Lee Loadmaster 9mm: In-depth setup and operation.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- I made the video I would have liked to see when setting this up. Yeah, it's an hour long, but hopefully it will save someone two, and a little frustration to boot. Enjoy!
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I will say this... All of the different people who has tried to explain its operation you are the one who has helped me decipher certain qwerks on mine, outstanding job young man. Thank you for your time and dedication.
i made life easy, got a hand deprimer and a hand primer. After wet tumbling and drying cases I get a few coffee cans and sit in my den watching tv and deprime and reprime in comfort ! I hadn't reloaded for over a year but to day when I started to reload I found I had 1300 cleaned and primed 9mm ready to go in the case feeder !! no primer issues, I loaded 500 rounds and the only glich was when a case came upside down in the feed tube !! so simple now.
Like you I searched TH-cam for information on the Lee Loadmaster. I finally found that the Lee Precision web site has all of the video's you need. Once I followed their direction I was able to set up my press in short order. I will also say that customer service was great especially Peter. He was patient with me and answered all of my questions. If I had found Lee's video's first I would not have had to bother Peter so much and would have saved myself a lot of frustration.
I got a Load master many years ago and hadn't reloaded for years. Recently decided to load some .223. It was a challenge to get it all calibrated again but finally was able to get it working right. Your video would have helped alot. Great job explaining all the nuances of this system. Thank you.
Loadmaster is an excellent press. It’s not near as bad as this guy makes it sound. This is definitely not for people without mechanical skills, but neither is reloading.
Kenneth Gillette true to that last bit! Not meant to be a negative review, just want folks to know what they’re getting into.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralist okay just sounded so negative. I have loaded thousands of rounds of 9 45 38 and 223 on mine yes I’ve the occasional problem but that’s any press and I don’t have thousands of dollars invested in my equipment. Now if I could just get some small pistol primers I’ll be okay 👌🏻
very good detail thanks it will make my set up much easier
I have a LoadMaster with over 50,000 rounds of 9MM; 40S&W; 45 ACP and 223 through it. The key is in the set up. You will need to readjust periodically. I would bet Dillon and Hornady alse need to be readjusted periodically. I gave up on the primer and besides I wet tumble my brass. I now prime off press using an RCBS auto priming tool. Priming off press allows me to use an RCBS lock-out die on my press. My goal is to have a "hat trick" every time I go to the range. A "hat trick" is no squibs, no failures to fire, and no failures to feed." Sure it is a little more work, but I only get one set of eyes and fingers.
Thank you so much for doing such as clear understandable video. I was having trouble to understand stupids confusing instructions but your video helped me to set up right. Great helpful video. Lee master should learn from you !
Glad I could be of help!
Awesome detailed video. Now I know how it works and how to set it up.
Glad I could help!
I think you are a great Dillon salesman.. cause you just sold me on the Xl750. Helped me with my decision making. Saving for the blue one 🤣
Haha! Yes! I love Lee and a lot of things they make, but I think the loadmaster is a miss. It did not stay on my bench long.
Thank you so much. Very informative and satisfying As a novice you answered a lot of questions
Thank you for the breakdown. Great job on explaining everything
Thank you for taking us through how the press is constructed and how it works. I am going to buy one and this is exactly what I wanted to see.
Earlier this week I was looking for the suicide rate amoung loadmaster owners !!
Very thorough video. Nicely done. Thanks.
the best explanatory video ever on TH-cam
Thanks a million! Great video
See Mikes Reloading for upgrades. I had pro1000s for 30 years,sold them both on ebay,and bought one of these,works really well after tweeking things here and there,but had to learn on my pro 1000s too! 1 thing i learned is dont lube the internals,it will make a gunky mess inside screwing up priming system. Lube the ram occasionally and case crank slider.
This was a very informative video with high production value. You really did a great job demystifying reloading. I just bought my first Lee Loadmaster reloaded and can’t wait to set it up. Thank you! Keep it up!
Glad it could help someone, thanks for watching!
Earlier this week I was looking for the suicide rate amoung loadmaster owners !!
Thank You very much for this. Just brought one and need to set it up. Greetings from Brazil.
The old lee loadmaster had a terrible priming system. Mine is great now. I learned that the press needs mounted to a very sturdy surface. I have mine on a Lee stand that had 100lbs of weight on the stand. Primer issues gone
Seem all he does is bad mouthing the system. He’s forgot how much it costs.
@@lawrencemay8671 He also doesn't actually know jack shit about the press, they are a tad diffacult to set up and not the best for someone who has never had a progressive press, but once you know the press and what it likes it will run like a dream for you, I have had several different progressive presses over the years and the Loadmaster is really no more or no less capable than just about any of them,,, you just got to learn your equiptment,,, especially before you go badmouthing it on youtube,,, so many youtube posters do just that and shame on them just for the sake of a video,, I currently use 4 different progressive presses,,,, 1 is a rather old Dillon 550 1 is a hornady lock and load,, 1 is a Lee pro 1000,, and then my Lee loadmaster ,,, I use the loadmaster by far the most because it is easy to keep running well and the easiest to do caliber changes on (literly less than 10 minutes and you are up and going on a different caliber).
That are on the shell feeder is adjustable. That black screw you should start with four threads exposed. If that slid is binding, then you need to adjust it with that black screw.
Your video is very knowedgeable. Especially the detail to attention. I suscribe to your chanel. Keep it coming.
Very nice explaination of the operation and quirks of this loader. You are the only guy I have seen on TH-cam who has a press that looks like it has been used. It seems like all the other videos have presses that look prestine. Yours has some paint wear on the frame from the index pin rubbing the casting. You also have some oil and grit residue on the frame where the main cylinder rides up and down.
One thing I have experienced with this unit is every 1500-2000 rounds it needs some cleaning and lubing for the shell carrier, indexing pin and greasing the zerks. I also put some light weight oil on the main cylinder before starting any reloading. I will typically load 200-600 rounds in a sitting.which for me is anywhere from 2 to 4 hours of time including my setup and cleanup. I typically average 200 an hour once up and running. I load 100 at a time and do a overall length check on the first 10 rounds every 100. I then load them into a 100 round box and color the base of every case with a sharpie. I color code cases so I can keep track of the number of times the cases have been fired. Takes me about 10-15 minutes to load 100 then 15 minutes to pack then and reload the priners and cases.
You seem to have some flex with your bench top. If you reinforced the front edge of your bench top with some angled aluminum or steel, 1" legs, should make a huge difference. This helped me to get things running a little bit better. I used to have lots of problems with primers tipping on their side when trying to search them. Moving to a stiffer bench seemed to help.
I really liked the job you did on this vid 👍
Very informative, and thank you for shedding light on this. I was either going to get a Lee or Hornady. I choose the latter. Thanks again for taking the time to go through all of the information.
How are you liking your Hornady? Is it the Lock and Load? I have the Lee Auto breech lock pro and contemplating whether I should have gotten something else.
@@Kcrunchymunch It is very smooth. Anything that I thought was quirky I learned it was my error as a new user. It's my first loader and I really have nothing to compare it too.
Thank you for doing this video!!! Awesome!!! Really helped
12:10 Use a stubby screwdriver or an offfset one
17:00 great info on the spring!
Great video - thanks for the overview - also see where some people polish the surfaces under the indexing plate and it seems to make it run really smooth. Also see where someon adjusted the bolt at the bottom to make the indexing arm better tuned in. He said he got rid of all "resistance."
To me half the fun would be the tweaking - I enjoy tinkering with machinery to make it run smooth.
Lee Brewer don’t know why I didn’t think of the stubby screwdriver, I had one within arms reach of me at the time of filming this video 😂
I just got my loadmaster and was using clear ride as a lube for the index but I had all kinds of indexing problems so I switched STP and all of my indexing problems went away maybe when I get more time on the press and it gets broken in I will be able to use the clear ride it is a much cleaner lube. So far the priming system seems to work just fine. If I could just find some primers ugh. For the money this is a great press! Setup is the key everything has to be adjusted
i was thinking about getting one of these but sounds like, you get what you pay for. but there's always the budget ristrictions so sometimes we have to. thx for the good informativefilm.
I sold mine and bought a Hornady Lock N Load progressive. Never regretted it once. The Hornady runs soooo much better. I regularly crank out 500 rounds at a time without having to adjust a thing.
This thing looks high maintenance and jinky!
That’s what I thought!
bro you did an excellent job with this video. i just bought this model and it will be very helpful to watch this when i set mine up. thank you. if you don't mind i have more questions about reloading. I'm a beginner.
Sure! I’m no expert, but I’ll answer any questions I can, or direct you to someone who can answer them better.
I bought the adjustable powder disc.
Thanks dude for this video, I wanna say you saved me some money but you did just the opposite, im not gonna waste my time with a lee, im gonna buy a dillon.. Buy once cry once..
Bought mine used, 8500 rounds later and still going. I've had some primer issues but at least 70% were my fault. Lube the ram, lube your cases and don't try to do 300 rounds an hour. Slow down and it works great.
I probably could have made it work. But I load thousands of 9mm rounds, and am unwilling to lube the cases. Not when other progressive presses handle running them through a carbide sizing die with no issues.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralist I hear you but I put a couple hundred cases in a plastic jar, couple shots of Hornady case lube, a little shake and good to go. I will say if I run the ram too fast I will get missed primers but that's the only issue. Really just started lubing about a month ago and it helps the loader run smoothly.
You have some serious patience.
Svern Warunos you have to in this game!
Great video, keep up the good work.
I know you are complying, but the cost of others is prohibited for most of us. But I’m considering the new Franklin Arsenal turret system for just a bit more than the Lee. But that particular press has been around about twenty years. Watch the video by Gun Blue channel. He has two videos. Watch the one that is most recent. He has been using this press for 15 years.
if you still have primer issues several videos address the problem successfully.
1 YOU NEED TO GET A UNIVERSAL DECAPPING DEPRIMING DIE AND PUT IT IN STATION #1
2 USE THIS DIE TO DEPRIME YOUR BRASS.
3 TAKE THE DEPRIMING SIZING DIE AND REMOVE THE DEPRIMING PART FROM THE DIE...
4 INSTALL THE SIZING PORTION IN STATION 2 AND SET IT UP TO SIZE YOUR BRASS..
this allows the brass to be held in place with sizing die which also holds the brass for priming...
THIS SHOULD STOP THE PRIMER PROBLEM...
ALSO INVEST IN A FACTORY CRIP DIE AS WELL IT PRODUCES A TAPERED CRIMP WHICH IS WHAT THE AMMO PRODUCERS USE...
5 THE FACTORY CRIMP DIE GOES IN STATION 5.... GOOD LUCK CRAIG B
GUESS I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED TILL 22:19 BEFORE COMMENTING... LMMFAO
Have you looked at the auto linkage system from Hornady sells for 62 bucks on amazon then you could use your Hornady powder measure which would be very accurate .powdered graphite should work great on the plastics moving parts which would eliminate any grease or oil contamination that would end up collecting dirt and debris into the moving parts .Gunblue490 has some great tips on how to lubricate this press. Nice video on how this press works!
I see that you quickly moved on to a L-n-L AP. Good move. Every progressive press has its issues, but the loadmaster has too many. I was going to tell you that you owe Rube Goldberg a huge apology, but am sure you have already delivered one. I bought one of these at our range flea market as a back-up to my Hornady. Worst $150 purchase ever! It came with 223 and 308 die sets in their own turrets, and lots of spare parts, so figured what the heck? It took me 2 days and about $120 to get it working reasonably well, but no doubt it would have an issue real soon. Kept the 223 and 308 die sets, made it run 9mm to the best that it could, and sold it at the next flea market.
Have set up both my L-N-L and my friend's Dillon 650. Took a few hours on the Hornady as it was my first, and 2 hours on the Dillon, and they functioned thereafter. If the safety issues with this loadmaster do not cause a person to buy something else, bending over to pick bullets up off the floor should do it. Hey, I love Lee Precision, and my first reloader was a LeeLoader for my 44 magnum back in 1970. I still use the Lee Challenger for all my precision reloading, and the Lee Precision Shotshell reloader for 12gauge, but the loadmaster is a loadisaster. A guy will spend more on damaged primers, spilled powder, and aspirin than the cost of a real progressive press.
I own Dillon XL 650 but yet some Lee stuff (dies for pistol are fine). Lee has great and simple, but well though off stuff. Realisation and finish is where it lacks. Quality of materials mostly. Lee Loadmaster could be a great press out of the box IF Lee wouldn't opt to cheap out on critical parts (like priming system) and use less plastic and more metal where it matters. And not a pot metal.
Would a price be higher? Sure. But not THAT much. If 50 bucks, than they would still be MUCH cheaper than competition.
Loadmaster is one example of it. Their decapping pins in dies are another example. Pot metal that bends easily. During last .223 case prep session with Lee universal decapping die I broke 5 pins. I ordered ones made from HSS.
As I said, great ideas, simple yet effective engineering, yet final material quality and QA process are lacking.
If you want to use the Auto Disk Powder Measure, you can get an adjustable cavity from Lee, so you do not have to modify your stock disk: Lee Adjustable Charge Bar SKU 90792
Hans S I did see that in my research, but it didn’t get very good reviews, IIRC.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralist Some people complain about very small cavities being inconsistent.
It depends much on your powder.
Another solution would be the double disk system, you get more combinations this way.
But if your Aoto Drum works for you, why hazzle. An advantage of the Auto Drum is that you can eliminate the third-world-like return chain.
I thought you did a great job explaining the quirks you encountered, how to address them and generally how the press works. I'm considering getting into reloading and your video showed the good, the bad and the ugly about this device. Now I'm not sure if I should wait and save up for a Dillon, since nobody seems to have SP primers anyway...
jim4utube thanks! If I had it to do over again, I would have gone a different direction. Maybe the Dillon 650, maybe the Hornady Lock n Load AP progressive. If you see yourself loading a lot in the future, might save a few headaches to skip the Lee. If you’re just starting, I’d recommend to start out with a single-stage. You’ll always have a use for it, even if you decide to get a progressive press in the future.
Yes you can get the double stack disk option from Lee.
great video thank you for sharing
Good video, lots of good info.
Great info. Thanks.
The LoadMaster works but you have to pay attention and fiddle with it to keep it working. you can't just sit there and pull the handle . don't run out of primers powder will run out the bottom of the cases and you'll have to pull apart a bunch of los\ads and start over.
For $234, I’m happy.
Great video!! Thank you :)
I’m gonna be honest, I’ve had one for years and became totally fed up with trying to use it as designed.
What I do now is resize on my single stage and hand prime my 9mm brass, I’ll do a batch of a few hundred every 2-3 weeks and store them.
Then when it comes time to load plinking ammo on my Lee progressive, I just load it with the already resized and reprimed brass and chug along that way.
It’s not only faster and smoother, because there’s no resizing die, it seems more consistent with getting low extreme spreads on the seating length.
It’s all about priorities I guess, I would rather spend time prepping brass ahead of time than correcting issues as I go.
Great video though, I wish I had something like this to reference back in 2013.
Rifle Shooter Channel I have thought about doing it that way. After the initial set up, and some fiddling around a couple of different times, I am now loading hundreds of rounds at a time without any issue. I did have one stuck case, which is weird for a straight walled pistol cartridge. But I switched away from the Lee sizing die and threw my Hornady and haven’t had any trouble since. Thanks for the feedback!
The Outdoor Generalist I’m happy to see someone’s working right.
Ha! Funny that I typed that just earlier today. Just got done loading 250, and it gave me trouble the whole way through. Had to pull bullets on about 15. Argh.
The Outdoor Generalist Yeah for me personally the priming was the worst part. Always some kind of weird hang up, that’s what got me fed up with it 😂
@@rifleshooterchannel208 Agreed. Priming seems to ALWAYS be the problem. I do the same thing you do. Prep and prime brass off my progressive. Then it loads smooth and easy. Very very consistent and low SD.
I've had one in the past. Ex wife took it. It worked flawlessly. It was mounted to a VERY solid bench. Your bench flexes way too much when at the top of the stroke. I suspect that you may have had better luck with it had it been mounted to a solid bench
This guy never seen any video on you tube ther are several very good video's and they are GunBlue490 and gavintoobe. with this yes primer system takes awhile to get use too. he is looking for anything to go wrong and he is the the problem not the press.
snorj Noted. But this isn’t a video on how terrible the press is. If that was what I thought of it, the press would have gone back in the box and back to the retailer. It’s a video on setup of the press, including the issues someone new to the press might encounter.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralist Just watched GunBlue490's loadmaster video and it was awesome. Tons of great tips for this press. A must watch:)
Thanks for all this detail and tuning info!
indexing rod..."kind of a pain ... to get out of there" and yet right before this said it could fall out at any time?
Lee Brewer both are true. It is sometimes loose and sometimes binding. But after hundreds of rounds loaded, I’ve never had it fall out inadvertently.
At the 36:00 mark I'm getting some binding on the long bar the case feeder slides up and down on. It's really frustrating. It works but it has a checking motion as It goes up and down. I guess I'll try to lube it. I used some Graphite on it but it didn't work.
Yep. I know some folks can get them to work, but I wasn’t one of them. On my last loading session, I tuned and tuned for several hours, barely putting out 50 rounds. So I sold the Loadmaster and went a different route.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralistWhat press did you end up getting? I had it working great but it just slowly got out of wack.
G B the Hornady Lock N Load AP. Will be doing a video on it soon.
I'm thinking of purchasing this progressive press and reloading 9mm. What do you have your dies set for???
You’ll have to adjust them to your specific setup. Also, check out my video called “I sold my Lee Loadmaster”
Good Show - like it !
If possible do a video of set up in 223/556.
Your Press was Over Lubed
Charlie Xatrixer Can you really ever be over lubed? 😉
The grease fittings get a little squeeze every now and then. In 10 years they've been greased maybe 6 or 7 times. Oil around powder can cause serious ammo malfunctions like SQUIB loads. SO STOP USING OIL NOW. YOUR PRESS DOESN'T NEED IT. Try polishing some of your metal parts that contact other metal parts. You seemed to have found a way to bash each operation of the Lee Loadmaster Press with half truths and misinformation. Obviously this is your first progressive press.
Lee vs RCBS for starting out?
I have a mix of Lee, RCBS, and Hornady tools. Depends on what you’re looking for specifically.
Have you tried or considered trying to lube with graphite powder or another dry lube instead of grease or other liquids for the indexing system?
aznazguy That would probably work better! I should get some powdered graphite.
What bullets were you using?
Dave Chaney 124gr plated. Can’t remember if I was using Berry’s or Xtreme in this video.
@@TheOutdoorGeneralist Thank you! I have just started reloading on an old rcbs single stage. I load some 9mm with 124gr plated Everglades bullets with 5.0 gr of cfe. I haven’t got a chance to test yet. Same oal as yours. What do you think?
Dave Chaney ought to be a good load! Will probably be around 1050-1080fps out of a 5” barrel. Can certainly go a few tenths higher, but I like them right down around that range. Takes the sharpness out of the recoil impulse, which is especially nice for competition. Let us know how they do!
hey, quick question - I just got the 40 SW Lee load master.It comes with a 3 dies set.the die which attaches to the powder feeding tube has a loose piece inside that it falls out if you turn the die around ( in your hands).I can't find any information- is it supposed to be that way,or something s wrong with that die? the piece that is loose is small hollow cylinder.....
george ce I’ll have to look at mine a little closer and get back to you, but I’m pretty sure that’s the case actuation spacer. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. Should be secured in place when you screw on the powder meter.
Well now that was a interesting video and I have owned a Lee loadmaster press for probably 10 years and have loaded thousands of rounds through it but I gave up on the priming system to me it's just junk it's the worst part of any Lee load Master system I prime everything with a hand primer.
David Abdrnathy I may start doing the same thing.
Thank you so much for this video. I have been trying to reload 223 with the loadmaster and this helped me to clarify lots of issues. Do you have any tips to help with primer issues with this press? I am getting lots of primers sideways or not inserted at all
Yep! I sold it and bought a Lock N Load AP. That was my fix to the priming system lol.
I had this problem, I went from averaging 2-5 per 100 to now maybe 1 every 200 rounds. Changed to a stiffer bench. You might be able to use a piece of L shaped steel or Aluminum from your local hardware store to reinforce the front lip of your bench. Otherwise a 1x3 piece of wood would also help. I have 1.5" of plywood and melamine (1 layer of plywood with a top layer of melimine) plus a band of 1x1 supporting and a 1 x 1.5" of edge banding with an opening of only 24" between supports for the top. I also have the press mounted on a plywood base that is about 10" deep x 12" wide 1.5" thick. The press is bolted to the base with lag bolts and I have 2x 1/4 bolts that attache the base to my bench top so I can move the setup out of the way to make room for cleaning.
I was getting this press but now I don't think so. Looks like the Dillon 750 is back on the table of I convince the wife lol
Ba Man that’s the dream man!
Watch The video by Gun Blue channel. He has two videos
Hi, does anyone know where I can purchase one? It’s for my boyfriend.
hingseleenax Unfortunately they are out of stock most everywhere right now.
You bought the wrong press
The one you should have bought
Auto breech lock pro.... seriously
The more videos I see on Lee Progressive presses the more they seem more like a childes toy than a precision tool/machine. Too much plastic and light weight cast aluminum moving parts.
I agree. I sold mine and bought a Hornady Lock N Load AP. MUCH better machine IMO. It’s not without its flaws but can’t be beat for the money.
Like the video because it illustrates how the press works, but remember it’s for the budget conscious reloader so their are many things not to like. So if you want a press that has everything top notch you will pay the price.
This is a very good press for the beginner on a budget.
Thanks allot, I just got this press from a guy who bought it during covid, and did nothing with it! I was pulling my hair out trying to set it up. The setup sheets that came with it were not super helpful for me, and other videos did not go from start to finish. Very helpful, good job.
Excellent ,spot on on