RCBS Pro 2000 at work
Posted: 14 Jan 2017 22:45
WARNING LONG BORING POST....
Spent most of the day off and on setting up the RCBS Pro 2000 auto index press. The reason I'm doing this on a Lee equipment forum will come at the end. The press comes pretty well setup from the factory, you just need to add the "peripheral" parts. Set up of case activated powder measure was easy for me because I had added that stuff to my Ammo Master presses from ago. So let's skip through the putting stuff together and get to the point. I had some problems with the APS system. My fault, but none-the-less there is a learning curve there and I'm not sure I can blame it on the instructions, or that I'm totally inept, it's just a bit "twitchy" to me. I had it apart three times (by the way, there are no "instructions" for how to do this, ain't hard but a bit unnerving cause' you don't know whats in there) to clean up my errors. No strips were damaged during my "learning curve". I will mention there are a couple really small odd shaped "shims" (I guess) under one of the plates you remove to get to the priming strips. Didn't know that. Why would I. Saw one lying in the primer track without a clue as to what it was. After looking at the two parts I had removed I was able to figure where they belonged (WAG) found the second one laying on the press base. This is something a person should be made aware of with this press cause' I can tell you for a fact, you will be in there. O.K. back together again, still had problems getting the strips to advance, back to the instructions. Finally got it figured (I hope). Normal die set up, dialed the powder charge (6.3gr Herco) for a plinker 357 mag. and 160gr. home cast bullet. Ran one at a time making sure all functions were working correctly powder, bullet seating, you guys know the drill, and to check for primer seating depth (wasn't good) and making SURE that the strips were advancing. Yes they were, phew. An important point on the primer seating stem, the priming pin just screws into the bottom of the carrier and is held there by a 7/16 nut, no adjustment to go higher.( ) There is a depth stop on the other side of the press that's adjustable for carrier travel and in the instructions it says for primer seating depth. Well that would be alright if the primer pin was to high, you could limit how close up or down the carrier comes to the frame but once you've gone to a certain point you have no more "adjustment" down. My problem was I needed the pin higher for more seating depth. It seemed to me that the pin was just to short and was going to contact RCBS for a solution. But being a curious person by nature, I pulled the pin (AGAIN) and took a really good look at it. It appears to be three pieces, the pin itself, a spring and on the bottom of the pin a chrome piece. Looking closely at the "head" it appeared to have very small cut edges on it, so figured maybe that bottom piece was threaded on. Small wrench, pliers on the bottom and turned it a few times and sure nuff' it backed out a bit. I "adjusted" it to where I was getting the primer depth I wanted (4 thou) and called it good. Wouldn't you think that RCBS would have added that little bit of information somewhere. I wonder how many owners had this same issue and called or just decided the priming system was junk and primed another way. I was a bit miffed, but glad I was able to find that little glimmer of light. Other than that everything else was pretty uneventful. Only ran 25 rounds (one primer strip, didn't want to press my luck, no pun intended) Think I've about got it figured out. Nice press, big, strong, smooth, quality is there for sure. Has an interesting indexing design to me, but works really well. Typical great Uniflow powder measure nothing new there. All in all I'd give it an 8 at this point simply because of the priming problems I had (maybe still have, we'll see) I wanted this press BECAUSE of the APS priming. But right now it seems a bit "touchy"........now, why this fits here is because at this point, and this could change as I get more "comfortable" with this press but I'm not so sure I prefer it over the LM's I have. May sound strange to some, but my LM's are running really great and I can guarantee they're less complicated than the Pro 2000. We'll see how it goes after a couple thousand rounds....but for now the Load Master's are staying where they are.
Spent most of the day off and on setting up the RCBS Pro 2000 auto index press. The reason I'm doing this on a Lee equipment forum will come at the end. The press comes pretty well setup from the factory, you just need to add the "peripheral" parts. Set up of case activated powder measure was easy for me because I had added that stuff to my Ammo Master presses from ago. So let's skip through the putting stuff together and get to the point. I had some problems with the APS system. My fault, but none-the-less there is a learning curve there and I'm not sure I can blame it on the instructions, or that I'm totally inept, it's just a bit "twitchy" to me. I had it apart three times (by the way, there are no "instructions" for how to do this, ain't hard but a bit unnerving cause' you don't know whats in there) to clean up my errors. No strips were damaged during my "learning curve". I will mention there are a couple really small odd shaped "shims" (I guess) under one of the plates you remove to get to the priming strips. Didn't know that. Why would I. Saw one lying in the primer track without a clue as to what it was. After looking at the two parts I had removed I was able to figure where they belonged (WAG) found the second one laying on the press base. This is something a person should be made aware of with this press cause' I can tell you for a fact, you will be in there. O.K. back together again, still had problems getting the strips to advance, back to the instructions. Finally got it figured (I hope). Normal die set up, dialed the powder charge (6.3gr Herco) for a plinker 357 mag. and 160gr. home cast bullet. Ran one at a time making sure all functions were working correctly powder, bullet seating, you guys know the drill, and to check for primer seating depth (wasn't good) and making SURE that the strips were advancing. Yes they were, phew. An important point on the primer seating stem, the priming pin just screws into the bottom of the carrier and is held there by a 7/16 nut, no adjustment to go higher.( ) There is a depth stop on the other side of the press that's adjustable for carrier travel and in the instructions it says for primer seating depth. Well that would be alright if the primer pin was to high, you could limit how close up or down the carrier comes to the frame but once you've gone to a certain point you have no more "adjustment" down. My problem was I needed the pin higher for more seating depth. It seemed to me that the pin was just to short and was going to contact RCBS for a solution. But being a curious person by nature, I pulled the pin (AGAIN) and took a really good look at it. It appears to be three pieces, the pin itself, a spring and on the bottom of the pin a chrome piece. Looking closely at the "head" it appeared to have very small cut edges on it, so figured maybe that bottom piece was threaded on. Small wrench, pliers on the bottom and turned it a few times and sure nuff' it backed out a bit. I "adjusted" it to where I was getting the primer depth I wanted (4 thou) and called it good. Wouldn't you think that RCBS would have added that little bit of information somewhere. I wonder how many owners had this same issue and called or just decided the priming system was junk and primed another way. I was a bit miffed, but glad I was able to find that little glimmer of light. Other than that everything else was pretty uneventful. Only ran 25 rounds (one primer strip, didn't want to press my luck, no pun intended) Think I've about got it figured out. Nice press, big, strong, smooth, quality is there for sure. Has an interesting indexing design to me, but works really well. Typical great Uniflow powder measure nothing new there. All in all I'd give it an 8 at this point simply because of the priming problems I had (maybe still have, we'll see) I wanted this press BECAUSE of the APS priming. But right now it seems a bit "touchy"........now, why this fits here is because at this point, and this could change as I get more "comfortable" with this press but I'm not so sure I prefer it over the LM's I have. May sound strange to some, but my LM's are running really great and I can guarantee they're less complicated than the Pro 2000. We'll see how it goes after a couple thousand rounds....but for now the Load Master's are staying where they are.