Lee Pro1000 vs Dillon 550/650

[Recluse]

80 223's in an hour? That's 1.2 a minute. I never loaded 223 on my pro1000 but that seems VERY slow to me, I can do better than that on a lee turret.

I have the Loadmaster and I can do at least 300 223's in an hour, taking my time. I cranked out 100 45's Monday night in about 15 min.

A. He didn't say he was looking to establish or break any sort of a record. He said he could load X amount of rounds/calibers per hour and apparently do so at his own comfort rate.

B. In forty years of reloading, I've seen a lot of folks get progressives for the sheer purpose of seeing how many they can crank out and how fast. People choose progressives for their own reasons, and what's more, they choose the brands they do for their own reasons.

No right answer, no wrong answer. Only what works for YOU, the guy pulling the handle.

[mike in co]

The really right answer is this:

Buy whatever you prefer. If you like Dillons, buy those. If you like Lees, buy those. If you like Hornady, RCBS, or whatever...buy that.

I own two Lee Pro 1000's and have used a Dillon RL550B. Both are fine presses. I happen to prefer the Pro 1000's, so that's what I bought.

glad to see some has decided they have the only really right answer.......


lol

[hunter64]

I was in on the deal that parrott1969 had offered and received a 550 with 3 conversion kits and some extra primer tubes, a spare parts kit and some extra tool heads.

I took my laptop out to the garage and followed a guys installation method and setup on youtube and also followed along with the printed manual that it came with.

Everything went smoothly until I loaded up the primer tube the first time with primers and one primer got stuck in the primer magazine tube.

After I removed the primers and looked in the tube I could see one primer was slightly wedged. So I sprayed some wd-40 into the tube and let it sit for an hour and then gently pushed it out. I cleaned out the tube from the wd-40 and I was off to the races. When I got the primer out it definitely was oblong and it was a new carton of primers that it came from. Don't ask me how that happened.

Took me about 10 minutes to get into a rhythm and once I got going I made short work of 300 rounds.

With my cowboy action .38 spl powder puff loads I found it very hard to see into the case to make sure there was powder in there. I was kind of worried about that before I ordered the 550 so I will have to rig up some kind of light and mirrors to see into the case (I know I have seen a few on the site). I am sure with a shorter type case like a .45acp there is no problem.

Also thought of installing my RCBS powder checker in station 3 and size and crimp in station 4 but that is for another day.

Very easy machine to run and if something goofs up it is easily fixed and continue on. Very happy so far.