Steve D.

I will get my brand-new LNL-AP on Monday if the big brown toy-truck is running on time. I found the shell plates almost impossible to find across a dozen vendors on the net but did fially nail the 9mm and 45 plates down. The dies I gave-up on after the same search and ordered Dillion Dies from Brian Enos as a small note of appreciation for this awesome site he runs. Hornady has been tearing-it-up with sales on that machine and it shows with the availability of some of the small parts in the market. Let the fun begin...

Holy Crap...Linear Thinker you are making me look /sound like a "Dumpster-Diver" in my brass prep. & quality before reloading.

Disregard Above... I just ordered the two sets of dies and the chamber gages for them from Brian's Dillon Store. In reading about those 3-die sets they do have some really nice features. Now if I can just keep the "Hatfields & McCoys" from fighing on my red press with blue dies while I am reloading everything should be great... Steve

Rats!, I can not find ANY 9mm and 45 ACP New Dimension die sets from Hornady for brand-new LNL-AP on order!? ANY advice in the best quality PROGRESSIVE die Sets that one would expect to work well in LNL. I will use Powder thru expander so not a problem for expanding die. RCBS?, Dillon?, Redding? What about Lyman sets? They have that nice pair of seating studs for different bullet nose-shapes...nice thought. Standing By for the oracle to deliver the truth. Thanks as always, Steve

Anybody know what POWDER Speer uses to load this nice range ammo? This stuff burns SO cleanly in both my 9mm and .45... The brass casings are almost clean enough to drink from hot out of the chamber. Knowlege, Ideas, Suspicions?

You can leave this thing on you nice dining room table.. It will not slop or spill ANY solution unless you disturb it with a spoon to "stir the stew" and cause some water to drip or slop over the edge. Amazingly, you are barely able to "see" any vibration on the surface of the solution at all. The unit has soft rubber feet and the noise it makes is about as much as an electric razor but not "raspy" at all. After rinsing cleaned brass in hot water I then rinsed in Distilled water, gave it a shake and pour the brass out on a cookie-sheet with a folded towl on it. Hit it with a hair dryer on hot for about 10-15 minutes while working the collection over the towel will get it almost 100%. Then just let it sit overnight or hit it with a bit more hair dryer. By using distilled water for the last rinse there will be No Water Spots. $0.88 a gallon at grocery. One gallon of distilled has now rinsed 1350 cases and there is still a bit left in gallon. The 2 Liter Coke Bottles are perfect for this processing routine. I to mix soultion in with full neck and little funnel. 2 others with their necks cut off to rinse, transfer, recover, etc. This system Rocks! Hop ethis helps. Steve

Hello Gents (& Ladies if you're present), I would be eager to hear any thoughts regarding selection of an accurate "forgiving" powder that will work well in .45 ACP and 9mm for a brand new reloader (me) to use in a progressive press. I guess this is a "training-wheels" question as I know some powders will Bite you if you screw-up by a very small margin (particularly in small-frame 9mm automatics). I am thinking 124 Gr. jacketed and 200 gr. jacketed in the bullets...no plans for lead. Clean-Burning is probably a preference to recoil characteristics. I will have very good measuring / metering equipment and I am pretty anal-retentive about deatils and precission whenever I do anything mechanical / fabrication (which think will help)... Many parts already coming for new precision AR build in 5.56 / .223 so will soon be striving to make near-match-grade ammo for this thing too. All Comers Welcome.. Steve

I'm such a noob' to reloading that I have never yet produced a single round of amunition, but I did process 950 rnds of 9mm and .45 brass tonight and this stainless vibrator-tank from Hornady produced some beautiful looking stuff. I deprimed all brass with the Lee Breechlock "Hand-Press" and their universal de-capping die first. This goes like greased lightning when you get into a groove. Most time spent is popping-off the shell holder to dump the primers every 40 rnds. You should be able to do 500 - 600 an hour. For those who are curious, the Lock N Load Magnum basket will hold a Max. of 500 rnds of 9mm or 300 rnds of .45 ACP for a scrub. Cleaning action will be faster if you drop each quantity by 100 for super-ideal cleaning quantities. You only use 2 oz. of the brass cleaning solution (out of 32oz. in little jug) for each 2 Liter Bottle of Hot Water which fills the tank perfectly to cover the basket with the shells. I did all 950 casings with that One 2 Liter bottle of mixeture. The first 500 9mm's were actually pretty well-handeled by the fresh soultion but it starts to get dirty and dark fast... The next 150 9mm went well beacuse there were so few cases in the basket. A Half or 1/3 basket will clean more actively / thoroughly / quickly than a full basket will. The last load was 300 .45's in the basket which came up to the same level as 500 9mm. After 1 cycle of 10 minutes and 130 deg. temp. I broke them in two batches for the VERY dirty solution at that point. Gave them each a 10 min. Zap and they too looked awesome. Two runs of 10 Minutes each with Solution in tank set at 130 Deg. on the thermostat was about right for all loads. If you went more conservatively and cleaned 800 rnds of cases in one batch of Hornady Fluid & Water (1 Two-Liter Bottle ans 2 oz. of juice) you would produce 6,400 rounds of the prettiest brass you ever did see...with ONE of those Hornady "Brass Fluid" jugs. That seems pretty reasonable to me... I know that when my press is set-up and running in a few weeks I will be feeding it Caviar when it comes to the empties. Shiny on the outside, Very Clean to shiny on the inside and primer-pockets that look mostly new. (the primer-pockets are mirror-finished on their sides!) Thats my story and I'm stickin' to it...

Ughh... After reading 2-3 dozen customer reviews of the Lee Loadmaster from owners on various sites I think I am probably back to burning a much bigger pile of money to get started in this reloading thing. That and the fact that two personal friends would probably beat me with 9-irons... I guess there is no such thing as a free lunch... Thanks for your input. SD

I have been focussed on getting a Hornady LNL or Dillon 550B as my first reloading machine but, unfortunately (?), I watched a couple of very informative videos on "Ultimate Reloader" that actually impressed me with the Lee Loadmaster. I AM a mechanical perfectionist and I did not see ANY inconsistencies or deflection of the shell-plate from forces during the reloading cycle. The ram itself also seemed to travel in the bore of the machine without any excess clearance, very rigid and true stroke? Likewise, I could not see any undue slopiness in the linkage system at the base of he press while in operation. Additionally, the Primers all seemed to seat cleanly and without issue on every stroke. That fellow was just methodically pumping out what looked like nice , uniform 9mm and .45 rounds by the bin. The problem comes where you can buy this darn thing ready to go for about $250.00 which includes a caliber of dies and a 4-tube "manual-auto" cartridge feeder. Naturally there are all the other required goodies to purchase, but so too with all the other machines. For someone just getting into reloading and probably not shooting more than 1,500 rnds. of 9mm / .45 ACP Combined a month...its hard not to scratch my chin on this one. I am still desiring to make very good quality, consistent, uniform, accurate ammo. ANY Input / brain-asistance Most Welcome and Encouraged. Thanks All, Steve D.