

I like the looks of it, but I have a question about that depriming. Can you just run a case thru the Lee f. l. sizing die then swage or do you have to deprime seperately

 

[Rookie]

You have to deprime with the supplied deprimer. It slightly bells the case mouth so the swaging tool will fit. If you're swaging 0-100, then this set up probably isn't worth it. If you're doing a bunch, then it's totally worth it.