no love here for the Lee Progressives?

[onelight]

It seems to be common for people that have a problem with priming on a Lee 1000 to say you can’t inspite of all the people that primed or prime on the press me included.
Priming issue questions seem fairly common to all the progressives wether it’s Hornady , Dillon or Lee or the assortment of rcbs progressives. To say a $200. Press is not as good as a $500. Or more press
Is true in most cases but it is kinda wrong to say the $200. Press won’t work when so many successfuly use them.

[DougGuy]

Lee gear takes some common sense and some tweaking to get it to work right, unless they forget a step in machining the dies or something you can't polish out.

The worst are their priming systems, none of them work like clockwork, there is no such thing with Lee written on it. The second worst is the powder measure they are all made with plastic, are very staticky, and even on the best days will throw inconsistent charges.

Of course there are some who will claim they never have had a problem with out of the box Lee stuff, loading pistol ammo in full progressive mode, from depriming to re priming, seating and crimping all on the press. Then there are those that wouldn't know Alice didn't really go to Wonderland either, their Lee stuff works unbelievably good.

I hand prime everything, I have modded powder measures to work like nobody's business and they work SO well once you re-engineer them, if you aren't willing to understand your equipment, to understand every stage of how it works, and aren't patient enough or willing to do whatever it takes to figure it out and fix it, don't by any Lee reloading tools.

There is a LM here, I could do the same with a turret press as I am using the LM for. The only thing I use progressive for is loading pre-primed 45 ACP brass. Everything else is loaded one stage at a time, checked and double checked, weighed every charge, etc.

[rbuck351]

kmw1954
I agree that if one primes off the press the majority of the issues go away. There are couple of the main reasons the primer system sucks. The powder spitter sets directly over the top of the primer slide and when it spits powder into the open top of the primer slide the primers stop sliding. This is fixed by replacing the powder discs with the adjustable powder slide and resurfacing it to a flat surface. This stops most of the powder spitting. I also installed a strip of plastic milk jug over the top of the powder slide to stop any powder that still gets out of the powder spitter. I use primarily ball powders because they meter so well but they also leak out anywhere possible. Next you have a primer slide where the angle at the bottom of the trough is almost flat with the primer punch and needs several primers in the trough to push the next primer in place. The press actually is designed to shake ( notches cut in the one leg) to help the primers down the slide. Then, as you mentioned, there is nothing to hold the primer exactly where it belongs. Another issue is the primer tray doesn't have a way to stop the primers from falling out while you are installing a new tray on the press. Easy fix by drilling a small hole at the outlet and installing a bent paper clip.

Yep, one could deprime and then prime off the press and solve most of the problems of the pro 1000 however that really adds to the reloading time.

I have never tried the Dillon SDB and won't because of the unusual dies.

As I said I have three of the pro 1000s that all work now even priming on the press if you don't let the primer slide run low on primers.

I have had two issues with my Dillon 550. One shell plate, a 38 spl was indexed a bit off and didn't line up 100% with the primer punch. Dillon gave me a new one which works great. Second is if I don't blow of the primer slide once in a while it will spit a primer out on it's way to the primer punch. This is really my fault for not depriming and cleaning primer pockets before loading but I'm not going to do that either. An air hose kept by the press and a quick squirt now and then and it just keeps working.

People rave about the Star progressive. I have one of those but when that thing has a little glitch it's a whole lot worse to fix that the pro 1000.

[kmw1954]

The second worst is the powder measure they are all made with plastic, are very staticky, and even on the best days will throw inconsistent charges.

Of course there are some who will claim they never have had a problem with out of the box Lee stuff, loading pistol ammo in full progressive mode, from depriming to re priming, seating and crimping all on the press. Then there are those that wouldn't know Alice didn't really go to Wonderland either, their Lee stuff works unbelievably good..

Guess I am one of "Those". as stated in previous posts many times I happen to use one of those Horrible Lee Pro1000 presses and have used it as intended from day one. Which yes means that I prime on press. If I wasn't going to prime on press there would be no need for a progressive press! I also have 4 of those horrible plastic Lee powder measures. One Auto Drum and 3 Auto Disks. Yes, the Auto Drum has been returned for repairs but as for inconsistent weight drops I call a Huge **. I have not modified any of these measures and they consistently drop 0.1gr within target weight with AA@2, AA#5, HP-38 and Ramshot Silhouette.

So I suppose I'm one of the "Lucky Idiots" that everything works cause I know I'm no one special and I also do not know anyone named Alice. As I also stated, Some people were just never meant to be anywhere near a progressive press.

[ReloaderFred]

This one has run it's course. Thread closed.