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Posted: 10/22/2012 7:11:26 AM EDT
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My father and I are splitting the cost of reloading, supplies, including the press and all ammo related parts.
Last week, I reloaded about 1200 38Spl rounds. It took me 5 days. I have supplies for 1100 9mm and 1000 .380 Auto, He is talking about another 2500 for the AR 5.56. I am not doing this on my single stage press. No. No. I have completed around 2000 Rounds now since i got my kit, just over a month ago. I have been very busy with it. I have looked at the LEE, Hornady, and dillon, and read at least 150 reviews. I like the LEE for the cheapness, and the Latter reviews 2010 and newer are mostly good. I have a LEE Single Stage press as of now, so Ill be able to reuse DIEs at least. Anyone with progressive experience will be appreciated. And i would like to hear from owners of the LEE progressives as well please! Thank you in advance |
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Have to agree with Oper28, if you are worried about using your current dies it implies that your budget may be tight?
If that is the case, take your time reading the reviews and rest assured you will not go wrong with anything that is colored red, orange, green, or blue, etc. Case feeders and bullet feeders create natural break points in prices. Most of the main line brands offer them for their flagship progressives. Any of the main line brands make a decent product and they all have loyal fans on this forum. Several posters even run more than one brand, myself included. Maybe the thing to do is to study the specs and run yourself a shopping list of everything you need for two or three of the ones you are considering. Call their CS lines if you need help understanding the shopping list for all the parts you need to convert calibers. When you study the real costs of changing calibers, the machines will still look fairly close to each other. Then you may want to watch the EE, find used bargains, or jump on a sale. Do you have any friends with a progressive machine that will let you observe or run theirs for a lesson? |
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k you will get a lot of different opinions. what are your requirements for a press? cheaper the better? good quality? good customer service? u have a budget range?
each choice has its own consequences, good or bad. If you want cheap, lee is ur way to go. but you will pay for any piece that breaks, you will tinker with it as much as you reload too. also, good luck with their customer service. pay more you will get a better quality press IMO. I have RCBS and Dillon. I do way more on my Dillon 650. i also paid more upfront. but when i sit down to reload, it runs like flawless. to churn out 1k rounds its never an issue. and yes i use lee dies with it too. another thing to think about too is that if you ever want to get out of the sport and wanted to sell ur stuff, a press maker that has a warranty will always bring a higher price that one that doesnt. i will put my hat in the dillon 650 but i wish u the best of luck on what ever u buy. |
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My budget, is to be as low as possible, but still getting a good project. 300- 500 whatever as long as it is quality and will last. Round per hour? I was probably pushing 50 on the single stage. Using the "atuo Prime" thing on the lee single, size on up, prime on down stroke. 250 or so would be sweet. I am not interested in the case, or bullet feeding designs, i will gladly place a bullet and case after every stroke. As for having friends with a press to try out... No, im anti social, and have less than 5 friends, 2 of which are liberals and will never even talk about guns. the others are "factory ammo" guys. And cant understand why a man would reload.
I am truely leaning on the LEE, but im not so closed minded that I cant be swayed. I like the 5 station setup. |
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My Dillon 550B yields about 500 pistol rounds per hour. Get someone to load the primer tubes for you while you reload and you'll get a higher rate.
For 1200 rounds of 38SPL, you'd be done in two to three hours, not five DAYS! I get about 300 rifle rounds per hour, too. |
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I've either owned or own the following progressives.
Lee Pro1000 Lee Loadmaster Hornady AP Dillon 450/lower converted 550 Dillon XL650 Dillon Super1050, belongs to a friend and load with it often. If you'd like an honest review of one let me know. I don't follow every thread I post in so you might IM. |
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Quoted:
My budget, is to be as low as possible, but still getting a good project. 300- 500 whatever as long as it is quality and will last. Round per hour? I was probably pushing 50 on the single stage. Using the "atuo Prime" thing on the lee single, size on up, prime on down stroke. 250 or so would be sweet. I am not interested in the case, or bullet feeding designs, i will gladly place a bullet and case after every stroke. As for having friends with a press to try out... No, im anti social, and have less than 5 friends, 2 of which are liberals and will never even talk about guns. the others are "factory ammo" guys. And cant understand why a man would reload. I am truely leaning on the LEE, but im not so closed minded that I cant be swayed. I like the 5 station setup. Given your comments on no bullet feeder or case feeder I would go with the Dillon RL550B as it wasn't designed to use a bullet or case feeder and the LNL AP and XL650 were. Also, the cost is basically the same between the LNL AP and the RL550B as far as caliber conversions go when you figure in all parts that are necessary. It is easy on the 550B to turn out 400+ rounds of 9mm per hour for me without rushing and about 300 per hour of .223 using the same pace. Also, the 550B will do pretty much every caliber known to man. |
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Don't discount Lee's CS either. I broke a cheap single stage press, ( the link ), and I called them. They were out of stock on the links themselves, so they shipped me a new press ( Challenger ), no questions asked other than my name and address. Two weeks later I got the link in the mail for the other one. I also had a die that I had an issue with, and they shipped a new one out , no questions, and told me to just keep the original, and told me how I may be able to easily fix it so I'd have two, and, if I couldn't fix it, to send it in free of charge and they would. They just wanted me up and running.
I have had great CS with RCBS as well. I had the seater stem on a .308 die modified for a particular bullet that it wasn't working well with. I just told them the bullet I was shooting, and they polished the stem to fit , and shipped the stem, and I kept the original. No charge. I haven't used the CS on the other companies so I don't know about them, but I have never heard anything bad about any reloading company CS wise. |
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I have the Dillon 550. It has four stations, which is enough to reload any round. I chose the 550 because it is manual indexing, and it was/is my first press that I learned on.
If you have several rounds that you want to reload, you can save time and money by getting the 550. You could spend the money upfront for extra tooldheads in the deluxe quick change kits and the conversion kits. They will be cheaper, faster, and easier to swap between calibers than the 650. |
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Go here and read a bit. Its free.
http://forums.loadmastervideos.com/forums/ Plenty of help for all Lee Products there. I have Lee single, turret and LoadMaster. They work fine. Are they a bit finicky, yes. is the LM maddening with priming...sometimes. But once you become familiar with it, its fairly good. Note: Disassemble and reassemble a LoadMaster when you get it. It is NOT SETUP and ready to go out of the box. Work thru each station one at a time to ensure correct functioning before rolling into full progressive mode. |
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I have had Dillon products for quite a while and the 550 is a great press. I went from a Lee single stage to the 550 and reloading became a whole new and much more enjoyable experience.
I don't have any experience with the Lee press that you mentioned but all of the Lee products I have, including that twenty-year-old single stage press, have been very good quality and easy on the wallet. |
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The problem with the LEE Loadmaster is the fact that, as many people will say, is that they are finicky. The last thing you want is a progressive that you have to stop and fiddle with. I bought one and was unable to set it up for a couple of months, and when I did I noted that the priming system is unreliable, and the indexing system is very crude. Several users post about the Lee Loadmaster that do not use the priming system....
If you get the Dillon 550 it has 4 stations and does not auto index. The case feed system is not made for rifle. The Dillon 650 has 5 stations, auto indexes and case feed system is made for rifle. Some argue that they don't want auto indexing- you can disable it in 1 second when changing shellplates. I have used a 650 for about 15 years and never, ever wanted or needed to disable it. why 5 stations? for pistol, 1 size/decap 2 primer/powder 3 powder check 4 bullet seat 5 crimp The 650 comes with part of the case feed system using a tube which holds about 11 223 cases, or about 24 45 ACP. You can make case loading tubes with 1/2 inch cpvc IIRC and preload them with brass, which you can then dump into the press's case feed tube when loading. You can easily load 4-500 per hour of pistol ammo with no worries about double charges, etc. I did it this way for years until I got the casefeeder/hopper system. Every time you eliminate a step, you decrease the chances of human error. With the casefeed system, you place a bullet. pull the handle- repeat. It is pretty close to impossible to get out of step with that sequence. |
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Quoted:
Might be worth a call, who knows ETA: if someone checks it out and is gone let me know and I'll kill the link so she dosen't get more calls Gone. I spoke with her since I am just down the road. It was sold to someone on Sunday. |
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Its true you can spend lots of money on high end presses or spend less and give up some features.
I think the question really is do you want to spend for extras such as power case feeders, etc. or do you want an affordable press that will do the job but maybe lacks the "bells and whistles?" And only you can decide that. I have a Lee Loadmaster that has done a great job for me while not eating up money I prefer to use for reloading components. Is that approach right for everyone, certainly not. Its all about personnal choice. Either way there are enough choices to give you whatever you want. Before purchasing my Loadmaster I had the opportunity to try out the Hornady LNL and the Dillon 650 both of which I think are excellent presses. When I started looking at all the extra caliber changes I wanted I realized, for me, I'd end up spending more than I could justify. Coming from my RCBS Rockchucker to the Lee seemed like I was loading lightning fast (to me). Anyway, good luck with your choice. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the top presses such as Hornady LNL, Dillon or Lee. |
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hehe, yeah, alot of times in a text query like this, we have no idea of the experience or temperament of the person asking.
I know my temperament(short), and the fact that I am a engineer, and can and do precision work on things mechanical, electrical and software. Others, however, are not so lucky. So I recommend reading over at the loadmastervideos site, so the OP can judge for him/herself. Dillons are nice, but $$$$. Everything is a tradeoff. I've probably spent more on Lee dies, turrets, shellplates, extra powder measures, etc than on the LoadMaster itself. I have certainly spent more on cases, bullets, and powder. (stupid reloading hobby!) I don't even want to think about that in terms of Dillon parts... |
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