I’m not fond of primers. Those slippery devils have been a pain to work with from my reloading beginning. Spill a box and forever crawl around on the floor, recovering a max of 98 out of 100.
Early on I realized I needed more than the two primer pickup tubes included with the press (small and large). Fill a tube, stick it in the press’ slot, load about 90 rounds (all the primers the tube held) and stop to refill the tube. Primer flip/pickup tray was slightly warped plastic. Occasionally, pressing down to pick up a primer the tray popped, bouncing primers around. It resisted all efforts to permanently flatten. I didn’t purchase another because the grapevine said all were deformed.
I did buy a few more pickup tubes but an extended day of reloading – down on the single stage’s handle to size and de-prime; handle up, priming on the down stroke – exhausted their capacity. My ever-helpful wife handled the task of tube refilling. (She also sized and lubed my cast bullets, something most of you might not understand.)
All that led to buying a handheld primer. My wife squeezed its use between bullet sizing and raising two rambunctious small boys. Then I slid each case through the belling die. Then I flipped the primed cases, mouth up, into loading blocks, moved to the powder measure, finally capping each charged case with a bullet for return to the press. At the time it was a decent system but when I kicked the number of rounds needed up to 300, twice a week, it surely lacked something. Thus the reason I jumped on Dillon’s bandwagon when it finally started rolling.
I admit to love at first sight when Dillon’s steel Primer Flip Tray appeared! Heavy, sized to handle primer boxes of any size, and bearing nice grooves in the bottom. Grooves snatch hook primer anvils’ toes and launching them into a 180 gymnastic roll, orienting all with anvil toes to the sky. The primer master slips the tray top on, inverts the tray, ending with primers in the top, smooth side facing up.
At that point they can be securely seized by the primer pickup tube and transferred to the Dillon Press’ primer shield tube. The entire primer system from start to finish is really so much simpler and effective than the plastic tray and traditional pickup tube system I began with.
I have quite a few Dillon primer pickup tubes stacked up for a reloading binge. The Dillon Press’ primer shield tubes are sized for around 100 of the little poppers. (“Shield” as in if one primer goes and others decide to chain detonate the press arm pumper does not pay the price.) With all my primer tubes filled, I usually top off the shield tube, refill that primer pickup tube and sit back for a rewarding reloading marathon. It sorta spoils the mood to stop frequently and re-feed a primer tube, thus the abundance of primer pickup tubes and a well-used Primer Flip Tray. When I finally do exhaust those tubes, I can fairly easily refill them or rest my pitching arm for the rest of the day. I usually opt for a break and an analgesic rub.
Even though I still find primers something of a pain, I finally have my troublesome imps somewhat under control. Of course there is always room for improvement. As effective as the system in may be, Dillon, of course, does offer a different route – one we’ll discuss soon!
