will227457 Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 I am thinking about getting this till now I have been useing a single stage RCBS rock chucker and I am very happy with it and have no desire to get rid of it as I can still use it for rifle and the pistol calibers that I do not shoot that much of. I am starting to shoot a lot of 9mm and I load for it on my single stage press, but I find I spend more time on the press than shooting I Want a lee pro 1000 but I was wondering about the reload rates, I can do about 100/hr if I really crank on the single stage, I would like to triple that number if I could can the LP 1000 do this for me? What do I need to buy besides the Lee Pro 1000 Progressive Press Kit 9mm Luger accessories that will make loading easier for me? Keep in minds I have scales, calipers, manuels, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RV man Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 I have three Pro 1000's on my bench and make lots of quality ammo on them. I usually load at about 400 rounds an hour because I don't want to work harder than that. All you need is the kit and components. Thanks Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will227457 Posted January 18, 2009 Author Share Posted January 18, 2009 sounds like the credit card is going to get a work out..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chbrow10 Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 my friend just got one from midway and has spent a week trying to get it running. This week, he's returning it and getting a Dillon. And he's no dummy, he used to run a machine shop and is a former USN Nuke Machinst Mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I used one for about a year and cranked out a lot of 9mm ammo on it, but eventually got tired of it only being a 3 station press. Depending on your gun, you may or may not need to use a crimp die, but if you do, then you will have to deal with that on your chucker. I don't know how many shells you plan on reloading at a time, but just be aware that after about a year, you may start looking at a four station press. If you decide to get it, then also buy a collector (or whatever they call it) for the shell feeder. It's a lot easier to fill the tubes with it than without. There isn't really that much more that you shouldn't already have (including time). I would strongly suggest that you leave the case feeder off it it when you are first setting it up and for your first 100 rounds or so until you get comfortable with the actions. There is a certain amount of adjustment needed and there is a distinct feel to things that you have to get used to, particularly the pressure needed on the upstroke to seat the primer. Once you are comfortable and have a rhythm manually feeding the cases, then you can put the case feeder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jman Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Lee makes ONE great press IMHO. The Classic Cast Turret. The rest...not so much. It really is just a fast single stage. Exactly the right fit for me. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpcdvc Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I've had and used one for many years and I will say if you are not going to do a ton of shooting it will be fine. But if you are going to shoot as much as most people do in the USPSA I would not recommend the 1000. When I bought my dillon 650 I could have kicked myself for not just saving the money and getting a 650 from the start. Wow what a huge difference! If you can, I would save up and get a dillon. And Dillon is the best company I have ever dealt with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photog Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Save your money. I bought one and have spent the last two years trying to get it to run correctly. The primer feeder is temperamental. Any errant powder jams the whole machine. the case feeder and collector jam frequently. the powder thrower required customizing to get it to work consistently. The indexing gets out of whack easily. And I still have to single stage the crimp. BTW, I am a mechanic, and I make my living fixing bikes and skis, have built computers and am generally a tool snob, not to mention that I used to (before the economy to a nose dive) design civil and electrical systems for the power company. I DO UNDERSTAND MECHANICAL THINGS AND CANNOT GET THE PRO 1000 TO WORK CORRECTLY. Lee dies are great. My Lee scale is just fine and very inexpensive. My Lee single stage press was cheap, but works great. But the PRO 1000 is a POS! I am saving money for a Dillon or any other 4-stage progressive that actually works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpcdvc Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Save your money. I bought one and have spent the last two years trying to get it to run correctly. The primer feeder is temperamental. Any errant powder jams the whole machine. the case feeder and collector jam frequently. the powder thrower required customizing to get it to work consistently. The indexing gets out of whack easily. And I still have to single stage the crimp. BTW, I am a mechanic, and I make my living fixing bikes and skis, have built computers and am generally a tool snob, not to mention that I used to (before the economy to a nose dive) design civil and electrical systems for the power company. I DO UNDERSTAND MECHANICAL THINGS AND CANNOT GET THE PRO 1000 TO WORK CORRECTLY.Lee dies are great. My Lee scale is just fine and very inexpensive. My Lee single stage press was cheap, but works great. But the PRO 1000 is a POS! I am saving money for a Dillon or any other 4-stage progressive that actually works. I have to agree with most of this. It is really finicky. At best, you might be able to get 200 rounds an hour out of it. I had to constantly monitor the areas mentioned above. You really get what you pay for. It's cheap and will reload ammo but it will give you fits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-Ho Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I love my Lee turret. It's simple, reliable, fast (compared to a single stage), changing caliber is almost too easy. That said I would get a progressive Lee, I've known several people who ended up getting rid of them and going another route. A Dillon square deal is a great progressive if you have one caliber you want in volume. To be fair I know a guy who got his Pro 1000 to run and cranks out good ammo at a pretty good rate. With a good turret press and a little practice I don't think 300 round/hour is out of the question. I'd get the turret and start a fund for a good progressive press. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharonAnne9x23 Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 I started with the Lee turret, went through the progressions until it was a Pro 1000. I loaded many thousands of rounds on it. Was it trouble free, no. It has its quirks. But for the money it is a good press. Just don't expect Dillon 650 performance from it. I have a Dillon 1050 set up for 9x23 and an newly purchased, used, SDB in .45acp. I will need to load for .38Spl also. I am seriously considering acquiring another Pro 1000. It costs only slightly more than a conversion for the SDB and I would not have to change settings. I AM tempted to try the LoadMaster again. It has been more than 15 yrs since my disastrous experience. But, I KNOW I can load good ammo reliably on a Pro 1000. I do not know that about the LoadMaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 My father bought a Lee Pro 1000 and we both hate it. It worked semi-okay for .38Spl, but didn't work well at all for .45acp. The primer feed system is also a real pain. Based on that he bought me a Square Deal B as a present when I was in college and it's still turning out thousands upon thousands of rounds. After my move in the near future a 1050 will be joining the SDB, but I plan on keeping the SDB and leaving it set up for one cartridge I use a bit less of. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRP Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 My father bought a Lee Pro 1000 and we both hate it. It worked semi-okay for .38Spl, but didn't work well at all for .45acp. The primer feed system is also a real pain. Based on that he bought me a Square Deal B as a present when I was in college and it's still turning out thousands upon thousands of rounds. After my move in the near future a 1050 will be joining the SDB, but I plan on keeping the SDB and leaving it set up for one cartridge I use a bit less of. R, I own 2 Lee Pro 1000's, one for .45 ACP and one for 9mm. Agreed, it took me 8 hrs on the .45 to set up and 4 hours on the 9mm (learned some lessons from the .45). After all is set up and adjusted though, it just keeps going. I've cranked out a couple of thousand rounds on each with no problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 My father bought a Lee Pro 1000 and we both hate it. It worked semi-okay for .38Spl, but didn't work well at all for .45acp. The primer feed system is also a real pain. Based on that he bought me a Square Deal B as a present when I was in college and it's still turning out thousands upon thousands of rounds. After my move in the near future a 1050 will be joining the SDB, but I plan on keeping the SDB and leaving it set up for one cartridge I use a bit less of. R, I own 2 Lee Pro 1000's, one for .45 ACP and one for 9mm. Agreed, it took me 8 hrs on the .45 to set up and 4 hours on the 9mm (learned some lessons from the .45). After all is set up and adjusted though, it just keeps going. I've cranked out a couple of thousand rounds on each with no problems. Oh, we loaded many, many thousands of rounds on that press (he's still using it), but it's never worked properly in .45acp and was only marginal in .38/.357.....spent many hours on it and Dad finally made a couple of replacement parts on his mill that helped some. It would run fine for a hundred rounds and then puke ten times in the next hundred....then run fine. Having owned both I'd tell anyone to avoid them like the plague. Half an hour and an SDB is set up perfectly and there is absolutely no comparison in how much better it works. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gemcityshooter Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 One word.... PATIENCE. I have a Pro 1000 becasue my budget didn't allow for a dillon. I am loading 40 and 9mm. The 9mm rounds I make are excellent. HOWEVER, you need patience as the press needs a little TLC more often than not. I can bang out 200+ rounds per hour as long as I don't push it. Take your time and watch your powder charges and primers. I have found that I need to look at every round for powder levels when they get to the seating die. That is probably my own compuslive issue but I had a few squibs when I first started using the press. The press does work, but again, patience grasshopper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noypi916 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I have the Pro 1000 for a while now and it's serving me well so far. It will jam once in a while but it's easy to fix. The only problem that I have is the adjustable charge bar. I can not get that bar to work accurately. It will often times give me less like .5 grain less. So I just went back to the Auto disk which is way much accurate. Do any of you guys have the same proble with the adjustable charge bar? and if you do what do you guys do to fix the measurement issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-Ho Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 One word.... PATIENCE. I have a Pro 1000 becasue my budget didn't allow for a dillon. I am loading 40 and 9mm. The 9mm rounds I make are excellent. HOWEVER, you need patience as the press needs a little TLC more often than not. I can bang out 200+ rounds per hour as long as I don't push it. Take your time and watch your powder charges and primers. I have found that I need to look at every round for powder levels when they get to the seating die. That is probably my own compuslive issue but I had a few squibs when I first started using the press. The press does work, but again, patience grasshopper. No offense meant, but at 200 rounds/hr and a tight budget, why not go with a turret press? I can load 200 /hr on one and it's cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I have the Pro 1000 for a while now and it's serving me well so far. It will jam once in a while but it's easy to fix. The only problem that I have is the adjustable charge bar. I can not get that bar to work accurately. It will often times give me less like .5 grain less. So I just went back to the Auto disk which is way much accurate. What caliber and how much powder total? I had a lot of problems with the adjustable charge bar being inconsistent so studied the problem for a while and found what I believed is the problem. In brief, if you look down though an empty powder container when cycling the powder bar, you will see that it does not line up directly below the opening. With larger volumes of powder, this is not an issue, but with small volumes it seems to be. The difference was not as much as you are seeing, but it was enough for me to contact Lee and they confirmed that it works better with larger quantities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noypi916 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I'm reloading 40 Cal with titegroup powder. Trying to start loading using 4.0 grain to 4.4 grain of powder. But it always give me inconsistencies between 4 to 4.4 grain. So just decided just to use the disk and stick with the 4gr or the 4.4 and play with OAL. I have to check that alignment and see. But did you think of any fix for smaller quantities? That is the only reason why I bought that Adjustable Charge bar. What caliber and how much powder total?I had a lot of problems with the adjustable charge bar being inconsistent so studied the problem for a while and found what I believed is the problem. In brief, if you look down though an empty powder container when cycling the powder bar, you will see that it does not line up directly below the opening. With larger volumes of powder, this is not an issue, but with small volumes it seems to be. The difference was not as much as you are seeing, but it was enough for me to contact Lee and they confirmed that it works better with larger quantities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 (edited) But did you think of any fix for smaller quantities? That is the only reason why I bought that Adjustable Charge bar. I was able to use a regular disk for loading, but someone at Lee did suggest something. Get a double disk set so that you will have some extra disks to play with. Pick the size chamber that is closest to what you want without being too small. Drill a hole in the side, into the chamber and screw in a screw (you have to get the size hole right or you will crack the disk). You can then move the screw in and out to do fine adjustments to the volume. Never tried it, but don't see why it would not work. Edited March 4, 2009 by Graham Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noypi916 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I was able to use a regular disk for loading, but someone at Lee did suggest something. Get a double disk set so that you will have some extra disks to play with. Pick the size chamber that is closest to what you want without being too small. Drill a hole in the side, into the chamber and screw in a screw (you have to get the size hole right or you will crack the disk). You can then move the screw in and out to do fine adjustments to the volume.Never tried it, but don't see why it would not work. Sounds good. I'm also considering just ordering another disk and dremelling it a little wider. But your suggestion is a lot better since it will make it adjustable. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff686 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 If your budget can't handle a Dillon, how about a Hornady LNL AP. You can get the press from Cabelas for a good price, then add a case feeder when you get more money. I've been running the LNL for about a year now, and it is great. As good as my Dillon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resjudicata Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Don't buy a Lee. It'll give you warts, hang nails, myopia, skittles, premature discharge, sterility and dry cough. However, if you are honestly mechanically inclined you can get one to run just fine. There is not as much online assistance available as there is for a Dillon. (BTW, Dillon equipment needs love to keep running as well). If you are not sure how mechanically inclined you are then I'd suggest a Square Deal. A friend here has one and loves it. (Yes, I make fun of him incessantly for drinking the coolaide). Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noypi916 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I know Dillon is the best and I'm trying to save to get one. I'm sure it will be my second press in line. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RV man Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 A square Deal is not that much more than a Lee so if you plan on going that way, just wait until you can do it the first time. My Pro 1000, Trubor, and Eagle just run so I guess I am just lucky. I am very happy with my Lee press and have no desire to change. Whatever you get will require a learning curve to perfect and then you will be fine. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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