Lee Pro 1000 Progressive Press 45ACP on the way!

[treebeard]

Just ordered the Lee Pro 1000 Progressive Press 45ACP! I have been doing 45ACP and .38/.357 on a Lee Turret press for about a year now so I am looking forward to doing 45ACP on one press. How do you folks like your Progressive press? Is it straightforward and easy to use?

 

[benedict1]

Go to the Lee website and watch the videos. They also have a FAQ list with pointers. I assume by "lining up" you mean indexing so the dies and the stations coincide.

See this link first--

http://www.leeprecision.com/html/HelpVideos/videos/Pro 1000 zero adjustment-1.wmv

 

[treebeard]

Thanks for the link. I already downloaded the video.

 

[JA]

First thing get a can of brake parts cleaner as it removes all traces of oil/grease and dries really quickly leaving no residue.

http://www.valvoline.com/pages/products/product_detail.asp?product=53

Rinse the primer trough and primer tray out with the brake parts cleaner to remove any mold lube. After every 1000-2000 rounds loaded rinse out the primer feeder parts,primer pin,spring,and it hole in the shell plate carrier with the brake parts cleaner.
Use Break Free CLP or Rem Oil on all metal parts of the press EXCEPT the ram,shell plate carrier,and shell plate.
Use only Lock-Ease on the ram,shell plate carrier and shellplate.

http://www.autobarn.net/chle-4.html

Disassemble the shell plate carrier and rinse all the parts with brake parts cleaner. Then put a very thin coat of Lock-Ease on all the internal parts of the shell plate carrier and bottom of the shell plate. Make sure to get inside the hole that the primer pin goes into. Don't reassemble the shell plate carrier till the Lock-Ease has dried.

 

[geronimo13]

I reload .223 and 9mm on mine. The biggest pain is the priming system. The trough needs to be full and free so don't let the round primer holder run out. Also after thoughly cleaning the primer shute, I armorall it to make it slicker. You will develop a "feel" for when the primer presses in correctly but till you do and if it doesn't feel right, you can remove the shell casing out the side in the #2 position (priming/powder drop) to check if the primer went in right before bringing it up to get the powder drop. Once the powder goes in, if the primer isn't in, or in right, you have a mess to clean up. If powder gets everywhere I use compressed air to blow everything out, as if the primer shute or punch isn't completely free it causes lots of problems. I start by putting a spent- primed shell in #2 and manually pulling the powder drop back (to charge it), then drop the powder, and redo this process to get a least 3 shells powder drop to get consistant powder drops initially. Do the same after shutting off the powder holder when finished and add the powder back in the holder. Also sometimes the little arm that advances a primer doesn't work (it's too light and bendable-plastic) so you have to manually work it. I also rivited on a piece of tin to stiffin it up. The instructions for set up suck but you will figure it out. The bullet feeder seems to be a worthy feature, at least with the 9mm it is working for me (haven't used it for long however).

 

[Mr_Ouija]

I do 45ACP and .223 Remington (as of today) on my Pro 1000. When changing powder charges, or starting loading for the day, I run 5 charges through and just dump them back into the hopper. After that, I measure the next 3 charges to verify that it's throwing consistent charges. Every so often, I'll take a round out and measure the charge, to make sure they're still consistent. I've run BL-C(2) and Unique through mine with no troubles whatsoever.Like the others have said, make sure your primer feed setup is CLEAN. Since I have 2 trays, I make a point to keep both loaded when I am doing bulk 45acp so I can swap when the first runs dry.

As for the .223, I have only loaded 25 so far, and I'm already tempted to buy a single stage and universal depriming die. Its a PITA to deprime/resize all the brass like a single stage, following up with trimming and deburring. After its all done, I run it through like a progressive. It took me quite awhile to do 25 tonight, because I did 5 ea of varying powder charges from 23g to 26.5g of BL-C(2). It'll go faster when I get a load the AR likes.

Anyhow, yes, I like my Pro1000. It has served me well for ~2yrs now, with not a single problem to date!

 

[ilbob]

Anyhow, yes, I like my Pro1000. It has served me well for ~2yrs now, with not a single problem to date!

Mine is much older - maybe 15-20 years old. Long before they had bullet feeders and the primer doohickey that prevents a primer from advancing unless there is a case in the station.

Mine is set up for 38 special, and I have run tens of thousands of cases through it. The primer feed can get a little touchy if you not kept full of primers and clean.

I use Bullseye powder and weigh the first few charges just to be sure, and maybe one every 25 rounds after that.