Lee Precision's Breech Lock Challenger System
By Joseph D'Alessandro Editor | RealGuns.Com

Lee Precision has been doing a heck of a job with the evolution of their product line. The products are solid, innovative in design and always represent an excellent value. The new Lee Precision Breech Lock Challenger is more of the same and sure to become a natural answer to the questions, "I'm new to handloading, what equipment should I buy?" and "What's a good single stage press for an experienced handloader ?"

The basic Lee Breech Lock Challenger Press is available online for a typographical error looking $45.99. A Complete Press Kit #90030 at $95.99 includes the Auto Prime System, the Anniversary Kit #90050, priced at $82.99, includes the press mounted Safety Prime system.

The Lee Breech Lock Challenger Press

The Lee Breech Lock Challenger press can be used as a quick change or conventional die change system. In either case, the press and inserts accept all manufacturers 7/8"x14 threaded dies.

The basic press is a single station "O" type, closed all the way around with a dual perimeter rib for minimum flex and maximum alignment. There is sufficient capacity for cartridge length running from the tiny 0.905" 25 ACP to the 3.750" 460 Weatherby.

The red epoxy coated frame is made of ASTM 380 aluminum with a yield strength of 48,000 PSI. By comparison, a gray iron casting has a yield strength of 29,000 PSI. The linkage and actuating arm are steel. The ram is 0.815" in diameter with a stroke of 3.50". For stability, over 65% of its surface is supported by bearing surface at all times. The operating mechanical advantage is approximately 7:1; 25 ft/lbs of force applied to the handle generates 175 ft/lbs at the ram; enough to minimize operating fatigue, but not so much to eliminate "feel" when seating primers. The actuating handle may be positioned left or right and length varied to adjust to effort required.

If you are familiar with the Classic Turret Press and its casting design you'll find similar work done on the Challenger Press base; offset mount holes, bench edge locating rail and lots of triangulated and boxed ribbing that carries all the way through to the ram and linkage support areas. The ram is positioned right at the edge rail for maximum support under load.

The press includes a spent primer disposal system that can route to a container or to the included plastic tube for collection. Both standalone presses and kits include Lee Lever Prime Systems with both large and small primer levers that can be used manually or in concert with the Lee Safety Primer Feed, or purchased separately for use with the  standalone press.

The Breech Lock system is an interesting design and quite different from other attempts at a quick change die system. The Breech Lock press has integral 1 5/64" 16 pitch interrupted threads, which eliminates the need for a second insert. The three gaps between thread segments means that, while there is impressive contact surface when threads are aligned, the insert needs only to be rotated a third of a turn for installation and removal. 

A Breech Lock die change is a one hand proposition. The lock pin is depressed by the insert's shoulder as the insert is installed into the press. The lock pin pops up into the insert's alignment notch when the insert is rotated clockwise and the interrupted threads are fully engaged. The insert is removed by pressing down on the lock pin while rotating the insert counter clockwise. This makes die swapping easy, while preventing the insert from rotating and altering die adjustment. The "O" ring vertically positions the insert for proper press/insert thread offset so they will start easily. 

For quick change die duty, Breech Lock Inserts are installed on all dies as pictured left, with each combination adjusted once for all future use. Once set, a quarter turn effort to change dies is all that is required, other than the normal adjustments made when bullet changes are made.

For conventional die mounting, a single insert is installed in the press and dies are screwed in and out of that single insert. If you are wondering if the interrupted thread system is sturdy enough for this application, it is basically the same set up used to lock the breech of large cannon and the key component of Weatherby's ultra strong nine lug Mark V bolt action magnums. It is an incredibly strong system.

The Lever Prime and Safety Prime Feed Systems

Both press and press with kit contain the gravity powered Lee Lever Prime System. Two lever assemblies ship with each system to cover large and small primer applications. The lever of choice is dropped into a slot cut into the side of the ram and toggles with the changing position of the ram. As the ram is raised (right) for a decapping operation, the arm tips open to facilitate loading a fresh primer into the arm's primer guide and to angle the left side of the arm so it can guide the spent primer to the ejection port on the opposite side of the ram. On the down stroke (far right), or primer seating stroke, the arm toggles back into the ram until locked in the upright position by contact with the press' frame. The primer guide with fresh primer is then passed through the center of the shell holder and against the case, seating the primer.

Customers who purchase the Lee  Anniversary Kit additionally get both small and large Lee Safety Primer Feeds for an enhanced priming system. A feed, pictured right, is comprised of a  press mounted pivot bracket, a 100 primer capacity primer tray, a feed track and a trigger assembly that shuttles primers from the Safety Primer Feed unit to the priming lever on the press ram. In short, the Safety Primer Feed gets your fingers and the potential for contaminated primers out of the process.

Left, a little better illustration the two priming systems working together. The trigger swings like a pendulum from the pivot, then a finger push on the trigger dispenses a primer into the primer guide.

The entire Safety Primer Feed unit lifts off the press bracket, no tools required, to swap between large and small primers. When a primer filled unit is removed, it can be tipped upside down to move the live primers out of the track and back into the primer tray. Since the tray can be removed from the track, and additional trays sell for about $5, I'd like to see a position on the tray that blocks the primers from moving into the track for storage so additional trays can be preloaded.

Scales and Measures

If the plan is to  handload, especially if the plan is to handload more than once, a good scale is essential. Lee Precision has been nice enough to include a Lee Safety Powder scale in the Breech Lock Kits. The Lee scale can also be purchased separately for under $29.

I like mechanical scales much better than electronic scales and I do routinely them. I never know what to make out of this little Lee scale, probably because of the selection of plastic for the beam and the unique grain and partial grain window readings; it is different. Actually, the beam is a phenolic, similar to the substance used in the manufacture of billiard balls and high speed bearing, very tough stuff. The front of the beam has a dampener blade that works with magnets mounted in the beam lifter, base, to quickly settle the reading when as contents of the scale are changed.

I had a little trouble getting use to the single and partial grain readings. I'm not sure why, it is a little like reading the ten thousandths scale on the thimble of a micrometer, or calibrating an ink jet printer. it's just a matter of getting brains and eyeballs on the same page....which sounds sort of disgusting. You slide the grain poise and read whole grains numerically expressed in the lower window above "GRAINS" and tenth grains and partial tenth grains as vertical bars appearing in the small windows below the ".1 GRAIN 1/10" label. Maybe I'm just conditioned to reading from an indexed drum, or moving a little link into a notch, but I have a hard time seeing less than several bars in the tenth window on the Lee scale. But then I'm a slow learner. The scale, with its 110 grain capacity, should be able to cover all but the largest rifle cartridges. I decided I would quit whining, suck it up and give the scale a fair shot during the next handgun review project.

Lee precision includes a Lee Perfect Powder Measure in the kit to speed along case charging. It is sort of a culver measure...sort of, with a drum connected to the operating handle with a variable size cavity. The cavity is rotated upward so it is open to the powder reservoir and filled, then rotated downward in alignment with the measure's nozzle to deposit the contents into the cartridge case.

Smokeless powder varies widely in volume density even from lot to lot within the same powder type, even though smokeless powder does not absorb water. One of the good reasons why smokeless, unlike black powder, is loaded by weight and not volume. The metering rod adjustment on the Lee Perfect Powder is incremented in CCs and there is a Lee Precision provided cross reference table between powder type and grains per CC that is intended to make this indexed adjustment more meaningful.

Going into this project, I've had good experience with Lee Disk Powder measures, a unit that measures with a selection of fixed cavities shuttling under a powder reservoir. I've had virtually no experience with the Perfect Powder Measure. My experience with Culver powder measures, including those beautifully machined and sold at absolutely silly prices, is not good. They are inconsistent, require an educated feel to meter in a useful fashion and they should never be used for maximum loads. That said, this Lee Perfect Powder Measure is different in form from most Culver measures.

The drum is conical rather than cylindrical and the a pliable wiper is intended to displace rather than shear granules of powder caught between drum and the measure's body. One of the things I like about Lee Precision products; I open them up and I'm always surprised by what I find inside. Then I have to scratch my head until I can figure out exactly what they were up to when they developed the part or system.

Like other Lee measures, there is a cut off valve built into the reservoir so a simple twist of the hopper cuts powder flow and permits removal without spill. Lee rates the Perfect Powder Measure for dispensing charge increments from two grains to one hundred.

Sundry Accessories

The kits are rounded out with a mouth chamfer tool, a nifty primer pocket cleaner and the two universal components of the Lee Precision's trimmer tool. A shell holder and case length gauge is required for each cartridge to be trimmed, about $5, and a special large cutter is required at .475" caliber and above. For most applications these tools will get the job done. For broader applications and volume use, other tools may be substituted. As an example, I typically use a lathe type electric trimmer with micrometer adjustment, but I tend to trim large numbers of cases at single session.

The Workstation

I spared no expense in getting the right mobile workstation for this project. $35 on sale at the local mall's unfinished wood furniture store, it is a tube TV type cart on wheels. 3/4" solid oak, including shelves, frame and back braces, it measures 24"x16"x26" sitting on its castering wheels. Unlike a folding table, there is no spring in the legs to dampen case sizing or priming motions. The cart is actually very solid.

I don't know what the weight capacity is, but I've loaded it up with components, dies, press and powder metering equipment without ill effect. I can roll the whole thing into a closet to put it out of the way, and I can put equipment around the perimeter and rotate the stand's position for whatever I am using at the time. It took a couple of minutes to drill the mount holes for the press and pilot holes for the self taping screws that secure the powder measure, then it was ready to roll. I thought I would take a run at the 9mm Luger first since I've been making fun of the cartridge with some frequency for....forever. Look for the coming 9mm pistol review.

Conclusion

I can say, ahead of the detail, the Breech Lock System works well and it is useful in a very practical sense. I loaded 9mm rounds, but I also loaded 40 S&W, and having the dies ready to go saved a lot of time and tedious labor. Case sizing, expanding, bullet seating and crimping produced very uniform results and dies all returned to their presets. Measuring relatively slow powder, with periodic scale audits, could be done quickly and with confidence. Charges were very uniform. I've even gotten at least a little use to reading the grain scale. The only point I might make is that the effort required to seat primers seemed a little high. This stopped being a problem when I loaded the second shelf of the cart with lots and lots of bullets so I wasn't lifting it off the ground on the upstroke of the press. This isn't actually a Lee Press problem as much as my persistence in putting together a light bench. Yup, the Breech Lock is another very good product from Lee Precision.

Thanks,
Joe