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On the suggestion of a shooting buddy in the US, I have just invested In the Lee Deluxe `Quick Trim` case trimming system purchased from Krank's and I have to say I have found it to be a good piece of kit.

Up till now, I have used the Lee case trimming gauges with the ball cutter and separate chamfer tool. It was a tedious exercise to trim cases involving 3 stages. Trim to length then de-burr and finally chamfer the case neck inside.

The de-luxe Quick trim does all three in one pass, with a much cleaner finish.

I have reduced a 3 stage operation to one, with a better quality finished article, a definate no brainer!

ukrifleman.

what calibers are you using it for?

I hate mine.

Wait until the blades get stuck

Mine went in the bin. Most of Lee stuff is pap.

i think that is a bit much of a generalisation Alpha! A lot of their stuff is excellent value for money.

price for price, their dies, perfect powder measure and single stage presses can't be beaten.

their pro auto discs are great, as are their cast turret presses.

some of the time some of their kit needs fine tuning, like their pro 1000's

some of their stuff is less than good, and some of their stuff lasts for awhile then goes downhill quite quickly, like their quick trims. usually they produce more wallet friendly items that work just as well as more expensive equivalents.

Alpha1 wrote:Mine went in the bin. Most of Lee stuff is pap.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but for myself, I load 15 calibres, all with Lee dies, Lee bullet moulds, a Lee classic turret press, Lee beam scale, Lee auto disc and perfect powder measures and have not had any issues.

The Quick trim system has so far been more efficient and quicker than the old Lee case gauges and ball cutter and has made case preparation a single stage process instead a 3 stage slog.

Each to his own I suppose.

ukrifleman.

As I said most of it is pap in my opinion. The dies are Ok. The original hand priming tool is OK. The hand press is useful. The rest of the stuff I avoid like the plague. I had Lee stuff many years ago when I first started out. I quickly realised that there is much better kit out there that makes my re loading a much pleasenter experience. If other people want to use Lee stuff then good luck to them. I have said this before there is no room on my loading bench for Lee stuff. Oh I nearly forgot the Lee reloader neck sizing thingies are interesting things to use. I mostly use Lewilson. Redding Or Hornady. I also buy second hand Lewilson neck dies and seaters and modify them for my own use. Obviously any body new to reloading is not able to do this. But my advice to new reloaders is all ways buy good kit up front get it right first time and it will last you a life time.

bradaz11 wrote:i think that is a bit much of a generalisation Alpha! A lot of their stuff is excellent value for money.

price for price, their dies, perfect powder measure and single stage presses can't be beaten.

their pro auto discs are great, as are their cast turret presses.

some of the time some of their kit needs fine tuning, like their pro 1000's

some of their stuff is less than good, and some of their stuff lasts for awhile then goes downhill quite quickly, like their quick trims. usually they produce more wallet friendly items that work just as well as more expensive equivalents.

+1, though so far my Pro 1000 has been rather good (though it does have the latest carrier assembly on it which seems to be improved over the old one that was on it when it turned up second hand).

My thoughts on Lee:

Alpha has inadvertently sort of demonstrated what usually seems to happen with a discussion about Lee kit: Someone says "Lee, what a load of bo...cks". Someone else says "Hold on, I use bits of it and it's pretty good for the price" and then the first person seems to agree, usually along the lines of "It's all bo...cks. Aside from their dies. And their powder measures. Their hand primers aren't bad either. And thinking about it their single stage presses are pretty good for the price".

I always find it interesting how they design stuff to a price. Case in point: Casefeeder for progresssives. Dillon have some huge electrical hopper thing, Lee have a textured funnel. Areas that don't need to be neatly finished aren't.

I sometimes wonder if the low prices work against them. Reading up on the Pro1000 online it seems it attracts a lot of novice reloaders and it really, really isn't suitable for them. Novices might buy something like that, struggle like hell and then be turned off Lee kit.

Lee kit, like everything, has it's place. I'm not going to rush and sell my Redding T25 (which will clearly outlast me) and replace it with a Lee press though.....

I've had my quick trim in 3 cals for several months now and they have trimmed chamfered and de burred several thousand cases already. I use pretty much all lee stuff and since I look after it I've never had a problem.

it seems they're more innovative out of the box ideas sometimes seem to miss in execution.

the quick trims have the scope to be great, its just they work for a bit, then when they fail, it gets costly.

but I wouldn't sell another brand press just to replace with the lee equivilent, but if buying in the first place, i'd look to lee first.

danny - which calibers?