What do you think?

[Stephen Prindle]

Great price for a progressive if you are mechanically inclined and willing to tinker and make adjustments on the fly they can be made to work. I owned one for about 4 years until I got tired of the constant adjustments, replacing plastic parts etc. Priming was the weakest link. I finally went to manually priming before loading to minimize the hassles. I sold it about 5 years ago so the new one's may be better. If you can afford a Dillion or Hornady I'd recommend either over the Lee.

 

[BHP9]

I had a Lee 1000 press that I got in 1986 and loaded 9mm and 38 Special. I got the conversion kit for 40 S&W and loaded many many thousands of rounds with. Rebuilt it 4 times during the 30 years I had it, when I got a Dillon 1050 in 9mm, and got 3 extra tool heads, powder measures, dies, conversion kits for 38 Special, 9mm, 40 S&W and 45 ACP.

The Lees' biggest downfall, also with the Loadmaster is the priming systems. Also if you are going to shoot 50,000 plus rounds per year, then get a Dillon 750 at the very least.

 

[RidgeTop]

I have the Lee progressive for loading 9mm with the auto bullet feeder and such. Every thing has a little bit of slop and has adjustments. Adding some wire ties in some places kept things from popping out. Sometimes the brass will crash into the sizing die and I cannot figure out why so I do go slow and will give it a poke to center if needed.

It requires a bit of tinkering but once everything is adjusted right and you find a rhythm then it loads ammo quick besides the quirk where the brass can miss the sizing die. Buy an extra bullet fingers if you go the bullet feeding route since I crushed one of those too.

I don't have any other progressive to compare with but expect to tinker with the Lee a bit. Overall, it does work and I don't shoot or use it enough to justify anything more expensive.

One tip for priming is to put a empty decap die to help center case over punch.

 

[VenatusDominus]

I have used a Lee Loadmaster for 20 years. I have loaded thousands of .45 ACP, 9mm and 5.56/.223. Once dialed in, I can do about 200 per hour. It does require regular tinkering and adjusting to keep it running smoothly. I have the auto case feeder and auto bullet feeder.

 

[HSmithTX]

I have had a couple of the 1000 and several Loadmasters, your best bet is buying one in each caliber or multiple in the same caliber if you load minor/major or something, that way when you tweak it in and get it running well you don't have to change anything from there. Once they are running they run decently, but like the other guys have said you need to be somewhat mechanically inclined and willing to tinker to get it running well. I sold all mine and bought a Dillon 550, none of the tinkering and double the output but it cost more than 4 of the Lee if I remember correctly. I set up toolheads for the 550 and can swap in 3-4 minutes with changing the powder measure, on the toolheads I have set up with powder measures it takes less than a minute to swap out and be running with a new cartridge. Swapping primer sizes takes another 2-3 minutes. And it runs every time on time without any hassle, swap out what needs changed and start pulling the handle. I thought that was pretty slick so I bought a Dillon 750, it easily doubled the output of the 550 so at least 4x what the Lee will make. I've loaded over 1K rounds of 38, 9mm, 40, 45 etc on the 750 in an hour. But, get it set up with the casefeeder etc and you are looking at the price of probably 10 maybe 12 of the Lee presses. I don't regret the Dillon presses one bit and that is what I stuck with, but you can make good ammo at a couple hundred rounds an hour on the Lee once it is running. It's more about your current budget and time available. When I bought the Dillon presses I had more money than time (time strapped badly, no cash falling out of any lower posterior orifices...) , and if I wanted to shoot matches I needed to be able to load quickly and they did just that. A couple of the Lee I sold were to guys I was shooting matches with and they had more time available than I did, when I lost track of the guy using one of the 9mm I sold he had over 40K rounds loaded on it and was still running well. In summary, I think I agree with everyone that has used them, I would not tell you not to get one but understand what it is you are getting and make the call from there.