That's a Lee Speed Die you are describing. Now discontinued, but I own a few I got for compactness for doing load workups at the range using the Lee Handtool. I don't recall having any trouble with it, but I haven't used mine for awhile and I'll have to pull one out and look to see if I can figure out what you are doing?
OK. Had a look. The loading sequence with them is a little different.
First, put the shell holder in the press ram and run it all the way up. Put the sizing ring in the die body with nothing else. Turn the die body and ring all the way down until it touches down on the shell holder.
Withdraw the press ram and put a fired case in the shell holder. Run the ram all the way up. Look for a crack of light between the shell holder and the sizing ring. If there is one, withdraw the ram and adjust the die body in about 1/8 of a turn, and run the ram all the way up and look again. Repeat until the crack of light disappears. Then, with the ram up and the case in the die, tighten the die locking ring/nut down with your fingers.
Size all your cases in that setup and set them aside.
Next, put the decapper/expander into the die body and screw the seater down on it until it is tight. Now try decapping a case. The press will not go all the way up. Instead, the case will stop when the decapping pin bottoms out. At the same time a slight straight expansion of the mouth case will occur. Just enough to let you start a bullet in.
Get all your sized cases and decap them all in this setup, running the ram up, and set them aside.
Next, remove the deacpper expander. Loosen the die body lock ring and back the die body out a little. Place one resized and decapped case in the shell holder and run the press ram all the way up. Turn the die body back in until you feel it touch down on the mouth of the case. That is the start of the crimp, but not yet crimping. Back it out half a turn. Once again use your fingers to tighten the die body locking ring/nut.
Put a bullet in your case and run the press ram all the way up. Hold the die to be sure it can't turn, and screw the bullet seater in until you feel it touch down on the tip of the bullet. Withdraw the case and bullet.
At this point you will want to prime all your cases and charge them with powder.
Still ensuring the die body doesn't turn, screw the seater in about half as far as you want the bullet to seat into the case. Put a primed and charged case in the shell holder and run the ram up. Withdraw it an examine how far in the bullet is? Keep adjusting the the seater and running the cartridge until the bullet is seated about a sixteenth of an inch taller than you actually want it.
Now loosen the locking ring/nut and turn the die in one full turn and tighten the ring again. This will turn the die half a turn past where crimping begins. Run the cartridge into the die one more time. It should finish seating the bullet and crimp it as well. If you don't feel you have enough crimp, turn the whole die body in further. If you feel you have too much, back it out again. In either case, you will have to readjust the seater to compensate. You will have to go back and forth between the die body and the seater adjustment until you get the combination of seating depth and crimp you want.
One of the flaws of this reloading die system is it does not flare the mouth of a case quite enough for some lead bullets, so you have to watch out for rings of shaved lead at the mouths of the finished rounds and scrape them off with a toothpick should you get them. (Alternately, you can get a separate expanding die. The Lyman Multi-expander die is a good one that covers several calibers. The Lee universal expander also works, but I prefer the Lyman flare profile. That is your choice, of course. The Lyman costs three times as much.)
Once you have the seating and crimping set up, you can do all the other operations (sizing and decapping) with the die in that position. It just makes sizing harder because it happens before the ram is all the way up where mechanical advantage of the press is best. Lubing the cases (even though you have a carbide sizing ring) will make that easier, too. Otherwise, you just have to use the die body in two different positions.
Though the tool is called a "speed" die, I don't find it faster than swapping out separate dies whose locking rings are pre-set. It is just lighter and more portable than lugging three or four full-size die bodies around.