Got my brass in yesterday and started loading. So first impressions...the Lee Loaders feel like they are built like a tank and will never break. I do wish the primer decapper and setting rod had larger heads where you hit them with the hammer. I am using a poly tippet mallet and wonder if they will end up cutting it.

I quickly primed 50 .308 and 50 .223 shells while drinking a glass of wine. Very relaxing to get into a rhythm and bang them out. You can hear and feel that moment with the primer "sets" pretty easily. Then I took the shell reamer and lightly hit the inside neck on all of them.

Then the first kinda surprise hits. I was quite taken by just how small of a difference 1 grain of powder is....very little wiggle room there. A full .308 scoop was giving ~43 grains of Varget which itself would be a decent safe load. The .223 scoop was only laying out ~22 grains, pretty light load. I also learned that damn powder will go everywhere if you are not careful. Don't even set the shell in the case too hard or it wants to bounce out.

So I worked out 3 charges for each round and poured out a total of 30 shells. Grabbed the 175 TMK bullet first and found the setting rod does not appear to be deep enough for such a narrow bullet. It feels like the bullet tip is touching and not the sides of the round. I was able to push down hard enough by hand to almost fully set the bullet and the tips don't appear to be damaged...we shall see what happens when I shoot them. The 69 TMKs on the .223 side do appear to fit properly in the tool so no concerns there.

So I initially set everything by hand and then slowly made the die shorter and used the hammer to finish them off. All in all, it was pretty easy and quite a bit of fun. I feel like I learned a lot doing it and look forward to how they shoot.