APPing away...

[Fyodor]

The APP has been sitting in my bench since shortly after it's release. My supplier didn't get the inline fabrication quick change plate for quite some time, but it has been set up for a while now. I just didn't get to use it that much.

I started processing brass last week, bit after bit. Today I have half a day just for that.



That's fun!

I have to clean the plastic bar the slide runs on every hundred cases, which is a bit annoying. But putting a piece of thick wire into the push spring helped a lot. The spring won't kink on the return stroke when the slide path is s bit dirty.

I have decapped about 2000 cases during the past week, with a bit over half of that today. About 700 to go, then I need to set up my tumbler first, no more storage for deprimed but dirty brass.

Just having a good day.

[Bill Moore]

I used to want one, but I don't need one now, in the past I have sized 40, 10mm, 357sig, and 45 cases through my single stage press. For 38/357m I made a plate to fit to the primer rods on my Co-Ax press, and made a rod to fit the center of the die to push the cases out. Now my friend has a Rollsizer, so he saves me a lot of time, and does my 9mm also!
He decaps and swages the primer pocket on a Dillon 650 and then cleans brass with the pins, I'm not that pickey!

[GasGuzzler]

Used mine to process about 3500 pieces of 9X19 and a couple hundred 7.62X39 and never took it out again. I had several parts warrantied by Lee in the 15K or so handle pulls.

[Fyodor]

When I bought mine, I ordered all parts I thought might break or wear it quickly with it. Up to now, nothing needed replacement.

I find the plastic slider path a bad design. The press is mainly used to deprime brass. Usually that is the first step, so the cases are still dirty. Dirty will come in the track. The plastic is scratched easily, which increases friction and causes problems. And that was my main issue. The slider had too much friction, and the spring couldn't push it back. The spring kinked, and the toolhead hit the slider. That problem was solved by inserting a piece of thick gardening wire into the spring. It can still lengthen, but it will not kink.

Different cartridges behave differently on the APP. It works flawless with .38spl, as you can see above. I deprimed all about 1200 cases without cleaning the slide path a single time. It operates so smoothly, I started watching a movie, and not even watch the press, just throwing in the cases by feel.

That was not possible with .45ACP. The slide has to be taken off and the path cleaned every around 100 cases, otherwise cases would start tipping over. Also large primers sometimes stick to the decapping pin and get pulled back into the pocket. Oh course not fully seated, but enough so they would stick there, and prevent the case from being pushed out by the next one. So I had to carefully watch every printer fall into the spent primer bottle. If it didn't drop, lift the lever a little bit and pull down again. It will drop then.

The APP doesn't work well with my beloved 44-40 at all. The cases won't just slide into the shellholder, the slide needs a little push to fully seated every second case. Also some cases ended up on top of the shellholder, getting stuck on the decapping pin. Very annoying.

The press isn't perfect. But it is smaller and lighter than my classic turret, that I modified years ago to do the same thing. That one also isn't perfect, and most of the time it's slower. Only with 44-40 I might keep using the turret. All other cases go smoother on the APP.

[GasGuzzler]

Same experience with the slider. Mine also broke the large threads when I was de-priming some rifle brass. Cannot remember all the issues I had (and fixed) but they're all in a topic here somewhere.