by Richard Lee
No publisher, 1996. Printed by Inland Press, USA.
Book review by Ken Marsh
The first thing I did when I received this book, is to look up my favourite cartridges. I was disappointed to find that there is no history or exposition on any cartridge. I figured he would at least reprint the blurb from the data sheet that comes with Lee die sets.
One of my favourite pastimes is reading about how insanely great my choice chamberings are, or at least how they are sadly overlooked and deserve more recognition. Oh well. So, I moved on to the loads.
There wasn't much load data from IMR or Hogdgon (at least on the ones I looked up), it seemed mostly to be Accurate Arms and Vihta Vuory Oy. There are also no specific bullets mentioned, they are just grouped by weights. The effect of bearing surface to weight ratios are only compensated for, I guess, by the safety margins of the loads. Since they are listed by their Never Exceed amounts, you don't know if you are really near the true maximum, or your particular bullet allows for higher loadings. Rifle and handgun cartridges are listed together. Then, I discovered that all the loads were just reprints of the powder manufacturer's free loadbooks.
I suppose that this is a consequence of not manufacturing bullets. However, when they charge $24.98 for a book (nice of him to save us that penny off of $24.99), I expect orginal, tested load data. Not here. There's nothing in here that you can't get from the powder manufacturer's FREE load books.
Lee's excuse is that he organized it in such a fashion that it makes the best loads (i.e. fastest) easiest to find. Of course, he notes elsewhere that the fastest load is not usually the most accurate, so there you are. Another excuse is that it helps you find good loads for one bullet weight, by looking at the pressure of poor loads for a heavier bullet weight. Some day, he says, all load books will use this revolutionary fashion (his words) of listing loads.
IMR has been listing loads by their powders' burn rate, including the pressure of each load, for years. I never had any trouble recognizing which powders best fit a given bullet weight from their free loadbook. Lee also makes an argument concerning the ease of selecting powders via load density. I never had any problem estimating this from other load listing formats either. I simply find the first load for each powder that is a compressed load, and work backwards.
I may seem harsh on this point, but the only reason that I bought the book was to find new loads. I'm just relieved that I bought it from F&M for $12.00, and not $22 at Midway (that was the November price, Dec. is $14.99, an interesting trend), or heaven forbid, the list price of $24.98. What a disappointment. Since there was nothing new in the load section (the latter half of the book), I turned to the beginning and started reading.
Richard Lee wrote the whole book himself (except the loads). The header of every other page tells us so. He did it on MS Word for Win 6.0. A few other credits:
I suspect he also did the proofreading. Sentences like:
"Persons reload because they like it, not because they can't afford to buy factory made ammunition."
coupled with a few glaring typos, are hard to miss.
An editor once told me that awkward sentences, spelling mistakes, and the like were the editor's fault, not the author's, because it's the editor's job to catch them.
But, if the author is the editor, what does one say then?
"Contrary to popular belief, Mike [Dillon] and I don't hate each other. We even traded patent rights.*"
Two sentences later,
"... they [Dillon presses] are not as fast nor user friendly as Lee tools."
"The Lee Pro 1000 is the best, Dillon comes in second and all the other brands are also rans."
Isn't that heart-warming? I'm sure an Dillon 1050 user would be surprised to know that they are being out-produced by a 1000, or that a Lee Loadmaster owner has less set-up problems then a XL650.
He goes on to encourage us to buy a 550B first, and then take advantage of Dillon's refund policy. I think he's heading for trouble with this line of advertising!
* This is because Dillon hold patents on the rotary metallic cartridge progressive press.
There are some pretty scary stories of experimentation and mistakes- e.g. deliberately firing an overly hot .22-250 round, and right into the ground, no less. That cost him a car windshield. Or, having his (then 14 y.o.) son fire lead squib loads straight down into the family pool (he doesn't seem to realize that even water can cause a 180 degree richochet!).
In another story, he fires steel ball bearings (not softened steel shot) out of his and a friend's shotgun. Of course, the barrels are ruined. He seems to consider this scientific testing.
While he's honest about some of the things he's done, you sometimes wonder if he reads the SAAMI warnings, or pays attention to such things.
Lee Precision doesn't manufacture any primer tube systems or tumblers.
He explains the primer recommendation issue. Federal primers detonate and shatter equipment, CCI and Winchester are more gentle in a primer chain reaction. All primer tube systems are deprecated as being potential guns.
He points out that tumblers release lead-bearing primer residue into the air, via the tumbling media dust.
Remember these important safety tips when shooting straight down into the family pool, or shooting squib .30-06 loads in your basement, one of his favourite pastimes.
He doesn't consider other exposure to primer residue elsewhere in the book, though, like exposure to primer lead while shooting in a poorly ventilated basement (a practice he recommends several times.) In another part of the book, he suggests that you either shoot your brass dirty, or polish it by hand with fine steel wool. What does this do to our lead exposure level? Besides lead dust, I also suspect he thinks we have too much time on our hands.
There is a quite humourous section about all the press companies that made overbuilt, quality presses that went out of business. He also pokes fun at the price of overbuilt presses (one can clearly see a mental picture of the RCBS RockChucker and the Dillon 650 as he writes).
Those 40-times over necessary strength presses are overpriced, he insists. His presses are only 3 times stronger than necessary, which is all we need pay for.
This logic would seem to hold, except for one thing.
That extra stength translates into rigidity, which means less press flex, and more consistantly sized ammo. The RCBS Rockchucker could have been made out of steel at the same price, but cast iron is more inflexible, so cast iron is used.
Strength, weight and rigidity also reduce press shake, which helps keep those little primers right-side-up.
This is my favourite part, I think.
From chapter 1: "Lee Precision has many new products, in various stages of development. They will make reloading better than ever...." "Reloading tools will cease to be considered a lifetime purchase. You may never actually throw away any tool you own. You will find that it will be economical and fun to update to suit your needs as your interest in the hobby grows."
So, buy, try, and update often. The future holds for us all an endless supply of new reloading equipment, each so cheap and so much more useful then the last, that we won't have time to wear anything out.
And silly me, still using my RockChucker after buying a progressive.
The whole how-to section is a sales pitch for Lee products, more so then any other manual I've read. It focuses on the tools used, and why they are superior to other brands. It doesn't take you step by step through the reloading process. That was added to the end as an afterthought. It takes you step by step through each tools' features, how it came to be designed, and how marvelously well it was received (or overlooked).
Interestingly, he even feels the need to apologize for (or explain) only featuring Lee equipment.
Other manuals don't apologize, and don't compare, either. Most advertisers know that impulse buyers will stick with one brand that they have a good experience with, until they know too much about competing brands. Then, they start shopping around. Ignorance is bliss.
He explains, they chrome plated the ram as a last step before going into production, and it rotates too easily. They'll gladly fix (for free) an early production press, by knurling the ends of the ram.
Well, he's honest about this machine's problem.
My question is, if you have to introduce friction to keep the thing from rotating, what is the indexing mechanism for?
Modern Reloading does have a chapter on casting bullets, similar to Lyman's cast bullet reloading guide (which is included with most of their equipment). It is specific to Lee's aluminum dies, which is just as well, as they require a different procedure than iron or steel dies.
A good portion of the last few chapters (and, there's only a few chapters) is reprints of Lee Challenger and Lee Load All II press instructions. Besides discussing each Lee tool, there is a very short chapter on the actual steps of reloading. It only covers bottleneck rifle cartridges, and says nothing of the differing steps of straight-wall pistol cartridge reloading.
Other manuals are certainly passive advertisements for reloading equipment (Speer/RCBS, Hornady) and/or bullets (Speer, Hornady, Sierra). While all extol their own merit, no other manuals go to such pains to compare and defend against other brands. No other manual is so disjointed in the description of reloading equipment and reloading instructions- they walk you through everything together. All that I have purchased (until this book) had original load data, cartridge histories, external ballistics, and details about bullet selection. The Lee book has none of this.
So, what you are getting for $24.98 is a chapter or two of anecdotes, freely available load data, and a lot of sales pitch.
A beginning reloader using only this book as a guide would be clueless at to which bullet to select, and why. They would not know what design decisions went into a cartridge, what applications it is most suitable for, and what it is not.
If you need to be reassured about the wisdom of your Lee Precision purchase, buy it. If the powder manufacturer's free loading manuals are absolutely never available in your country, buy it. Otherwise, if you can get the free stuff or any one other manual, you don't need it.
Gosh, I had fun writing this review. I hope all who might want to buy his book find it useful. Those who would never buy it certainly will!
Back to Shooting Sports page.
Go the Ken's Home Page.