Lee Customer Service

Considering their longevity, it should come as no surprise that Lee Precision does customer service well.

I contacted Lee Precision through their webpage contact tool, Sunday evening I think. Sadly, I did not keep a copy of what I sent, but basically I said this is the second set of toggles to break on me and that I was not necessarily seeking free replacements but just a solution to the problem. I attached pix of both broken toggles.

During the day yesterday, I received an automated email from Lee Precision thanking me for my order of "BL CHALLENGER TOGGLE" at $0.00. At first, I was a little miffed because I already had toggles on the way from MidwayUSA, but then I got another email, this one from Stephanie at Lee Precision:

Hi Robert,

I'm going to ship you a new pair of toggles in tomorrow's mail.
From your pictures, everything appears to be setup correctly with your toggle linkage. Do you mind sending back the broken toggles to the factory for inspection? I'd like to ship these back to our vendor for them to inspect. 

Sincerely,Stephanie 

So, very happy that they are not just willing to replace the broken parts but to try to figure out why they broke.

I replied:

Hello!

I'll be glad to. I will enclose some documentation of the conditions and symptoms of each break. I know that I want as many details as possible when I analyze a part failure. For my opinion's worth, this part would benefit from being thicker in the places where mine broke and if the hole through the center were square instead of eight points, it might distribute the stresses better. As it is, four long narrow bands have to withstand all the full force of my arm plus the leverage provided by the handle and in reality, only one narrow band probably gets the majority of that force. It is at the thinnest point adjacent to that contact point that the first break happens.
I took the liberty of ordering another conversion handle set from MidwayUSA to ensure I had my press operational as soon as possible; I've been shooting for many years, but only recently discovered IDPA, so I'm shooting quite a lot these days :) In any case, I will be up and running very soon. I will endeavor to keep accurate counts of rounds loaded should the situation arise again.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that my first reloading equipment ever was a Lee O-frame press that I had back in the '80's. I loaded as many hundreds of 38/357 and 45 Auto as my budget would allow and I'm sure that I would not have been been able to shoot even as much as I did without the low cost and high utility of my Lee Precision equipment. So when returning after a long break from shooting, I looked at Dillon and Hornady progressives and, sweet as those presses are, the return on investment in the form of money saved reloading is measured in weeks and months with the Pro1000, as opposed to years with the others. That's not to say I will never have one of those other presses, but the Pro1000 meets and exceeds my shooting needs today and I have no immediate plans to change.

Thank you again!