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My greatest concern here is that a new person to reloading started with a progressive press. (If I've read correctly.)
The basics of reloading, the whys and wherefores (listed astutely here by others) are best learned and retained if the novice begins with the basics: including basic equipment.
It goes a long way toward diagnosing new problems that may erupt, and especially toward the close observation and constant monitoring that is required with a progressive press.
There are reasons we don't learn to drive in double-A fuelers, and we don't learn to fly in 747's.
I couldn't agree more... Frankly, I consider the 550 to be a VERY dangerous press for beginners to use. I have been reloading for over 20 years, and I still occasionally screw things up on the 550. While some of my concerns are mitigated when loading rifle on this press (it's hard to double charge a rifle round without powder spilling everywhere) the lack of auto-index, makes double charging pistol rounds a high possibility on this press. The lack of a powder checker makes this even worse!
I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I have about 10,000 gripes about dillon's gear (yet I'm also a user of it). But starting slow, methodically, and with the high precision of a single stage press is the real way to get going. I know a lot of people who take the "just get a progressive and start making ammo" approach, however, there are still dozens of uses for single stage presses even after you get a progressive. All types of case prep things are better done on a single stage. Plus, instead of having to wait weeks for new shell plates to show up for the progressive, if you add a new caliber and have a decent selection of shell holders you can start loading immediately on a single stage, or a turret press. I recently just replaced my rock-chucker with an RCBS big-max press... while I won't say the difference is night and day... boy am I loving having a press that large.
Lets also not forget the reloading injury they call "dillon finger" they sure don't have "RCBS finger". Out of the approximately 8 people I've worked with (at an ammunition manufacturer) over the last 5 years, only 2 people have gone without getting dillon finger. (myself, and the new guy who just started in march).
As a result of my complaints about dillon's equipment and other manufacturers, I started my own company to start building equipment to compete with dillon's high end offerings. Most of my stuff is still in the design phase, but the company who currently pays my salary has one product on the market, the TX-50. I designed a number of the sub assemblies for it. http://www.tenxammo.com/tenx_tactical.html
The name of my company is Ammunition Manufacturing Products, hence the name "AMProducts". If you are interested, you can check out my site. Right now most of the equipment is in prototype, I'm hoping to get it all done before I move to snohomish, wa next year. http://www.ammomfg.com