I have an old Lee Pro 1000 and have been thinking about upgrading to this new press. Your excellent video series has been very helpful, and really is the best I've watched so far. So glad you've found an alternative that allows you to continue with this hobby.
I have use cast bullets in handguns for years. I always lube with Lee liquid alox tumble lube. After the alox lube is set up, I tumble them again in powdered mica. Mica is a dry lubricant and it takes the stickiness away from the alox and leaves a cleaner loaded cartridge. In your case it may make the bullets work better in the bullet feeder mechanism. Thanks for sharing.
I bought two used Pro 1000s back in 1986 and used them until my stroke in 2002 when I wound up selling much, if not most, of my reloading impedimenta...I had one set up for .45 ACP and the other for 9mm (with the case feed and collator) I could crank out 10 rounds in prolly 30-454 seconds...i sucked to hafta sell them...just bought a Lee 4000 the other day...looking to get that set up soon...
I went to Titan reloading and priced out the press, autodrum measure, riser, case feeder, shell plate, priming system & bullet feeder for $250. This makes this press more than a Load Master Press package when you add dies ($40 more). The Load Masters are $250 with dies. I already have an Autodrum, riser & safety prime so it is only $185 for me to get one up and running. I figure it will produce 4-600 per hour. Which is well over twice what my LCT with a case ejector will produce in an hour. A Dillon 650 with a Case Feeder is $850ish. Then you have to choose a bullet feeder and all the second party parts to get it to run right. The set up I saw was close to $1500 when complete. Now, he could do #1,000 per hour if he had all of his primer tubes set up. He would typically set up everything and do a thousand and stop. So in reality it took like 90 minutes. So in reality he could do 750 rounds without consistency and few head aches. He only did 9mm and had no desire to change calibers or anything on the press since it was running perfectly. This is the same with those that have multiple Load Masters set up in different calibers.
I am doing well with mine without the bullet feeder, which would require handling bullets anyway to load the tube. My left hand is free after actuating the primer feed, so reaching for and placing bullets is easy. I think the bullet feeder is best with jacketed bullets.
... so if I dont care about a case feeder... or a bullet feeder... and I just want to make the speed jump from a turret kit to semi progressive is the press and a plate... since I already have a powder deal and safety prime... that's around 150bucks? I think I'm sold on it.
TheKoba49 a little trick I picked up with alox is after they dry tumble them again with Talc powder. It keeps the dies a little cleaner and makes the bullets not so sticky. I also have not had a mis feed with my lee bullet feeder with this method. An extra step but they are a lot easier to handle.
...tell me about complacency...I was loading 9mm in '95 - ran out of propellant an didn't notice it for almost 50 or more round so I wound up disassembling almost 100 round until was SURE there were no more rounds without propellant...you only do that ONCE
I size and prime all my brass ahead of time by the thousand, then use the loadmaster with three stages including a factory crimp. Works OK, but needs constant adjustments, cleaning, and the case feeder drives me nuts, But, it works and is way cheaper than your other options, so I deal with it. I only use it for 9mm.
I do the same thing so frustrating trying to get everything to work together and push/put this and that it’s the only way I can get some sort of speed.
I’ve found anything that tends to save time is never as good as a gradual process system yes it takes longer but when we talk saving time with reloading it’s a slowly but surely when there is safety at stake. I’ve reloaded thousands of rounds on a lee single stage never had a problem.
I figured it out. RU-vid had a thingy asking me about interruptions & slow speed. I think they wanted me to buy something. I let it grind on itself and then it would play back.
LIVIN CINCY I swear that it seems that YT throttles the speed of a lot of pro firearms videos. Not all of them, but one's that are probably too small to make a stink about being throttled.
good luck with it. ya built it faster than i did. you can really do pistol straight wall cases kinda fast. faster than my rock chucker but again i had trouble putting mine together. be safe and hope your well cause i like your milsurp videos :)
