I have an RCBS primer seater, not the universal one. It just isn’t a great one. I need a newer and better one. What’s the best option out there these days? I want to seat primers, not deform them. The one I have slightly pushes in the rounded top of the primer cup - even on CCI 41s. Admittedly, I use a lot of Lapua brass with tight primer pockets. That could contribute to the problem.

I’ll look on the internet, but would trust you (some of you) to give me good info.

RCBS bench mounted primer.

I have very good grip strength and I still began running into problems with Lapua, Nosler, and Norma brass using the hand held.

Bench mounted will get them in there.

Let me look it up. Thanks.

Get a primer flip tray also.

+1
...most definitely!

I use the bench mounted one mentioned above for about half my stuff.
Most LR ammo with standard cases I use the Frankfort Arsenal hand primer. It’s a very good primer overall as far as handheld tools go.

I use the Frankfort Arsenal mentioned above. It was significantly better than the Lee I was using before. Well made and sturdy. You can adjust the seating depth as well.

My RCBS would not seat the primers in as far as I would like so got the Frankfort Arsenal which has an adjustment for seating depth. I like it but have to be careful with alignment at times.

I ordered the Frankfort Arsenal platinum primer seater. We’ll give it a try.

That's what I bought to replace my old Lee that finally broke. I love it.

Another vote for the Frankford Arsenal hand primer tool. Works great

One of the few Lee tools I liked but their latest release of the Auto Prime is a POS. I bought the rcbs that JG referenced, it’s good but I don’t have the same feel I did with the Lee. I didn’t like the FA hand primer, nothing wrong with it…I had about the same feel as the rcbs bench mounted one so I sold the FA.

Good luck, I haven’t found anything I like and I’m resisting spending Primal Rights money.

It's one time I will praise the RCBS over the Lee. I was given an RCBS and it's spot on. I have heard the original out of production Lee is good but that matters not now that it is obsolete.

I still have one of the old ones and it works great, I prefer it to the RCBS which I have one of but like you said the old Lee is obsolete. I will keep using the old Lee as long as it works.

I didn’t mention that I also have a Lee Auto Prime. I’ve had it since the 80’s. These days I only use it for pistol ammo. For the rifles, for many years, I used the RCBS primer seater that you had to put one primer at a time in. It had real good feel, but it finally broke. RCBS sent me the last one they had like that in the warehouse. They didn’t make them any more, but they found one on the shelf. And it broke. Then they sent me the one with the tray. All free, which was nice of them. The newest one works, but not as well as it once did, so I wanted something better. I like the tray types, so we’ll have a look at the Franklin one.

I had the same problem with the RCBS tray type that used shell holder. Primers were not even flush with case head. Come to find out some of the older RCBS shell holder were causing the problem. Bought some new shell holder and problem solved. There is a bulletin now on RCBS site about problem.

I really like to seat on a press because I can feel the seating pressure. I would imagine the bench top priming tool would also give you a good feal of the priming pressure.

The best priming system I have found is the old Lee Auto Prime 2. You can only find them on Ebay these days. It primes on top of a single stage press and allows full control of primer depth. It also runs on standard shell holders. I use these for all my single stage priming. They work great, as long as you keep track of the primers flowing down the trough.

Amazon has the bench mounted RCBS primer seater on sale for $71.42.

Just got the Frankfort Arsenal primer seater. Wow! This thing is built solid and is light years ahead of the RCBS one I have. No comparison. Of course, I haven’t used it yet, so maybe it’s good looking junk - but I doubt it.

I have one of these that I use occasionally. I uniform my primer pockets & this will seat to a precise stop. Surprisingly, you can feel the primer being seated.

A buddy of mine brought his over while we were loading. Oddly, two weeks after using his, the old Lee handheld I had used for years mysteriously broke.

I started using the new primer seater yesterday afternoon. Didn’t work worth a darn, due to the primer feeder tray not allowing primers to feed into the primer seater. Really ticked me off. Happily, the RCBS primer tray (round green one) fits in the Frankfort and feeds perfectly. Good to go now.

I had the same problem and had to file a bit of metal that was snagging the primers.

I use a K&M primer tool its a hand seater and uses the lee auto prime shell holders.
It is perfect in seating and extremely consistent.

This makes me curious, why not just use your press? I've tried those little handheld primer deals and never liked them, and always end up just going back to priming on the press. But I know a lot of people use the little handheld primer seaters, and it makes me wonder why, and what don't you like about priming on the press?