Around here, a bunch of them are at the bottom of Lake Texoma or sitting in the caliche pits with various bullet holes and shotgun patterns on them.
And no, I'm not kidding.
We've found no less than three Loadmasters in two of the local caliche pits we shoot at, and all three had been shot to pieces--I mean, literally shredded.
One of the members of our private range posted pictures on the clubhouse bulletin board of him taking his old Pro1000 and using it as a trot-line anchor in the shallows at Lake Texoma.
I bought a Pro1000 way back when, and I've loaded a gazillion rounds on it. I have it set up exclusively for small-primer rounds and only load three calibers on it--.38 Special, 9mm and .380ACP. It's the .380ACP loading experience that will have me overflying Texoma in the Cessna and chunking that press in the middle of the lake.
You do learn to be a "press mechanic" with a Pro1000. I don't (always) mind tinkering, but what I hate is the unreliability--never knowing if I'm going to have problems loading or not when I sit down at that particular press.
I am NOT a Lee basher by any stretch. Good likelihood that the majority of my bench is red. I, being the strange one that I am, actually like Lee two-cavity molds and have no problems with them. I bought a Lee Challenger press a month after I bought the Pro1000 and have had zero problems with it and only the Lord knows how many rounds IT'S loaded.
Likewise, I like Lee dies and I've traded or sold a Hornady, Lyman and RCBS powder-flo measure while keeping my $20 Lee Perfect Powder Measure. In over thirty years of heavy reloading, I've yet to find a powder measure more consistently accurate than that little twenty-dollar Lee job.
I like RCBS, Redding and Hornady dies. I like the Lyman Crusher press, but there is no better buy for the money and quality you get than the Lee Classic Cast single-stage press. That, along with the Classic Cast Turret, is on my "buy-for-myself" Christmas list this year.
Lee's customer service, beginning in the early days when I was calling every other day about how to run that Pro1000 is what keeps me loyal. The ammo I produce has no idea what color the equipment was that loaded it. Likewise, the deer and wild pigs and doves and pheasants have no idea the color or brand of the equipment that produced the bullet that brought them to my freezer. What's more, I really doubt they'd care all that much.
I bought that Pro1000 for $99. Best hundred bucks I've ever spent in reloading, bar none. That press cranked out round after round of .38 Special for my IPSC addiction. I've pumped out a lot of 9mm as well. I have got my money's worth out of that press a thousand times over, easily.
But would I buy another one today? Sorry, but no. Would I recommend one for someone starting out who is on just as tight of a budget as I was back then? Without hesitation. For $160 bucks complete for one caliber, nobody can touch that. Next closest would be the Square Deal, and it's two and a half times more.
Lemme tell you: I remember what it's like to check the pickup's ash tray and sofa cushions for spare change. Telling someone that spending two and a half times as much money on a reloading press may be easy to do, but you shred your credibility in doing so.
There are some tricks with the Pro1000 I've learned over the years, such as:
1. It works best when mounted to an extremely firm, heavy platform. If you have any wobble or give in your mounting platform, you're in for some misery and frustration.
2. Compromise a tenth of a grain or so and go with the powder-disc measure system rather than that chincy little chain and plunger set up.
3. Before you even load a single primer, disassemble the shellplate carrier and remove the primer chute. Make sure there are no burrs anywhere on the chute where the primers slide. Once that is done, take some hard automotive paste wax (Turtle or Simoniz) and wax the living hell out of that primer chute. Use Q-tips and buff it until it's slicker than an Obama campaign promise. Then, upon putting it back on the shellplate carrier, squirt a little powdered graphite down the chute, and again, use a Q-tip to spread it around. Do that and you'll have a lot better primer feed system.
4. Buy extra three-hole turrets--one for each caliber. I bought a number of Lee .38 Special dies just so I could have a dedicated set/turret for each boolit I load--105 SWC, 148WC, 158SCW, 125JHP--without having to constantly change and fiddle with adjusting them. That's the beauty of Lee's turret system.
5. The handle on the Pro1000 can be removed and "set" to where it offers best leverage for the stroke cycle. I've found that when lowering the ram and setting the primer, it works best if the handle finishes in the 1:00 o'clock position. I see a lot of setups where the handle finishes around two o'clock or three o'clock--I also read from these same people a lot of complaints about having trouble setting the primers.
Lee's Achille's Heel is in their written directions and instructions. They suck. They're dated, they're vague and they just flat suck. I attribute a lot of the frustration to those lousy instructions and directions.
But today we have the internet. Back when I bought that Pro1000, you had to figure it out largely on your own.
But even with all of that said and explained, it (Pro1000 or Loadmaster) still does not even begin to compare with the Dillon 550.