Progressive Press

[DaveB]

I ran into some problems with a Dillon press I acquired and had to find an alternative.

Got a lee load master. Auto feeds brass, decaps, primes, Sizes, bells the brass, drops powder charge, you manually place bullet, bullet is seated and crimped.

All I could think of is this is never gonna work.

For three days of adjusting I was positive this was a bad investment.

Then, I got everything right. And it stayed right. No pieces fell off.

I can produce a 5.3 grains of powder under a 115 grain FMJ 9mm round in about 10 seconds. All day long.

Yep, biggest problem is I have to stop and load primers. Now I see why extra primer trays are for sale.

I never expected the powder charge mechanism to work and be accurate. It works perfect so far with CFEPistol.

Primers do not jam, I am using Federal small pistol primers.

Brass does not jam, this is actually the most Rube Goldberg process but it works.

The instructions say to develop a consistent up-down movement of the press handle. It is reinforced quite a bit...I wondered why....its because without that consistent stroke, you get huge problems. You cannot do a half stroke. Even with the safe no-double charge in place it can still happen. I got quite a chill when I looked into a case and saw a double charge.....exercise care.

The powder canister lid is for appearances sake, it might keep bird droppings out but it is 1/4 inch to large in diameter. It will fall off and spill poder everywhere.

I am going to get 223 components. I see how to make the brass drop process work......Rube Goldberg was my hero.

 

[Hunter 257W]

I have two Pro 1000 progressive presses. I bought one for each cartridge I wanted high volumes of ammo for rather than trying to change the whole setup each time I went from one cartridge to another. Got one in 9mm and one in 45 Colt. Before this I had only used single station presses and it was challenging to get used to the difference. As you said, Dave, it is vital to always use full strokes of the handle. Otherwise you'll mess up the primer feed so bad that you'll have primers in fully sideways or not at all. Then when you dump the powder it will feed through the flash hole in the case and clog up the primer feed trough. Now your next primer won't slide freely in place. Also you need full strokes to give enough vibration to the primer feed shaker so that primers index each time. It took me quite a while to get used to monitoring everything on each stroke. You also have to remember to index the case feeder when it runs dry and of course place a bullet in the final stage case. But once you get it all worked out, you can turn out ammo at a nice pace. I'm not sure I like the handle on the current version though. The handle on mine looks way stiffer as it's a heavy aluminum casting similar to the current Load Master handle.