Progressive Rifle Presses??

[juelz919]

How do they work?
I am looking at either the LEE Pro 1000 or the load master.
I am gonna use it to reload .223.
I have the lee pro 1000 for pistol. and it works like this
stage 1 deprimes and sizes
stage 2 primes and charges
stage 3 seats bullet.

do the rifle ones just not have a sizing die? or what? i've never even seen one, in catalogs and stuff they always show the pistol ones.

[krzgoat]

Rifles have two different types of sizing - Neck sizing and full length sizing.

You'd have Stage 1 - Size and decap
Stage 2 prime and charge
Stage 3 seat the bullet

On my loadmaster I used to have it setup to FL size and decap stage 1 - stage 2 was prime - stage 3 was charge - stage 4 was bullet seat - then stage 5 was crimp if needed.

I now have two turrets setup. One for lubing, sizing and decapping. I only load for my semi auto rifles so I FL size.

Another turret is setup for charge, bullet seat and crimp.

I prime with a hand primer as I go through processing the brass.

[juelz919]

my plan was to use the pro 1000, and try and rig it to where
stage 1. charge
stage 2. seat bullet
stage 3. factory crimp die

because i always have to process the brass anyway, i might as well just use the hand prriming tool
unless my ar would function on fire formed cass, which i doubt

[uscbigdawg]

I load 223's all day on my XL650. Of course...it is a Dillon.

Regardless of the machine and especially since you're firing out of an AR, you're going to want to full length resize. Small base dies are your friend for this and well...Dillon's regular dies, while not advertised as such, are small base dies.

As for a "crimp", there's really no need (per say) as if you size the brass with the correct amount of neck tension (usually about 0.001 over bullet diameter at ogive) then you'll be fine even in an AR.

As for hand priming...well...why have a progressive press then?

Rich

[brian01tj]

How do they work?
I am looking at either the LEE Pro 1000 or the load master.
I am gonna use it to reload .223.
I have the lee pro 1000 for pistol. and it works like this
stage 1 deprimes and sizes
stage 2 primes and charges
stage 3 seats bullet.

do the rifle ones just not have a sizing die? or what? i've never even seen one, in catalogs and stuff they always show the pistol ones.

Are you not flaring your pistol brass?

[krzgoat]

I load 223's all day on my XL650. Of course...it is a Dillon.

Regardless of the machine and especially since you're firing out of an AR, you're going to want to full length resize. Small base dies are your friend for this and well...Dillon's regular dies, while not advertised as such, are small base dies.

As for a "crimp", there's really no need (per say) as if you size the brass with the correct amount of neck tension (usually about 0.001 over bullet diameter at ogive) then you'll be fine even in an AR.

As for hand priming...well...why have a progressive press then?

Rich

I hand prime because the Lee priming system is finicky sometimes and it's just as easy to hand prime for me while I am processing brass. Something with the small primer feeder on it. I have no problem with 45ACP. I know buy a better loading system right. It's in the works but what I have right now serves me well until I move to a 1050 or a 650.

[juelz919]

i don't know what that term "flaring" means..


and I found a smarter way to mess with the thing, just pull out the first die, duh. than it will prime, charge, seat bullet. but the processing is still for me to do by hand.. that seems to be a good way to do it right now

and i don't like dillon..
I'm a lee fan..

i learned how to reload on the lee turret press, and have stuck with Lee since..

[freonr22]

Hornady.

[problemchild]

That lee 1000 looks like a chinese kids toy compared to a d650.

[mstlaurent]

+1 for Hornady. I am really impressed with mine. It's a good value, and you can still get 500 bullets for free when you buy one. (Used to be 1,000, but they dropped it a little this year.)

[ar15barrels]

Are you not flaring your pistol brass?

Lee progressive presses have a powder through expander, just like a Dillon press.