Here is another Gear review...

Just picked up a Lee classic cast press (90998). Its very solid, and feels like there is plenty of leverage. The coating and holes drilled for the mounting bolts could be a little better (doesn't interfere with the mounting.. just not perfect). The ram is massive, but that's probably because its hollow (primers are ejected through the bottom of the ram into a collection tube, or down into a coffee can if you're so inclined )

The finish on the body is good, but not great. If they expect to compete with the RCII , which is only a few bucks more on the used market (I paid 125, yes I know I could have gotten it for 100ish online, but I like to support local shops). The ram is a little rough, not polished but turned pretty smooth. I can feel the removable shell holder piece (really, the piece you put the shell holder in is removable) is more rough and I can feel it moving through the body of the press. Its extremetly difficult to remove and I suspect that is part of the design. The more I play with it, the less I feel the roughness.. so I'm assuming that it'll wear in. Due to this, I'm going to forgo any polishing I was thinking of doing to the ram for the time being. I'll play with the handle a bit and try to get a video of it doing some common operations, like decapping, swaging pockets, possibly sizing. That depends on if I have time, or get lazy about it lol. May do a lock n load bushup upgrade on it (I hear its not very compatible with the rcbs collet puller.. so I'l have to look into that).

Feature wise, I feel nothing else matches the lee for the money. I prefer its primer handling vs the others... It just drops the primer out the bottom of the ram, no lost primers anywhere.

Leverage.. I'm not sure there are any presses out there have more leverage. I'm not sold on the strength of the linkages. I'm not sure if they're steel or pot metal really. They're zinc coated I think, as they have the goldish color that zinc coatings leave. I like the adjustable handle height, that the handle can be ambi, the cost.. I'm not sure about the on press priming and I may go back to doing hand priming but I'll give the lee safety prime a real test for a year or so before I truely decide.

ANY questions, areas of concerns, comments on the press are more than welcome. I understand this press is a sample of 1.. so the more input and feedback we can get on it, the more people can decide on the merits of the press. If you want me cover a certain aspect of the press in further detail, then we can work that out with pics as I get to using it more.

Side note, the removable shell holder piece is a total BIA to remove. VERY hard to unscrew from the press (even though its not torqued down). The bottom of it is a 4 finger collet type base that looks like it is compressed by a ring on the inside of the ram. Lee says this is as designed to keep it from shifting around (you screw it all the way in and back out to have the priming arm where you want it) once you get it set. I can see that, but its HARD to remove. THe 50 bmg shell holder that replaces it doesnt have the collet fingers and looks like it should just screw in easy till it hits a full stop.

Just mounted it.. man them are some small mounting holes.. I had a few bolts that fit.. but guessing 1/4".. maybe 3/8.

Rock solid though. Put my swager on there, adjusted the handle so I had about 1/4" or so of ram movement between stops.. and then swaged about 300 pieces of brass. Averaged about 3-4 seconds per pull. Hard to see how people bend the rim on the brass doing this.. must be a special type of stupid. I did drop a 30 carbine brass in there just to see, and intentionally ripped the rim off (left the expended primer in there and then used the swager). Yeah, abusing my equipment.. but man it felt just as easy as sizing a proper lubed case from the last press.. maybe even easier..

More info -
After reading that people were having issues with the update to this press (the breech lock version, 90999) with the primer arm falling out during use but not on this one.. I decided to check. The primer arm must be installed to decap (or they go flying everywhere else) but there isn't a possibility for the arm to be removed with a shell holder in. Probably a slight change in the ram design on the other press..