Lee 1000 auto prime blew up about an hour ago *PICS*

The man dosesn't like LEE - so what - he is entitled to an opinion. He is saying that in his estimate LEE is a waste of time and money (i happen to agree) and is warning other people not to make the same mistakes. If you do not want his advice OK, don't take it, but i do beleive calling someone names or insulting them because of an opinion is not very mature.No wonder the lieberals think we are all a bunch or rednecks.

If LEE works for you ok but you will be hard pressed to tell me any lee press is as good as my dillon. And when new shooters at my club ask what they should buy to make them a better shooter ie scope, grips, comp, etc I always reply "get a dillon" Champion shooters are not born - it takes tons of practice. If I have only so many hours in a day I would rather spend less time reloading and more shooting.

To the OP i am very glad you escaped relatively unhurt - To everyone else -ALWAYS wear your safety glasses

just my 2 cents

I am putting on my flame proof undies as we speak.

Andy
 
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I don't have the time or inclination to read all (15) pages in this thread so I'll say this. Glad to hear you're relatively ok, after the incident, however, I'm not in the slightest bit impressed about the admission of your ignorance. As far as I'm concerned, incidents like this do nothing but hurt all handloaders collectively speaking.

NARCAN has a field day with reports like this. You've done nothing but provide evidence to support NARCAN's desire to all but legislate handloading out of existance by supporting the belief that reloading is a dangerous practice and should have strict controls placed on it.

You should either do it safely or not at all. If you #### up again, I hope you can save all of us the embarassmnt of having to read it hear yet again.
 
Opcx6 said:
Nope, 45 years experience with Lee junk! It all went to Goodwill. When will the next one explode? Like plastic schrapnel in your face, use Lee junk. If you don't like my opinion KMA. :)
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45 years reloading.....Well that explains it all....your an old crusty man! lmao. Buddy you should relax on the KMA comments though. Sure its your opinion but you are just making a fool of yourself now!
 
well, you get what you pay for :( luckily you made it out alive and with both eyes!!

I had a Lee Pro but i never got around to setting it up. Glad I didn't. Just purcahsed another tool head and powder dispenser and that fulfilled my needs.
 
Dammit OP! You're lucky you didn't lose an eye or two! Glad nothing that bad happened.

I have Dillon 650 and I went to double check my primers stash if I bought Federal or Winchester as my emergency stash. It's Winchester. When i was a total noob on top of not adjusting the primer assembly and auto indexing properly, I crunched a fair number of primers. Some went in sideways and turned into a pan cake. Totally my fault, and I got away and avoided detonation. Probably have CCI to thank.

When you decide on Dillion, as others have described. If the primers ever detonated, it'll shoot straight up, destroying whatever above it. I don't recall reading anyone getting seriously injured besides major ringing in ears for a week (when nearly all 100 detonated). That is bad. As soon as I read that, I made sure I wear ear plugs, most of the time. I better make that ALL the time. I wear prescription glasses, so I hope it's good enough. BTW, their warranty is great... you'll get free replacement if that ever happened. I dealt with their warranty already and totally my fault for breaking something on case feeder. I just had to pay for shipping.
 
I have a bit of an issue with logic along the following lines:

"The manufacturer of X specifically says not to Y"
"I decided to Y with my X"
"Something bad happended"
"X sucks"

X may indeed suck, but this event isn't evidence for it.
 
Never tried the pro 1000, went to a loadmaster right away, don't even know why they offer the pro 1000 as it seems to be the one with the most problems. IMHO the pro 1000 is the low end stuff for the Canadian market, I bought a loadmaster in the US for a lower price they sell the pro 1000 here. Probably too flimsy designed.
 
I just loaded about 900 rds on my loadmaster using S&B primer's, with no explosion's.
But I did shear,mangle,crush, and anything else you can do to a primer.
I was using my Loadmaster with the explosion shield.
S&B primer's are REALLY soft. I was seating them in IVI case's with the crimp removed.
 
scianna54 said:
Never tried the pro 1000, went to a loadmaster right away, don't even know why they offer the pro 1000 as it seems to be the one with the most problems. IMHO the pro 1000 is the low end stuff for the Canadian market, I bought a loadmaster in the US for a lower price they sell the pro 1000 here. Probably too flimsy designed.
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funny, it's been around since 90 or so with quite a following- i've got 3 myself, and once they're SET UP PROPERLY, and you realize what's going on, there's very few problems- most of it comes from folks short stroking or not keeping the primer tray full- or they've got the screws too tight on the powder hopper and it CAN'T travel back and forth freely-i can make the loadmaster do EXACTLY the same thing, so it isn't perfect either
 
dinsdale said:
This is why I prime on my single stage press.

Load primed cases into my Pro 1000.
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I hand primed a couple hundred on my LEE priming tool and that's when I realized how soft the primer's really were.
And they loaded up amazingly fast!
I just might stay with the hand priming and then load up the primed brass.
 
t-star said:
funny, it's been around since 90 or so with quite a following- i've got 3 myself, and once they're SET UP PROPERLY, and you realize what's going on, there's very few problems- most of it comes from folks short stroking or not keeping the primer tray full- or they've got the screws too tight on the powder hopper and it CAN'T travel back and forth freely-i can make the loadmaster do EXACTLY the same thing, so it isn't perfect either
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Yes, both the Pro1000 and the Loadmaster have their idiosyncracies, the Pro1000 having more though:D The Loadmaster is a way better machine, IMO.

Users who get past the learning stage will like these machines. Relatively few have the patience to maintain and fiddle with the Pro1000 that's why I moved on to Hornady and Dillon, at that time. Now I am back to using Lee presses exclusively because they fit my current needs...Classic Cast Single, Classic Turret and a Loadmaster.
 
Lee progressives SUCK, and so do Federal primers. If anybody needs I will despose of that junk properly for free, in fact any Lee product you don't want(except thier rifle dies, which are for real JUNK).

Please PM for address to ship them too.
 
I had a large pistol primer blow (Federal) in a Lee Autoprime. Red stains on my shirt, brown in my pants. Only one primer let go.

Clled Lee to order parts to re-build the Auto prime and they said i was lucky the primer did not set off the other 100.

I thik Lee is correct. Don't use the Federal primers in the automated gear.
 
Same thing just happened to me this morning! I got lucky, no injuries and all I need to do is replace the small primer trough as it snapped right off. Lucky I happen to have another trough in my spare parts. I have put thousands of rounds through this press using Winchester and CCI primers. Recently I bought Federal primers from a friend. He did warn me that they blew up on his Dillon three times.

I had reloaded about 300 rounds so far with the Federals when this happened. What I do know is that I had a tight primer pocket and put a little extra force to seat the new primer when the explosion happened. I did have safety glasses on. The horrible thing was that my oldest daughter was playing in my gun room about five feet behind me at the time. That is the last time she will be in the room when I am reloading!

FederalPrimerExplode.jpg
 
I am glad that you guys are sharing all this information, I really like this site. Thank you for CGNers for sharing your learning! Oh and glad no one was seriously injured in the making of this thread.
 
Happy New Year All

Glad to hear that you weren't injured its sure a wake up call when they go off Federal primers suck there to soft . I dont prime with my Pro 1000 no more a lot quicker using the auto prime much easier to inspect and see that the primer properly in place and specially if your doing 500 to a 1000 at a time and when its time to load i just remove the decapper/sizing die and in no time there all loaded.....

Rick
 
I use Federal primers with my turret press using the T shaped primer bar with no problem, will not use them in my loadmaster or Pro 1000.
 
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