Lee Pro 1000 feedback, pls

[4dogs]

Thinking of spending my $$ for one of these. How do you all get along with yours?

Also, what is needed to change calibers besides a set of dies?

TIA,

Read More

 

[yotehunter]

I didn't like that press when I had it for .223 It was my first and only progressive press. I use a turret press because that one seemed so difficult to use.

 

[saread]

These aren't for everybody. You need to pay attention and learn its quirks; e.g. keep the primer feed full. I have one and I'm used to it and I get along with it pretty well. I don't really think it's any quirkier that any other progressive. You have to watch what your doing with all of them and you need to be able to multitask. There's a lot of stuff going on with every stroke of the lever and if you aren't diligent, you can have some mistakes. You just hope your mistakes aren't bad, like double loads. The pro 1000 is definitely better suited to hand gun ammo. If you want to do rifle stuff, I think I'd look at a Hornady. The biggest strength of the Lee system is the powder measure, the disk system really throws consistent loads when it's set up. Although, it's a bit of a pain to set.

To change calibers, you need a turret for the dies and maybe a shell carrier to match the brass. I can change over in just a couple of minutes; another couple of minutes to adjust the powder measure and I'm off and running. This takes a bit of practice, but once you know how to do it, it is pretty quick.

 

[AMProducts]

I'll be brutally honest. I hate most lee products, if you're on a budget (most people who buy lee are, myself included) you could do worse, this press does have some nasty quirks as has been mentioned. If you are really set on getting one of these. Look in lee's "closeouts" section. I bought two of these presses 7-8 years ago for $50 each. At that price, they are better than nothing. If I still had mine I would give them to you, but I sold them for $5, and pittied the poor sucker I sold them to.

Closeouts Page: <broken link removed> (I didn't see any pro-1000's in there, but there were some parts).

If you have the ability, I highly recommend looking at both an RCBS Pro 1000, as well as a hornady LNL. They are both about 3x the price of the Pro-1000, but the amount of ammo you can crank out with either press will more than makeup for the price. The LNL is probably the best deal on progressive presses out there right now. indexing is smooth, conversion parts are relatively cheap compared to dillon (550 conversions are over $60 when you factor in cost of heads and powder dies).

 

[zdogk9]

When they work they are just dandy. To keep mine working I spent about 60% of any given re-loading session fiddling with the damned thing. I now use a Hornady L&L AP with no issues whatsoever.

 

[MilesTeg]

I have 2 1000's, a turret press and a Hornady LNL. All work great. Depending on how much you load I would start with a Lee turret press. The 1000's aren't great for rifle rounds but do very well pistol rounds. I load my hunting/target rifle rounds on the turret press. .45ACP and .44 spl on the 1000's and bulk rifle qne misc pistol on the Hornady. There are some great videos on youtube for working out the kinks in 1000's and also the other brands as well. None are perfect.