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Posted: 5/4/2014 6:30:26 PM EDT
| I just bought one I've hen reloading for a while on a single stage . but there's a lot of mixed reviews on the loadmaster can someone give me the good the bad and the ugly? |
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I have had one for several years.
Bad Primes on the upstroke. I much more prefer priming on the down stroke. Hornady and Dillon prime on the down stroke older primer feed was all kinds of trouble indexing can be a bit of a pain to get right I have had the indexing self adjust out of alignment but that has only been a few times in thousands of rounds loaded some of thee plastic parts should really be metal in my opinion Good Newer primer feed seems to be great changing dies is easy if already set up in another tool head. so is dillon, hornady has a permanent tool head and have to remove and replace individual dies changing shell plate is a little quicker then Hornady LNL or a dillon adding more primers to the tray is easy and fast compared to Hornady and Dillon a really good right up comparing the 3 Dillon, Hornady, Lee |
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what's the newer priming system? mine is pretty new (about 2 yrs old) and i have trouble with priming (i check every case every time because every now and then i gots no primer).
I hate the auto disc for rifle. for pistol it works great but for rifle when i stack two discs, it leaks like a sive unless i tighten down the screws really hard and then the chain breaks 
so now for rifle i basically use it as a single stage, but for pistol it works pretty well. i thought the blue koolaid people were just that, drinking the koolaid and that if i took the time to set it up it should work fine......someday im getting a dillion. |
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Quoted:
what's the newer priming system? mine is pretty new (about 2 yrs old) and i have trouble with priming (i check every case every time because every now and then i gots no primer). I hate the auto disc for rifle. for pistol it works great but for rifle when i stack two discs, it leaks like a sive unless i tighten down the screws really hard and then the chain breaks
so now for rifle i basically use it as a single stage, but for pistol it works pretty well. i thought the blue koolaid people were just that, drinking the koolaid and that if i took the time to set it up it should work fine......someday im getting a dillion. yours may already have the newer system. does it have a red one for large and black one for small. if so it may be new. although they did have 2 versions of that. Mine has run great. the only time I have ended up without a primer has been when it gets to low. I still check almost everyone simply because of habbit. there are is a modification you can do to help prevent that. remove all the parts from the hopper and sand down the lips on either side that sit on the base. if you google lee auto disk modification, you should find a video of how to do it. it helps tremendously. I have run a friends dillon and it is nice. if I had the money I would be all over one. |
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I have one. I have loaded 9mm, 45 acp, .380, and a few .40 on it. All with caliber change overs. I am currently working on .38 & .357 loads on it.
It can be a finicky machine with several eccentricities that only a regular user wont get frustrated with. For starters, I do not use the on press priming because I have had very poor results in the past with Lee's priming system on the Pro1000. I have completely removed the priming system from the LM. I hand prime to make sure every case gets primed right every time. Then I can load them. Here is a list of some things to watch for with your new LM: -The case feeder is VERY finicky. I sometime get it working great. Others not so well. And sometimes it is basically a manual feed system with a reservoir. What I have found is that when the plastic tubes are full, the cumulative stack of cases causes more weight(friction) than the case feed slider can overcome. It doesn't seem to matter how I adjust the slider screws, the bolt screw, or run it dry or lubricated, the case feeder is not consistent. -I have found that the little screw that tightens the turret down does not allow the system to work well when it is tight. Not too loose, but loose enough to allow a little movement in the turret. -DO NOT SHORT STROKE. You can stop mid-stroke to make an adjustment, but you must finish that stroke, either up or down before continuing. -Make sure the "flipper" that advances the shell plate stays snug against the case frame and keep it greased. A hard cycle of the ram(from a tough case to size or something out of alignment) will get the shell plate carrier out of timing. It is an easy fix with a wrench on the nut at the bottom of the ram. -The little fingers that hold the cases in the shell holder have a tendency to work their way open occasionally even when you have them fairly tight. That will most certainly cause the press to malfunction when a case gets crushed. -Do not be surprised if you have some variation to OAL. Most times I am within .002+/-, but sometimes a bullet will seat long and I cant figure out why other than some variation in the shell plate and/or how it rides in the carrier. -Pay attention to every step of every cycle every time. Do not watch TV. Do not have any distraction, or one of these above things will happen so you can quote all the bad words from the bible. I size/deprime prior to my hand priming. That frees up turret space for other things. I have mine set for powder charge, powder check, bullet feeder die, seater, and Lee FCD. When everything is working as it should, I can spit out a bunch of rounds. When it doesn't, it still is much faster than any single stage press. One day, I dream of blue. Until then, red gets it done. And I would buy another if this one broke simply because I have a whole setup of Lee turrets and shellplates. |
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Quoted:
yours may already have the newer system. does it have a red one for large and black one for small. if so it may be new. although they did have 2 versions of that. Mine has run great. the only time I have ended up without a primer has been when it gets to low. I still check almost everyone simply because of habbit. there are is a modification you can do to help prevent that. remove all the parts from the hopper and sand down the lips on either side that sit on the base. if you google lee auto disk modification, you should find a video of how to do it. it helps tremendously. I have run a friends dillon and it is nice. if I had the money I would be all over one. Quoted:
Quoted:
what's the newer priming system? mine is pretty new (about 2 yrs old) and i have trouble with priming (i check every case every time because every now and then i gots no primer). I hate the auto disc for rifle. for pistol it works great but for rifle when i stack two discs, it leaks like a sive unless i tighten down the screws really hard and then the chain breaks
so now for rifle i basically use it as a single stage, but for pistol it works pretty well. i thought the blue koolaid people were just that, drinking the koolaid and that if i took the time to set it up it should work fine......someday im getting a dillion. yours may already have the newer system. does it have a red one for large and black one for small. if so it may be new. although they did have 2 versions of that. Mine has run great. the only time I have ended up without a primer has been when it gets to low. I still check almost everyone simply because of habbit. there are is a modification you can do to help prevent that. remove all the parts from the hopper and sand down the lips on either side that sit on the base. if you google lee auto disk modification, you should find a video of how to do it. it helps tremendously. I have run a friends dillon and it is nice. if I had the money I would be all over one. it does have a black one for small but i think my large is white (but i never used it so im trying to remember). as far as modding the powder feed. i have a better idea i want to try at some point. right now with one disk it moves smoothly and even with the screws nice and tight it does not bind because the part that the hopper base sits on stops it from crushing the disks. but when you put a second disk then when you tighten down the screws it crushes down on the disks and if it the screws are too tight the disks wont move. but when you loosen them just a tad to get it to move, the vibration makes the screws loosen up and then start leaking powder. so my idea is to make something to shim the hopper base so it wont crush the disks. if i can get the screws nice and tight without binding the disks, it should solve the leaking problem. |
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Oustanding! Thanks for that doc.... been Hornady single state for a while, and looking to go progressive for pistol and blaster rifle.
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The "new" (there were 4 versions of "new", and they all suk monkeyballs) did away with the positive primer capture slider.
So the "new" slider merely pushes a primer out onto the press pin. Now, if something goes arwy or for the heck of it, the perfectly good primer falls down into the spent primer tube. Ugh. I think it shoots 2 primers at a time or something. The positive capture slider(old one) never let a good primer fall away. They did all this to "fix" the complaints about mashing the little $1 piece of plastic. I mashed the very first one, after that you know how to avoid that. Nevermind the fact they discontinued the old slider as a spare part and they just as quickly vanished. LM are ok systems, theres lots to do to them to tweak them. More and more I saw that the guys who just could never get one to work, was not their fault. Lee simply refuses to come to grips with what the rest of the world knows as 'tolerance stacking', and bad systems get out. All QA has to do is run a LM for 10 minutes to see if it works. But they don't. Best advice for new LM owners, disassemble the WHOLE thing and put it back together. All the pieces have to fit together. Anyway, if this site doesn't square you away quickly on a LM, send it back for a refund. http://forums.loadmastervideos.com/forums/ ETA: I own a LM and a Lee Turret press. I use the turret 99% of the time. 99% of the time I am doing load development, LM is for mass production. Heck the thing can churn out rnds really quickly when its working right. |
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im starting to agree about the priming issues. for rifle i prime by hand after case prep anyway. but i just loaded 100 9mm rounds and out of the 100 @ 20-25 either fail to prine at all (mabe 5 or 6) and the rest were either sidewas primers or crooked primers (50/50).
And i was being careful while priming, checking every case and making sure the slider was moving and even making sure to whack the primer holder so it was always full. but having said that it still was ALOT faster than m old single stage. |
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Quoted:
The case needs to be centered over the priming ram, to do this I run a size die in station 2. Decap only in station 1. No prim problems in tens of thousands of rounds. The best way to control your OAL is with Magic Mike's turret plate, Best $10 I've spent i have heard about using a sizing die, i have extra, i may have to give that a try. thanks. |
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Quoted:
i have heard about using a sizing die, i have extra, i may have to give that a try. thanks. Quoted:
Quoted:
The case needs to be centered over the priming ram, to do this I run a size die in station 2. Decap only in station 1. No prim problems in tens of thousands of rounds. The best way to control your OAL is with Magic Mike's turret plate, Best $10 I've spent i have heard about using a sizing die, i have extra, i may have to give that a try. thanks. Just remember to pull the decap pin out, otherwise you my get a surprise that you won't like so much |
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A very solid reloading bench is critical too. Go easy working the handle up and down. Slamming it will cause the primer to dislodge from the primer pin.
I took the priming system of mine and removed any flash on the plastic parts. A little dry graphite helps the primers move along. I have loaded about 3-4 thousand 9mm and .45acp and had maybe 3 crushed primers. I deprime, size and clean all my cases before I run them through the Loadmaster. This keeps the machine cleaner and it runs smoother. |
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