Lee Progressive primer problems

[michaeladkins]

Hi All.

I need a little help here. I have been a reloader for a couple years, so I feel confident in my work on my rcbs single stage but this progressive reloader has me pretty frustrated. I know you get what you pay for, so I was probably asking for frustration when I bought it.

So here is the deal. I got this thing on eBay for $85 with 44 mag dies and shell plate. I had to get the primer trays and powder dispenser at profire.

It seems then primers are struggling to get into position to be seated. So if they are not seated, powder is dispensed in the brass and then all over the press. So that means I have to clean everything up or else this will him up the works and make it worse. This happens constantly. I may have 2 or 3 good rounds before I have to clean everything up again.

I have spent hours online looking at videos on how to fix this but I do not know what the answer is. There are several videos talking about the poor design and if you keep the primers full, it will put more weight on the lower primers, forcing the next one in.

Any suggestions? I hope because it is probably going on craigslist tomorrow. I can't keep wasting the powder.

Thanks.
Mike

[parson]

Hey, Mike;

I use a Dillon 550b, but have experienced primer feed issues with it also. So, anymore, I usually prime all my cases with a Lee hand primer. I can knock out a hundred in a very short time.

Most of the time I will prime cases and and bag 'em up when I have a little spare time, then when I fire up the Dillon I have pre-primed cases ready to go.

Also, I'm sure that Andrew at Pro-Fire can give you some sound advice re. your Lee issue.

[dbd870]

I find when my 550 gives me prime problems it's either dirt or I need to tweek an adjustment. When it is clean and all is set correctly it primes very well, it has way over 100K (no idea how many actually) rounds through it and still running fine. I have no experience with Lee, sorry.

[michaeladkins]

I'm heading in to profire today. Hopefully they can help me out.

[stevein]

I never had problems with primer feed on my LEE. I did have problems with powder bridging and squib loads though in my .38

[HighCotton]

Jun 9, 2014 6:23:20 GMT -5 parson said:

Hey, Mike;

I use a Dillon 550b, but have experienced primer feed issues with it also. So, anymore, I usually prime all my cases with a Lee hand primer. I can knock out a hundred in a very short time.

Most of the time I will prime cases and and bag 'em up when I have a little spare time, then when I fire up the Dillon I have pre-primed cases ready to go.

Also, I'm sure that Andrew at Pro-Fire can give you some sound advice re. your Lee issue.

on Pro-Fire. Andrew and Zach have helped me many times!

[michaeladkins]

I totally agree with Profire being awesome. I have been there 4 times in the last month. They also do gun transfers for $20 too. Not bad and close to me.

Brendan helped me out a bit with the reloader /primer issue. He basically said to keep grinding down the piece I have already started grinding down. I did that and got better results but not good enough, so I am going to just do the decapping and priming outside of the progressive process.

I have a universal decapper, I just threw that in the reloader and knocked out a hundred or so in no time. Now I just need to use my hand primer and go through those. Yes it is more work, but my frustration level is much lower. ;-)

Mike

[parson]

Just to follow up on my comment re. my Dillon 550b, I did polish the shelf and primer feed with a dremel, and it worked fine after that. But I do like the "feel" that I get with a hand primer.