The primer mishap I had with the Lee Loadmaster was just the incentive I needed to buy a new press. Don’t get me wrong, the Lee served me well though it did require some finesse to keep it going. Lee as a company treated me right and always replaced parts as they wore or broke free of charge….most people don’t realize that lee will do that but they will, just email them and send a picture of the offending part.
Also to be fair, after my Loadmaster exploded I spent a few hours on Google and determined that ALL press explode, usually with soft primers like the Federals I load. The Lee might be a bit more prone to it because the older primer feeds were finicky and the chance of crushing the primer was a bit more likely.
Anyway, I decided to go with a Dillon XL650 with brass feeder….not cheap. I purchased the press, brass feeder and conversion kit from Shooters Outpost in Hooksett, NH. Of course being a cowboy shooter I wanted a press set up for 45 Colt but as expected they did not have one in stock so I bought one for 45acp, my other caliber. I the picked up the 45 Colt caliber conversion kit along with the Quick Change kit so I could easily switch between the two.
Setup was a breeze and I immediately removed the 45acp specific stuff and installed the 45 Colt conversion….I was out of ammo and I had a match that weekend. I installed my Lee 45 Colt dies and within a few minutes I was spitting out rounds, 200 of them within a few minutes.
I’m a happy Cowboy
-Willy