De-Capping and Re-Sizing 44 Mag. Shells with The Lee Hand Press

In a previous post I showed how I clean brass shell casings. This is the next step in reloading. I'm doing this series for my 44 Mag. and I'm using a Lee 44 Mag. carbide die set. If you buy the carbide die sets from any manufacture it should fit the Lee Hand Press. They should be pretty much standardized. I use the Lee dies here and have used their scoop which comes with there dies to load a basic load. It works fine but that will be another post. Here I plan to de-capp and re-size the cases that I have previously cleaned.

Here is the Lee hand press ready to go.

 

Insert the 44 Mag. shell holder that came with the Lee carbide dies.

Screw in the carbide sizer and de-capper until it touches the the shell holder.

Screw it in enough so that handle stop does not completely close and the handle has about 1/4 inch before it closes or touches the stop.

Adjust the lock nut on the sizing die and the de-capper depth. When you have the correct gap between the handle and the stop cinch the locking nut down.

See how clean the cases are? Even months later, no corrosion!

Place the shell in the shell holder and guide the shell into the sizer as you start to bring the handles together.

Slowly bring the handles all the way together so they touch the stop.

Watch your fingers. Make sure they do not get pinched in between the handles.

Bring the handles back apart.

And there is your re-sized and de-capped case. Now keep going and get faster. In minutes you will have quite a few done.

Ammo boxes make good shell holders so don't discard them.

After you have de-capped 20 or so cases you will need to get rid of the spent primers.

Take off the shell holder and tilt the Lee hand press.

And there you have it. In the next episode we will expand the case and go through a few more steps. Your almost there.

Good Shooting