Progressive Owners! Front And Centre!

Glenfilthie

Glenfilthie

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Well, I have finally gotten there. I have been shooting for over twenty years and when I started out I actually liked reloading. But now, after adding two .223's a .45, a .44 plus three or four other hunting rifles - I hate reloading. I have pails full of tumbled empty brass that needs to be loaded and just the thought of hours at the press makes my back cramp up.

I told the wife to get off her fat arse and do it and she beat me to a bloody green pulp with a rolling pin and told me to FOAD:owned:. Obviously I need a better solution.

Did any of you guys notice a loss in accuracy when you went to a progressive machine? What were your worst problems making the transition?
 
Progressive press

I just want to relate my experience with my progressive.

In the early nineties I loaded .223 match ammo on my Dillon 1050 that would shoot into 1/4 to 1/2" at 100 meters, this from a Colt Ar15 I had assembled using SGW barrel, upper and handguard. A 36X B & L target 'scope was used for ammo testing as well as a bipod. Not bad for a gas gun!

I had previously used a 550 Dillon for that rifle but switched to the 1050 with no loss of accuracy.

Cheers
 
I have a LnL too and love it. "Thought I'd get that in before the blue team rides to the rescue :D.

Gettin one is the trick. Try P&D here. If not, go south of the border.
 
Blue Team reporting!!!

I use Dillon because they work. They are not for sale.

At one time, 1993, I had seven Dillons, each dedicated to a single caliber. I now have two, my original 1050 and a 550.

I have a Hornady projector I don't use because the primer feed doesn't work, never has. It was dedicated to .45-70 for a while but I had to prime cases in my Lyman Comet single stage C press. PITA!
My intention was to use it for .38 super but I cannot get the @*&%$!*& primer feed to work! PITA!
I am sure the new LNL works better, I don't know. Your experience may differ.

.38 super is now done on my Dillon 550. The primer feed works!

Anybody want to buy a Hornady Projector with a lousy primer feed? Probably not. I'll trade it for a Dillon!

I also have a Lyman All American turret press that works very nicely, thank you, but did not come with a primer feed system, as it was used. I found a feed system on ebay and will try it one day when I get bored with my Dillons.

There are users of Lee presses who are enthusiastic about their performance, I don't know, never bought a Lee press, thank God.

From time to time in the past (forty years) I have bought items from Lee, bullet moulds, a few dies, but never a press. Why? Because everything I have bought from Lee has been a POS! Waste of money! Expensive junk!
The latest is an undesize (one thou) sizing die for .38 super along with an extra decapping pin. When I backed out the collet/nut that holds the decapping pin the first time it was extemely hard and stripped the threads in the die! A US $28.00 (plus shipping) POS!

That has been my experience with Lee, hence my opinion, yours may differ. Have a nice day.

There are other good progressives out there, I am sure. But I haven't used them so cannot comment.

I HAVE used lots of Dillons. They work. No catastrophic failures (one primer magazine explosion though, my fault entirely as the result of not cleaning it). No stripped threads, no broken parts in 26 years.
They are not for sale.

My Hornady Projector doesn't work, I don't use it. It is for sale.

My Lyman turret and Comet see very little use but they work and are not for sale.

When I started to shoot IPSC in 1982 I bought a PW P200 for .45 ACP, a semi-progressive I guess, but it was slow, maybe 200 rds/hour, but a good little loader. Wish I still had it.

Next was a Dillon 450 with manual operations for primer shuttle and powder. It worked great, twice as fast as the PW. Still have a couple of powder measures from it.

Dillon offered to upgrade the 450 to 550 with a new frame, etc., so did that, well worth the expense, that is the 550 I still have today.

Without exception I have always regretted buying cheap equipment.

Without exception I have never regretted buying quality equipment.

This has been my experience in over fifty years of reloading.

Your experience may differ. Have a nice day. :cheers:

To all the Lee and Hornady guys I have yet again offended :adult:


:popCorn:
 
Opcx6 said:
Blue Team reporting!!!

IYour experience may differ. Have a nice day. :cheers:

To all the Lee and Hornady guys I have yet again offended :adult:


:popCorn:
Click to expand...

Why would we be offended. Well, actually, maybe i can see the Lee guys not being happy. I've heard the pro-jectors wheren't as good as they could be, never had one. The LnL press rocks though. I wouldn't turn down a dillion if it was given to me, but if i was to buy a second progessive, it would be another LNL.
 
Cocked&Locked said:
Why would we be offended. Well, actually, maybe i can see the Lee guys not being happy. I've heard the pro-jectors wheren't as good as they could be, never had one. The LnL press rocks though. I wouldn't turn down a dillion if it was given to me, but if i was to buy a second progessive, it would be another LNL.
Click to expand...

What I will do is find someone local with a LNL and try it out. I seem to recall someone saying primer feed parts for the LNL won't interchange with the Projector, if so I guess I have a fancy turret press with manual primer feed!

Cheers
 
My Lee Loadmaster does fine in .40cal, 9mm Had a problem with not seating primers completly, but I seem to have got the depth right now. For $500 all ready to go out of the box, I am happy.
 
Colin said:
My Lee Loadmaster does fine in .40cal, 9mm Had a problem with not seating primers completly, but I seem to have got the depth right now. For $500 all ready to go out of the box, I am happy.
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+1
All depends on how much you are willing to spend. Period.

You want to spend minimal $ - You go for a Lee. Which while finicky are decent presses.

You want to go full out, you go for a Hornady or a Dillon and add in the bells and whistles.

Prices range from $250-300 for a basic progressive to several thousand for a tricked out higher end progressive.

Depends if you are getting the progressive for a few 1000 rounds a year to several tens of thousands per year.
I have used Lee 1000's for nearly 6 years and can find few design flaws outside of the easily fixed primer shaker. Now I want to start shooting more and found my consumption wwas outpacing my production on a Lee-1000 so I took the plunge and got the Hornady LnL-AP.

$300 Progressive that was good for 4-5K rounds a year production with my time constraints, versus $1400 for 10-15K rounds a year with the same time constraints. (I went Progressive after the first 1000 .40 on my Rockchucker....)

Figure that you can "Save" roughly $0.10 a round reloading pistol ammo. Both can pay for themselves in a year depending on ammo consumption.
 
FYI, My credit card bill for a Hornady LnL AP with Case Feeder was $C 948.00 on my doorstep. Add $C25.00 for shipping free bullets and I'm out $C 973.00. If ,as, and when, I get 1000 185 gr JSWC bullets, I'll knock off $C 210.00 for a net cost to me of $C 773.00.

The deal has changed since 2009. Prices are higher and you may get half the free bullets they offered last year. Still the deal ain't bad. It all works great !!
 
Here is some advice from a reloading beginner

THEN
I started reloading 2 years ago and with little budget, so I got a lee pro 1000 for my 9mm. I had just started IPSC shooting.

NOW
I love IPSC shooting and still using my lee pro, but it’s slow. On top of that my wife is like “your making bullets again?”.

NEAR FUTURE
Dillon 650 coming in the next couple of months.

Lesson Learned
Lee is great for testing the waters.
Dillon is great for good rounds and time saving but cost money

My Stats
Between 5 to 10 IPSC matches a year
Between 3 to 6 thousand rounds of 9mm a year
+ .223 + .303 + .308 + 357mag in future (lee pro future use, once dillion comes)
Hope this helps
 
If you're shooting at any real volume...the cost of your reloader will be insignificant in a year or two. You will only remember how much you paid if it ends up being a piece of crap.

It's not an area where you want to try and save money...
 
Jarlath is right, it all depends on how many rounds you load. If I was shooting a lot more, then I would go for a faster press than the Loadmaster. But currently the press spends most of it's time idle as it can outload my abilty to buy and shoot bullets. If you are on a "bullet budget" it can take a long time to pay off a full bells and whistle Dillion.
 
I started with an old Lee Pro 1000 for about a year. I finally got tired of pulling bullets, mostly because of missed primers.

Almost bought the Hornady LnL because of good reviews from CGN'rs.

Purchased a Dillon XL650 with options. It works great, I spend more time shooting and less time fussing with a machine.

I don't regret spending the money on the Dillon, only that I waited so long to do it.
 
Colin said:
If you are on a "bullet budget" it can take a long time to pay off a full bells and whistle Dillion.
Click to expand...

:agree:. I'm with you 100% Colin, though I'd include ALL brands in this statement.

Its a common practice on CGN to ignore tools and other significant costs associated with reloading and to mistakenly compare the retail price of a 50 rd box of NEW ammo to that of BULK produced RELOADS in order to maximize margins used in cost comparisons. This is wrong, and misleads prospective new reloaders as to potential cost savings.

Using 45 ACP 230g FMJ as an example, you can buy commercially reloaded ammo for $0.36 then sell the used brass for $0.10 for a net cost of $0.26 per round. Alternatively you can purcha$e your own gear and put together your own component$. It will cost you the same, or perhaps a tad more, to assemble this round yourself using your own gear. Thats reality.

Confronted by the economic realities of "component assembly", many of us attempt to cure the situation by investing even more $$ and lots and lots of time, in order to build lead bullets. "NOW" you save $$ we're told and while this may very well be true, I expect an hours OT on one's job per month would supply the $$ in a far more efficient manner.
 
Example, I just did 100rd of 9mm and 200 of .40cal in an hour. Budgeting myself to 50 rds of 9mm and 50rds of .40cal a week, that covers me for 2 weeks of 9mm and 4 weeks of .40cal. Now if I shoot with Slavex I burn off 250-300 in a night, that's still just an hour of reloading and I try to go once a month. So a month of shooting for me is about 2hrs of reloading and about an hour of prep time (sorting, cleaning and tumbling cases)
 
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