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I have had 2 of them for 15 or more years. I have seated primers upside down, sideways, 1 on top of another, and probably every wrong way possible. I use mostly CCI or Remington primers and have never popped one.
The only time I have ever popped a primer accidentally was depriming a LC 5.56 case that had supposedly been rendered inert by soaking in a mild acid solution. About every 3rd one was NOT inert. Just my $.02
:dunno:
Perhaps the Lee Precision Co is exercising a little CYA with their cautions about type and number of primers to use in their Auto Prime.
Bought my first AutoPrime circa 78, got tired of changing ram from small to large so bought a 2nd about 1980. Thousands of primers all types, CCI, Win,Rem, RWS, etc used 100 at a time. Had some seated upside down, some sideways, but never a detonation.
Only primer detonation I ever had was with my first Lee Loader that needed a hammer to size, de-prime, prime, and seat/crimp the bullet.
I no longer use the hand auto prime from Lee, I simply find that the mechanical one works much more easily and no "carpal tunnel syndrome" after lprimng a 1000 or so cases! Dave_n
I started out priming in a press before there were hand priming tools in use except those custom items used by benchresters. As soon as the first die case Lee tool came out I got one and really like it. Today I am a priming tool junkie.
I have 5 different types and 7 or 8 of the original Lee types. A guy that I once worked with converted one of the original Lee tools to a tool room made "Auto Prime" long before Lee built and Auto prime anything.
What i learned using the original one at a time Lee tool is that is pretty much 100% feel from picking up the primer to case alignment to seating the primer.
When I first got an Auto Prime I noticed that I thought I could take my eyes off of the operation a second. As soon as I did that I wound up with sideways and upside down primers. I gave those up.
So now I use the original Lee tool or the original RCBS bench top primer.
I have 2 Lees and an RCBS. The RCBS has a small gate that seperates the the primer being seated from the rest as the handle is squeezed. It has the advantage of using standard shell holders, along with the increased safety factor. A little more work, though, to change shell holders and primer size. 20+ years of handloading, never (yet) had a primer go off. Still wear the safety glasses, though.