Lee Pro 1000 vs Dillon vs RCBS

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Bobbyg00

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Hi All,

I'm currently looking to get into reloading. As you all know, cartridge prices are sky high and I'm tired of shelling out thousands for factory ammo and even remanufactured ammo.
My question is, I realize you get what you pay for when you purchase equipment, however, I've only really heard of primer feeding issues with the Lee Pro 1000. Is it really worth the extra $500 to get a Dillon or a RCBS? I'm looking to load 9, 45 and .308. Maybe other pistol and bottle neck cartridges in the future.

Thanks in advance for your comments!
 
Every minute I spend at the bench is time I could be doing something else. You will never regret buying a quality piece of equipment. I use Dillon...many of my friends use Hornady. I have to chuckle every time one of my range buddies tells me the Lee progressives are ok...and then list off all the tips and tricks they have to use to make it "work" Sounds like a job for Macgyver. Keep your eye in the EE. You do see 550's for sale, usually from people looking to upgrade to a 650 or 1050...

Good luck...
 
Quigley said:
Every minute I spend at the bench is time I could be doing something else. You will never regret buying a quality piece of equipment. I use Dillon...many of my friends use Hornady. I have to chuckle every time one of my range buddies tells me the Lee progressives are ok...and then list off all the tips and tricks they have to use to make it "work" Sounds like a job for Macgyver. Keep your eye in the EE. You do see 550's for sale, usually from people looking to upgrade to a 650 or 1050...

Good luck...
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Well said but some folks will go to the ends of the earth to save a buck and then defend the decision
 
I had an RCBS pro 2000, not a bad press, but i now have a dillon 650 and 1050 and I recommend just buying a dillon.

More accessories, more aftermarket options and just a much faster press. I have not seen RCBS's latest progressive, but its hard to go wrong with Dillon.

Dillon has an awesome warranty and customer service too, but in all fairness RCBS's has been equally awesome in my experience.
 
I find it amusing that as soon as this weekly subject comes up, people are so very fast to tell someone "Get a Dillon."

On my bench I have a pro 1000, classic cast, and a Loadmaster. All three together with multiple calibres has cost me less than the Dillon 650 without options. All three have produced quality ammunition with very little fiddle farting around. Would I like to own the the 650? Absolutely. Fine piece of machinery, and from what I've read here, the 650 jumps out of the box and turns your lead bullets into gold nuggets and caresses your ornaments while you pull the handle. If you are comfortable with the price difference you'll appreciate the ease of function that comes with the quality. I have operated the 650 and the square deal B (not owned).

When I was remodelling my home, I bought good tools to do the job. I did not buy then tools for a career as a carpenter, I bought tools which will reliably do the work. It's the difference between a $800 nailer and a $300 nailer. A $1500 saw and a $400 saw. For the amount of reloading I like to do, the extra expense for Dillon equipment is hard for me to justify right now. YMMV
 
You need to justify the amount of use for your cash outlay. If you will be doing thousands of rounds of ammo each year then its a good idea to invest in the best equipment available. If your reloading just a few hundred or even a couple thousand rounds a year there are many good alternatives out there. Do your homework and see what they offer that you can live with.
 
I started with the Lee Pro 1000 and thought I was happy, cranked out thousands of rounds on it. Then I bought a Dillon 650xl and have never looked back. As stated above it is about your tolerance to constant tinkering vs just pulling the handle and perfect rounds coming out every time with the Dillon. It is like buying any tool, buy a good one the first time and have it for life.
 
misterzr said:
I started with the Lee Pro 1000 and thought I was happy, cranked out thousands of rounds on it. Then I bought a Dillon 650xl and have never looked back. As stated above it is about your tolerance to constant tinkering vs just pulling the handle and perfect rounds coming out every time with the Dillon. It is like buying any tool, buy a good one the first time and have it for life.
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Can't argue with that and personally fixing something that should work correctly is not in the cards for me I appreciate my time and quality of tools and I'm prepared to pay for it.
 
well,i started off with a rcbs jr, then got a lee turret cause I got sick of changing dies, and got a lee 1000 cause I got tired of changing bushings , ( the turret at that time ate ratchet wheels like crazy) then I got a second lee 1000 then a 3rd- I had room on my bench for 3- 9mm, 4, and 223- I also have a Dillon 550- it's ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE in that it doesn't auto index, but the lee stuff was forced on my due to BUDGET CONSTRAINTS- now I wouldn't give u thank- you for the Dillon- so this st least 1 of the other side heard from- and i'd much rather have my money tied up in supplies tha a press that gets hardly used
and I have a loadmaster that gets used most of all



r
 
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I started with a Lee Pro1000 and an RCBS single stage. I used the Lee for several years and produced a few thousand decent rounds with it. I can't fault it at all as a great machine to learn on and once set, it will hoark out a ton of rounds. Having said that, I've converted all my Lee equipment over to Hornady LNLAP now. Is it better? Yes, I'd have to say it is. Am I glad I went the Lee route first? Yes, I'd say that I learned a great deal about reloading on that equipment and their customer service is excellent if you break something along the way ( I did and you will). I still have the RCBS single and that's going nowhere - I load most of my rifle on it and some pistol when I'm doing small test lots. You could do alot worse than Lee for your first go at this. The equipment is cheap and you can always sell it off when you are ready to invest in a Dillon or Hornady LNL.
 
I have had my Hornady for over 25+ years, and has earned my loyalty. Even the LnL isn't that expensive either. Warranty service is quick when you have to call them.
 
I started out with a Lee 1000 I was given. I had to do an even half dozen fairly significant alterations, modifications and add on stuff I made to it to become a decently reliable press.

It also has a built in issue that it's only a 3 die station press. So you can't set up separate bullet seating and crimping stations on a 1000. If the shortcomings were not enough this factor is certainly the kiss of death. There's lots of great reasons to split the seating and crimping.

So next up the food chain cost wise we have the Lee Loadmaster. Here again lots of tinkering and tweaking to get it running well. But don't take my word for it. Go on You Tube and put in "lee loadmaster". Just that and nothing else. You'll get back videos of reviews, folks showing them off and a surprising number dealing with how best to adjust this or modify that or adding this gizmo or somesuch to make it more stable and reliable. In particular do a bit of searching and reading about the primer feeding issues with the Loadmaster. LOTS of reading about this one factor.

Now do the same search for "Dillon 550" and "hornady ap" and try to find anything like the same number of tweaks and mods videos. Simple answer is that you won't find even 1/10'th as many "fixes" with these options.

If you have more time and patience than money I think that the Loadmaster can be made to run well and be reliable. But from what I saw you'll be in for a longer and steeper learning curve dealing with all the things that can go bump in the night. On a postive note the Loadmaster also has the desirable 5 die stations.

As for the 1000? That three station issue makes it way less than ideal. If you're really tight on money then buy a Dillon Square Deal B. It's got some quirks such as only taking Dillon dies intended for the Square Deal press but at least it has four stations and separate crimping as a result.

Oh, and a 1000 does not have the length of stroke to handle longer rifle ammo. I note that you can buy a shell plate for .223 but that's it. All the rest is handgun ammo.

If you're loading for accuracy with the .308 then I'd suggest that progressive isn't the way to go anyway. If you're shooting from a bolt rifle you really want to be neck sizing only and you really want to be weighing out each and every powder charge to a very small error. And these are not things you can do, or at least not EASILY do on a progressive setup.

As it happens I got a deal on a slightly used 550b with some dies and other goodies. So I'm now locked into "blue". But if I were sitting here with nothing at all but with what I know from my reloading I think there's a very good chance that I'd go with the Hornady AP press. I like the idea of the fifth station which could be used as a powder check or powder level lockout die. But if the Hornady won out it would be only by a hair. I do really like the 550.

Yes, the 550 is manually indexed. But for me that makes it easier to recover when something goes wrong. The auto indexing feature doesn't move the problem around to the next position with every lever pull like the others. And the act of indexing it soon fits in with the work flow around the press.

Cost wise? Currently Budget, a sponsoring dealer, is listing the Lee Loadmaster at $400, the Dillon 550b at $610 and the Hornady LnL AP at $685. So for my money the best bang for the buck becomes the Dillon. Those You Tube tweaking and fiddling around videos easily make up for the extra $210 in my own mind.

So with the 1000 set aside due to only having three die stations the question you have to answer to yourself is "Is it worth $210 to avoid needing to do the mods and tweaks I found on You Tube for the Loadmaster?".
 
I just got a loadmaster kit a couple weeks ago. I've loaded about 500 rounds so far with very few hiccups. There was a bit of set up and tweaking involved but I think lee has the primer feed issues fixed as mine primes great.
Down the road I will likely get a Dillon but for the money, the loadmaster is working great
 
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