The business began in 1958, in Richard Lee’s home workshop, with the Lee Loader for shotgun cartridges. Rifle and pistol versions followed in the early 1960s. It is a box containing everything needed to load one calibre and is worked with a hammer: the company estimates that more than one and a half million shooters entered reloading this way, and that ammunition loaded with a Lee Loader appeared in Guinness for more than seven years.

The first lathe-machined aluminium bullet moulds, furnaces and sizing tools arrived in the 1970s, followed in the middle of the decade by the Load-All for shotgun cartridges. In the 1980s the company began making its own presses and dies; from that period came the Turret and Pro 1000, which Lee describes as the most popular progressive press. Its list of products it says it invented and later saw copied covers the whole bench: dies, presses, crimpers, powder measures, priming tools, scales, moulds, furnaces, sizers, lubricants, turrets and case trimmers.

Nothing enters the catalogue without three questions: does it meet a real need or improve on what exists, can it be made at an affordable price, and would I buy one? Its stated mission is to produce the best value in American-made reloading tools; products are cast, machined and assembled in the United States. The warranty follows the same principle: two years unconditional and a conditional lifetime warranty, a full refund within thirty days, and collet dies guaranteed to produce less bullet run-out than any other brand.

Richard Lee died on 22 September 2018. He had patented the Lee Loader and more than thirty reloading products; the company remains wholly family-owned and is chaired by his son John, who put it plainly: without his father, reloading would have remained an expensive hobby for the few.