Need advice on a good multi stage reloader to buy

[Don H]

Something to consider is that rare is the reloader that doesn't have a single stage press along with the "Progressive".

Yes, I am finding that out and plan on getting a single next. I'm thinking of using it for a bullet puller/bulge buster and then try loading with it.

 

[deadshot2]

It's happened to me at least 4 times, for now I know exactly what causes it and try to avoid it. Typically what will happen is if you "miss" a case, the primer system feeds another primer anyways. Well if that primer doesn't drop out of the wheel like it's supposed to, it can get pinched as the wheel moves back into the slot. You come up too fast... BOOOOM!

It's been less of an issue lately as I recommend running only primed brass on it, I only use mine for processing now.




Lets see... the spring underneath the case pickup shuttle... that one breaks frequently enough to be really annoying, it's also difficult to remove after breaking. I've broken a few of the advancing collars, the springs inside the case-feed singulator break rather often.

I should point out, that I will reload 100K in about 6-7 business days, I know what it takes to push a machine to the point of failure and in my opinion the 650 just doesn't measure up.




You're clearly not loading enough ammunition.

Considering that you are a "Manufacturer" and not a hobby or competition reloader, then your use/abuse of this machine is clearly out of most peoples league. If you're breaking 650's then you ought to stick with a Mark X or Camdex that's designed for the task. Or at least a Dillon 1050.

BTW, that "little spring" is replaced free of charge by Dillon whenever it does break. Also, primers usually don't explode unless someone's operating the press in "full slam" mode.

I see by your website that you offer consulting services. Perhaps you ought to offer them to Mike Dillon.

Again, the 650 is clearly a fine machine in the eyes of many, many, thousand, reloaders and competitors.

 

[IheartGUNS]

Why does this subject come up all the time. Just pick a color red, blue, green, black, orange etc..

 

[AMProducts]

Considering that you are a "Manufacturer" and not a hobby or competition reloader, then your use/abuse of this machine is clearly out of most peoples league. If you're breaking 650's then you ought to stick with a Mark X or Camdex that's designed for the task. Or at least a Dillon 1050.

There are two reasons, first, both the camdex and the ammoload take nearly a full-day of changeover, and then another day or two of tweaking while running to get them turning out rounds at full tilt. I'm actually working back over at Ten-X (my old employer) retooling one of the ammoloads to run .45ACP. It took 7hrs for changeover, and then another day or so of tweaking, it's now reliably putting out ammo at 100% speed and I loaded about 15K yesterday, and need to do another 20k today.

With camdex the changover is a little faster, but tweaking takes more time.

The 1050 is a popular machine for doing the calibers that require a lot more change-over in tooling, in that you can swap heads and be producing ammo in 15 mins to an hour (if you have to change out the priming system). However both the RL and XL1050 are very limited on stroke size, in fact they will barely load cartridge of .30-06 size. At Ten-X we loaded everything up to .45-120, which is simply too long for every other progressive loader out there, I havn't tried this with the Hornady LNL, but I don't think it would work.

BTW, that "little spring" is replaced free of charge by Dillon whenever it does break. Also, primers usually don't explode unless someone's operating the press in "full slam" mode.

Which is great, as long as your spring didn't break at 5pm on a friday (which it always does). Dillon has a tendency to use a lot of custom made springs, which isn't a problem under most circumstances, but I've noticed the springs they use are often of lower quality than COTS parts I can order from mcmaster-carr. I think this is probably due to them having to cut production quality for price in order to make the price point they want. (I prefer to design things that use COTS parts to cut costs)

I see by your website that you offer consulting services. Perhaps you ought to offer them to Mike Dillon.

Again, the 650 is clearly a fine machine in the eyes of many, many, thousand, reloaders and competitors.

Rather than offering dillon my consulting services, I've simply designed new parts that went onto our machines and gave dillon the designs, I have yet to see them take anything I've done seriously.

The 650 is a "fine machine" to those who don't have experience with anything else, and if it were the only thing on the market I might agree. Dillon does use good materials, and they try to make a good product, however the engineering is really what lets them down, and I don't know that it's a matter of lack of vision on the parts of the engineers or being overwhelmed by the bean counters. I know this is a problem I've faced when working on a number of projects. The deciding factor for me is to find products that have the least amount of design compromise, and have the best engineering vision. In the case of dillon's product line, the 550 and 1050 are fantastic machines, but they are also complex machines that have a great potential to do really bad things if you don't know what the pitfalls are. The two things that really let the 650 down are the case feed and the priming systems, if a fix was made for those, I would happily reconsider my decision.

In the interim, I still would not recommend ANY progressive loader for someone's first loader. There are two reasons for this progressives are expensive, does it make sense to drop a bunch of coin on a hobby you might not like? Second, progressives focus on making lots of ammo with zero respect to quality. If the tools are not set right you may be making hundreds of dollars worth of rounds that will keyhole all over the hillside, there may not be enough powder, there may be too much. It's really a bad starting place.

Why does this subject come up all the time. Just pick a color red, blue, green, black, orange etc..

Why do farmers talk about tractors all the time? Because they like to!

 

[Steve M]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he could re-sell the Dillion for about what he pays for it if he decides to bail out. There is also no law saying that you have to feed brass in on each stroke of the lever, install more than one die/station at a time, or produce hundred of rounds before testing them. A progressive is an enabler of great things, not a rocket strapped to the back of someone learning to ride a bicycle.

 

[deadshot2]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he could re-sell the Dillion for about what he pays for it if he decides to bail out. There is also no law saying that you have to feed brass in on each stroke of the lever, install more than one die/station at a time, or produce hundred of rounds before testing them. A progressive is an enabler of great things, not a rocket strapped to the back of someone learning to ride a bicycle.

Right on all counts.

As for AMProducts comment on that spring breaking at 5PM, that's why spare parts kits are so great. Not expensive and having that "custom spring" there on the bench for that time one breaks does two things. First, you can continue with a minimum amount of cussing. Second, it's been my experience that when you have a spare, you don't need it. Kind of like a vaccine.

 

[AMProducts]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he could re-sell the Dillion for about what he pays for it if he decides to bail out. There is also no law saying that you have to feed brass in on each stroke of the lever, install more than one die/station at a time, or produce hundred of rounds before testing them. A progressive is an enabler of great things, not a rocket strapped to the back of someone learning to ride a bicycle.

Possibly, however then he needs to spend the time to do it. How much is your time worth? Mine is worth about $150/hr, if I couldn't resell it after 4hrs of trying I should throw it in the trash and be money ahead.

Right on all counts.

As for AMProducts comment on that spring breaking at 5PM, that's why spare parts kits are so great. Not expensive and having that "custom spring" there on the bench for that time one breaks does two things. First, you can continue with a minimum amount of cussing. Second, it's been my experience that when you have a spare, you don't need it. Kind of like a vaccine.

The limitation is, dillon doesn't send me 100 springs as "warranty replacement".

Also, in the commercial environment, no one tells you when they broke the last spring until you don't have any more.

So today I loaded 35,000 rounds of .45ACP, I chewed through 40lbs of HS6 and most of the patience I had with the ammoload mkX. If it hadn't been too dark to take a picture with my cell phone (I didn't want to turn on the big mercury vapor lamps and then wait for them to warm up). It was a sight to behold.

anyways, I'm going to go eat a porkchop, take a shower and pass out.

 

[rainyday]

there always has to be 1 person to say some thing negative about dillion products.
there are 2 ways that i have seen problems from dillion products: ignorance on maintenance or in a rare times a part will fail.
there is a simple way to make shure the primers keep dropping. dillion even supplies the part with the press. if you dont use it, you have no reason to whine or complain

 

[Steve M]

Possibly, however then he needs to spend the time to do it. How much is your time worth? Mine is worth about $150/hr, if I couldn't resell it after 4hrs of trying I should throw it in the trash and be money ahead.

The correct question would be how much is the OP's time worth when not at work. Your point is valid for yourself, but only the OP can decide if he's willing to risk spending 4 hours snapping a photo and typing up a description in the classifieds.

As to your issues with the springs, if I shot 10k rounds through a Glock every day would it be fair to tell a 100 round per week shooter not to get one because the recoil springs keep needing replaced every month or two under my high usage? No, of course not. The information is valid and useful, but not to the 100 round per week guy so I'd tell him go get one, they work great.

 

[AMProducts]

As to your issues with the springs, if I shot 10k rounds through a Glock every day would it be fair to tell a 100 round per week shooter not to get one because the recoil springs keep needing replaced every month or two under my high usage? No, of course not. The information is valid and useful, but not to the 100 round per week guy so I'd tell him go get one, they work great.

I'll bet that your glock main spring will last well over 100K cycles. Properly made and loaded springs last forever, think about the springs that close and open the valves in your engine, those things may undergo 100K cycles in 5 minutes while driving down the highway.

 

[deadshot2]

there always has to be 1 person to say some thing negative about dillion products.
there are 2 ways that i have seen problems from dillion products: ignorance on maintenance or in a rare times a part will fail.
there is a simple way to make shure the primers keep dropping. dillion even supplies the part with the press. if you dont use it, you have no reason to whine or complain

The main issue here, in this discussion, is that we have a person looking at all the reloading equipment from an Ammo Manufacturing standpoint. Most, if not all (but one) here are hobby loaders who's needs range from a box or two every hunting season to the avid hobby shooter/competitor that can make do with a piece of equipment like we get from Dillon, Hornady, RCBS, etc. to load their thousands of rounds per year.

It's like a guy who hauls gravel or landscape bark for a living "poo-poo'ing" someone's pickup truck that's adequate to haul a yard or two of "stuff".

Dillon, for example, may be the "BEST" in the hobby world (or whatever your choice is) but barely makes the cut when you move into the Manufacturing world.