I am new to reloading and just purchased a Lee 1000 progressive loader. For the past couple of nights I have been trying to get it up and running and the cases keep getting stuck in the decapper/resizing die. I thought the dies are supposed to be carbide? Cases that have been polished, decapped and resized in Lee Classic Loader are also getting stuck. The cases that are stuck have a noticable taper to them as if the carbide insert was .380. I have sent several emails to Lee and there hase been no repsonse from them. Any suggestions?

You must thave bought a used reloader.

If so, you were ripped off! It sounds like someone put an old steel die in the lee and took the lee die out.

Check the writeing on your resizeing die. Mine give the caliber (ie. 'LEE 9mm F6') (the letter & number are a date code) but don't say carbide. It is easy to see the carbide ring at the mouth of the die.

The carbide for 9mm is fairly long (over 1/4 inch) and has a taper from around .380 to about .373 (but will vary a little). I (and others) often spray a little (1 squirt per 500 cases) of the lanolin resizeing lube in a plastic grocery sack and roll the cases around so a little lube is on them. Not required, but does make the resizeing much easier. We then resize in our single stage reloaders (mostly from our old habit of case preperation from before haveing the progressive). Doing the resizeing/deprimeing by itself does eliminate some possible problems (primer drawback and primers blocking the ram from comeing back up), as does priming with a hand primer.


My .380 die is smaller (like .369) and has almost no taper. In fact only my 9mm leaves an obviously tapered case.

If you bought used, you should be aware that Lee has made many updates in the last 20 years. A new one goes for about $130 complete with dies, powder measure and 2 year warranty. I have used the warranty a couple of times (but not on the pro1000) and got unquestioned replacement of parts that I broke.


I have found the pro1000 to do an excellent job, but does take some time to figure everything out. For example:

The powder system doesn't drop minimal charges of bullseye. 4.0 grains or more are required or the powder will bridge and not fill the hole (at least not consistantly).

The primer system tends to run out of primers and doesn't have a warning system built in. I overcame this by filling the trough with primers, then put a full 100 primers into the tray and get 2 boxes of cases to load. When the cases run out, I refill the primer tray, fill the powder and get 2 more boxes of cases.

Speaking of primers, my primer tray tipped back more than I liked, so I bent a piece of 1/16 inch music wire to support the very back of the trough (drilled and used a 6-32 screw to hold the support).

And putting primers into the machine without dropping them all over?? I drilled a hole in the primer cover, tray and trough (made this a slot) at the tray exit point. Now a pin or wire retains the primers as I put the tray on the trough.

And do check that the shaker pin rides on ribbed post (with a little grease to prevent wear). Ths shaking is needed to make the primers feed out of the tray (which works very well with the support at the back of the trough).

NOPE! We still have to deal with oil in the trough causeing primers to stick and not feed. I oiled the shell plate and the oil worked into the plastic trough, sticking the primers. I had remove the trough, split it into its two parts, and wash it in alcohol to degrease it. I now only lube the shellplate with a very light swipe of grease.

Whew, The primer feed now works!!! But you might want to preprime the cases until you get used to the machine.

The powder feed needs some small tweaks, also. But it depends on which version of the machine you have. It came with a rectangular hopper for several years, then was upgraded to their round hopper version. The return of the disk to pick up more powder was also changed. Lee started with a spring return, but that allows double charges WHEN you wiggle the handle as the ram is near the top. The new design uses a chain to pull the lever back when the ram is at the bottom (the auto advance has moved the cases around by then so the same case doesn't come up to the powder drop again).

AND LOOK AT THE POWDER LEVEL as you set the bullet on the case mouth. Sticky power can bridge and give you a no powder shell. The stuck bullet blowing up the gun would not be fun. A visual check will gauratee enough powder to get the bullet out of the barrel and much more. The new pull back chain prevents double charges as said before.

Even the lid on the round hopper needs attention. I hooked three rubber bands (# 62 or 64) together and put the end band around the hopper, loop the 2nd band over the lid, then put the 3rd band around the hopper.

Well that's a portion of what I did, and ended up with a loader that does very well for 9mm and .45acp.


edit: I Forgot to mention that NOT pushing hard enough to fully seat the primer is common as you begin priming with this press. And then you end up with the case stuck in the shellplate!! Oh well. It does work great when you get it all figured out.

edit2: As a believer in KISS, I leave the case feeder off as well as leaveing the eject wire off. I tried with and without the case slider and decided the case slider helped, so I use it. But for case feeding, I just drop the case in front of the slider as the ram reaches the top. The eject wire kicks the empty case into the finished round chute, but I never got the rounds to slide down the chute, so I pick the rounds out of the shellplate and put them in the box. A bonus is really quick caliber changes by lifting off the dies and holder (turret?), turning the index rod backward (1/4 inch wrench) to screw the shellplate nut off and removeing the shellplate. At this point the primer asm can be switched between large and small, new shell plate, and new dies in holder. Powder measure moves to new caliber quickly and new disk just slides in as the powder measure and dies are sitting upside down. I did put a label on the front of each disk for each hole so I can see at a glance which charge the measure is set for. BUT adjusting the index screw must still be done, thou it is really quick and easy.

JerryO

Box it up, send it back, ask for a refund and get a Dillon press. You have just cited one of the reasons why 99% of Lee stuff is crap. Its just cheap..........................JJ

I use a Lee 1000 and have no issues withe lee carbide. You can tell if its carbide if it has a little insert in the bottom of the die.

Now the lee has other issues for me. No.1 is the priming. You miss a primer and its all over, powder everywhere. Once you get all the problems mastered, you got it licked. Second don't let your powder get low in your lee thrower. Don't tap your primer. And every time you get ready to put a bullet on, look up and make sure you got powder in it. I had a bad thing happen once where I only threw like 2gr of powder and had a bullet stuck in my bore of 44 mag. Also its best to finish crimping and seating the bullet in a single stage for me. So I just use the lee to put the bullet in a little long and move all my bullets to another step for getting accurate seating and good crimp.


I do it like this, every time I cycle a bullet out, I have a 3 stage check. One, new brass in the holder, two look at the powder in the brass, three put your bullet on, four, cycle the press and note the feel of a primer seating.