Great value for money - Lee Precision Load Master Reloading Kit for 223 Remington Rifle

My initial impression, after reading many reviews, was with a bit of mixed feelings. I found the press was really hard to work and the powder drop very inconsistent. After loading about 100 rounds with a sinking feeling, I decided to call it a night and cleaned up everything - spur of the moment I decide to oil it down with WD40 - What an immediate difference! Needless to say I cleaned it all up nicely and removed all the factory grease and played around with the shell plate tension nut. It turns out this baby can operate a smooth as butter. The powder measure does not like the long granules that much and you need a really long pause at the top of the stroke to make sure all the powder trickles through, so I switched to Benchmark powder which is a lot shorter and finer - this works perfectly. I tested a large number of throws and they were all on the money.

So, accuracy when shooting, the larger granule powder performed poorly, but the fine powder produced very accurate results. 10 rounds all under 1 MOA - makes me a happy man.

In the end, if you work out the kinks in it, its a very smooth and accurate press. I'm patient when I load, not too concerned with 'best speed' and still manage to load 350 - 400 rounds per hour.