Lee Loadmaster Mods / Setup Tips

[ARog]

I've been reloading for about a year now using the Lee Classic Turret and as much as I love the press I decided to upgrade to a Lee Loadmaster progressive press for the volume of reloading I do.

Would anyone who owns a Loadmaster care to chime in with Setup Tips or Handy Mods they have done that make your reloading processes /experience with this machine a lot better? Thanks all!

[B W E]

Keep it lubed, but not too much under the shell plate as it will screw up your primers. Do whatever you can to slick up the primer chute, without getting it wet or greasy. Some graphite or something will help. Same with the case feeder slide.

On mine, the priming rocker arm was a bit thick and got hung up occasionally. I removed it, ran a file over it a few times, and now it runs smooth as butter.

Buy multiple tool heads. Every 25 rounds or so, tighten the lock nut that keeps the toolhead snug. You can't locktite it, and it does come loose. This will cause problems with resizing, as the dies will move up with the toolhead if its loose.

I have replaced every locknut on every die I own with the Hornady locknuts.

I bought the Lee Case Collator and the Hornady Lock N Load bullet feeder at the same time. The Hornady bullet feeder was crap on this press, and the $12.00 case collator saves a crapload of time when it comes to filling up the case feeder tubes. Seriously. Its the best $12 you will ever spend for speeding stuff up. Seriously. Get one.

Make sure you empty the old primers out of the ram. I forgot, and after about.... a lot of rounds, it backed up and jammed up the indexing.

I got the ergo roller handle from In-Line fabrication, and the ultra mount. Both well worth the money, because Im tall, and its WAY more comfortable. Also, on the Loadmaster, getting a strip of LED lights under the toolhead so you can see inside your cases after the powder charge is pretty helpful. However, after I set up the ultra mount, it was a bit too high, so every 10-15 rounds I make an effort to look inside.

I have also had great success with a second sizing die over the charging station. This helps to ensure the case is perfectly aligned during primer insertion. Some folks don't, but I do, and always will. What else are you gonna put there?

Ok, thats all I can think of now. Dang, this makes me want to go crank out some ammo.....

[B W E]

Oh yah. you'll hear people say this press isn't that great. However, if you're willing to spend a bit of time tweaking and finessing things, she will do a great job and Ive been able to get about 350-400 RPH out of it consistently. Only time I run into problems is when I forget to refill the primers.

[sghart]

I am also a Lee Classic Turret lover. I too bought a Lee Loadmaster. I bought it from another gentleman on Calguns that could not get it to run.

I would second every thing that BWE said above. I load 9mm, 45 ACP and .233 on mine with great success.

One thing that I do is in regards to the priming of brass on the press. 9mm seems to give me the most trouble so this is what I do.

On the third station where the case is flared and charged with powder, I loosen the small chrome "keeper" that keeps the case against the shell plate. After you familiarize your self with the press you will know what I'm talking about. I do this so I can take the case out of the shell plate for a quick check to make sure a primer has been seated. It only adds a second to each cycle and is now second nature to me.

An additional benefit to this step is when you load for 45 ACP. If you are priming small pistol primers and a case with a large size primer slips in you will catch it before you waste any powder.

I also drilled a hole and mounted an eyebolt in the frame and replaced the chain/string combination that returns the powder drop with a spring. This mod can be found on the internet. If you can't find it I will post a photo.

Best of luck and keep us posted.

[stilly]

Keep it lubed, but not too much under the shell plate as it will screw up your primers. Do whatever you can to slick up the primer chute, without getting it wet or greasy. Some graphite or something will help. Same with the case feeder slide.

On mine, the priming rocker arm was a bit thick and got hung up occasionally. I removed it, ran a file over it a few times, and now it runs smooth as butter.

Buy multiple tool heads. Every 25 rounds or so, tighten the lock nut that keeps the toolhead snug. You can't locktite it, and it does come loose. This will cause problems with resizing, as the dies will move up with the toolhead if its loose.

I have replaced every locknut on every die I own with the Hornady locknuts.

I bought the Lee Case Collator and the Hornady Lock N Load bullet feeder at the same time. The Hornady bullet feeder was crap on this press, and the $12.00 case collator saves a crapload of time when it comes to filling up the case feeder tubes. Seriously. Its the best $12 you will ever spend for speeding stuff up. Seriously. Get one.

Make sure you empty the old primers out of the ram. I forgot, and after about.... a lot of rounds, it backed up and jammed up the indexing.

I got the ergo roller handle from In-Line fabrication, and the ultra mount. Both well worth the money, because Im tall, and its WAY more comfortable. Also, on the Loadmaster, getting a strip of LED lights under the toolhead so you can see inside your cases after the powder charge is pretty helpful. However, after I set up the ultra mount, it was a bit too high, so every 10-15 rounds I make an effort to look inside.

I have also had great success with a second sizing die over the charging station. This helps to ensure the case is perfectly aligned during primer insertion. Some folks don't, but I do, and always will. What else are you gonna put there?

Ok, thats all I can think of now. Dang, this makes me want to go crank out some ammo.....

OMG it is SEXY TIME! I am in the same boat but a lot of this seems focused on priming. So then to bypass that just prime off press? If I have to remove the decapping rod then that is fine by me. I like my RCBS hand primer anyways since no press but the Lee Classic Turret seems to be able to prime on press properly anyways...

[ElDub1950]

I'm in the process of setting up a Loadmaster too. Just today I received my Universal Decapping Die so I can move my Resizer to position 2, which I'm counting on solving most of my priming problems.

The case feeder is a little touchy but mostly on .380s which I think are always going to be a PITA. Had much better luck with 9mm and will be setting up .40 this evening. I bought a spare case feeder rod and need to try bending it a little. The mounting bolt is all the way in and it still can't push 380 cases in far enough.

Some one mentioned burrs or flash on plastic parts. YES, spend some time taking them apart and clean them up. Some 1000 grit sand paper or I used a nylon pot scrubber. Don't go crazy sanding everything down, just take off the flash and burrs. I did the primer, powder and case feeds. It really smoothed out my powder feeder, improved the primer feeder.

Check all the youtube vids about replacing the powder feed chain. I'll definitely be doing one of those. I've broken it like 6 times, but not since I smoothed out the feeder plastic.

Also installed the Lee bullet feeder and I'll be damned if it hasn't worked perfectly. I expected the most problems it, but so far with ~300 rnds it's been fine.

I got the 4 tube case feeder and 4 tube bullet feeder. They're nice cause you can turn them to stop feeding. But there's still a couple of cases and 4 or 5 bullets that will come out after you turn them off.

Oh, yeah, I installed the primer blast shield too. For $5, why not, and it doesn't interfere with anything.

I'm confident I'll get the case feeder running smoothly. Also picked up a can of STP oil treatment today .. lots of people say it helps on the case feed rod, so I'll try it.

I'm more skeptical about getting the primer system to run 100%. I want to make it work .. just because it's supposed too and I'd rather not have to decap and reprime off press.

Has anyone made a little tool to stop the primers from feeding? I'm thinking I can make something to stick in the primer channel slot to block them. There will still be a few that will feed, but there are a few cases and bullets too so no big deal.

Anyone else have tips on tweaking the primer feed, I'd love to hear them.

[B W E]

OMG it is SEXY TIME! I am in the same boat but a lot of this seems focused on priming. So then to bypass that just prime off press? If I have to remove the decapping rod then that is fine by me. I like my RCBS hand primer anyways since no press but the Lee Classic Turret seems to be able to prime on press properly anyways...

I say no. For me, thats accepting defeat. It is made to prime ON the press, so thats what it will do. Im sure tens of thousands of them have been sold, and they keep making them with a priming station. To me, its like saying "My wipers don't work, so I just clean off the windshield when Im at a gas station."

The priming station can work very well, you just have to impose your will upon it, and learn it inside and out like a good woman.

[stilly]

I say no. For me, thats accepting defeat. It is made to prime ON the press, so thats what it will do. Im sure tens of thousands of them have been sold, and they keep making them with a priming station. To me, its like saying "My wipers don't work, so I just clean off the windshield when Im at a gas station."

The priming station can work very well, you just have to impose your will upon it, and learn it inside and out like a good woman.

0o0o0o0o0o0.

Maybe, but I just assume to go as fast as possible making ammo on a progressive. If I wanna prime then, well, I will have a looky I guess...

[SDawson]

Take a look at this site for some help setting up your Load Master

http://loadmastervideos.com/

[xfer42]

As BWE pointed out, the tool head will come loose. This will throw off the resizing. You can loosen the tool head, and place upward tension on the head before you tighten the nut. This will ensure that when it does come loose, it will only drop down rather that getting forced up.

[klewan]

I've had an LM for 19 years, I had no idea peeps were having priming issues until I started looking on the net. I have 2 hand priming tools and will use the LM 100% because it's so much faster and I don't have primers installed upside down or none at all. Everything is factory stock, no massaging the primer feed or anything else. Still on the first powder measure chain and never broke it.

I made a plywood stand to get it up another 12 inches, didn't have Inline Fab back then. Also used a Pony 3/4" adjustable pipe clamp, reversed, under the table at the press, to prevent the bench from moving while I cycled the press. A 2x4 cut an 1/8" longer than floor to bench would work almost as well.

Keeping the press motionless is a big deal. The LM has the primer balanced on a priming pin, and it's at the top of the press as you prime. So if the press moves around, chances are the primer will move off center and you get sideways primers. So heavy bench and the support under the bench.

Other thing is to develop the 'Lee Rhythm'; there's a specific tempo the press likes. Too fast is worse than too slow, the shell plate needs a little time to stabilize, and if you're really whacking the lever on the stops, you'll have various problems. I figured it out by moving the lever at different speeds and went with what worked. I'm always amazed how peeps don't make an effort to adapt to the machine; they want to force the machine to work at their pace and sometimes it won't.

When you do the initial die installation, have the lever on the stop. Do not have the die stop the ram movement; it has to be the stop on the frame. The stop is the zerk fitting on the lever. You'll mess things up so bad you'll probably never figure out what's wrong if the ram stops on a die.

Pull the shell plate every 200 rounds and see how much junk is under it. You might need to check sooner or later, depends on how much spent primer residue is getting dumped down there.

I would advise you to just put one case in, and watch what happens as it moves around. If you understand what's happening when it's working OK, makes it a lot easier to figure out what needs to be done when it won't work.

The Loadmaster video site is the go to place for LM owners. Magic Mike and his mods seem to work for a lot of the recent owners; I've never had any of the issues his stuff addresses, so no personal experience. Just take you time setting it up, Lee's instruction are really marginal, probably one of the biggest reason the press has a poor rep....Have fun!

Just thought about something else, you need to use 'known' brass. By known, it's brass that has been processed; crimps removed, no berdan, no mangled extraction grooves or any other dimensional issues. I used my reclaimed brass, or from friends at the range. These weren't crimped and the guns didn't beat up the brass. So everything ran very nicely. They were 'known'. Then I started getting range pickup and the crimps, berdans, and other issues made reloading a chore. Unknown brass. If you do some research on professional reloading presses, like a Camdex, most of the press functions are dedicated to making the brass fit for use. It's something you need to be aware of on a progressive as compared to a turret or single.

[ARog]

Wow! Thank you all! My LM comes this Wednesday...can't wait now to set her up!!

[jonzer77]

The best loadmaster mod is to sell it or return it.

[B W E]

The best loadmaster mod is to sell it or return it.

Says the people too lazy to figure out how to make it work. It's a simple machine. It's not hard.

[jonzer77]

Says the people too lazy to figure out how to make it work. It's a simple machine. It's not hard.

Simple? That's why there is a website dedicated to fixing it. If it's so simple, you would think lee could figure out how to send out a working machine.

I could get mine working for 60-70 rounds and then it would fail if I used to priming system. It worked great as long as a primed off the press.