Dawgface

Exactly right, takes a bit of time at first mainly because you are new at it as I was. Once you get the stations where you want them 'tweaking' them a little if needed becomes second nature. Then nothing changes and you can safely load all you want.

jlh820

Yes, so I see. I'm double and triple checking everything as I go, usually doing it wrong until I get it right. But I'll be pretty confident in these rounds once I finally start producing some!

Sax.45

I like the way your thinking, You purchased quality equiptment which will last your lifetime and then some.Dillon has a lifetime no BS warranty on their products even if it's your fault!!!. I have been handloading for over 40 years and still check everything once, twice, and before I begin I check everything again. Safety First. Sounds like your caught, hook, line and sinker. It's a great hobby. And you will not save money on shooting, You will shoot a lot more. Be safe...

jlh820

Well, I just spit out the first 14 rounds. According to Hodgdon min is 4.4g and max is 4.8g. I got the press dialed in at 4.6g. Dies are all set. Out of those first 14 rounds, I got 11 good ones. One has a high primer and two had no primer. They must have gotten hung up in the tube and the high primer I didn't push fast or hard enough. I don't think it likes to be treated gently.

Took a couple more pics I'll post later and I might crank off a few more rounds. I wanted 2 mags worth. I got the bullet length and crimp within .001" of spec. I figure that's good enough for now.

Thanks for the help and advice. I'll let you know how these shoot after I get to the range.

jlh820

The finished SDB setup.


My first born. (notice the two without primers. DOH! )


The survivors

stargeezer

I think primers are one place everyone has a few "issues" with in any press. One thing I'd recommend is pulling the primer tube off the press and flush it out with a cleaner. Mine had some oil residue in it that caused a bit of drag in the primers and caused some errors. I used powder blaster to hose it out. BTW - keep powder blaster away from painted surfaces - it WILL totally scccreww up the paint.

While you have the thing open, look around for any other excess oil around the priming mechanism. I don't know if your press will be affected by it, but Dillon recommends not using CCI primers in their progressive presses. CCI primers are soft and they can be deformed (and fired) in the press.

Glad you got it up and running!

jlh820

Thanks. It feels good to finally have my investment payoff!

I intended to inspect the primer tube. I did look at it before assembling it and it looked clean and dry. I loaded it with almost 100 primers. Hopefully I can just remove the tube without primers falling out everywhere. Besides, you have to pull it out to change calibers.

The other issue I had was since it's a 4 stage progressive press, it still spit out a primer with no shell casing in place. So there's got to be a way to finish up the last couple of rounds without picking the primer up with my fingers. The manual says nothing about finishing those last 3 rounds.

jlh820

Hoping to get out to the range this weekend and shoot my new loads. The recipe called for 4.4 to 4.8 grains of powder. I initially was going to do 3 loads in .2g increments, but I'm wondering if I can tell the difference in .2g of powder. I don't want to go max to 4.8g, but I could make some at the minimum at 4.4g. The ones I made are at 4.6g.

What do you guys think?

Also, I have 500 rounds of both .45 and 9mm bullets and I think a 1,000 rounds of primers for each. I've still got plenty of new ammo plus plenty of brass. So, the bullets I bought from Dillon are Berry's bullets, 230g and 124g FMJ's. Does the quality of bullets vary that much from manufacturer to manufacturer or should I just be worried that they are the right size and type? Cause now I'm thinking about what I'll buy when my initial stock runs out.

One last thing... my large pistol primers are Winchester. My small pistol primers are CCI. I've read a little about the softness of the different brands and was wondering what people thought about them?

Thanks, again.

jlh820

I went to the range a while ago and I'm pretty happy with the results. I took my SR1911 and my Colt Defender, some CCI Blazer and my reloads. Here's the results.

From 7 yards


From 10 yards


I did have one reloaded round that jammed. Upon inspection, the case was slightly bulged. But all the rest worked great and had the same feel as the 230g CCI Blazer.

James6591

All looks great mate, like me, you will wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

jlh820

Yep! I'm amazed that I shot better with the reloads than the new factory loads. I guess that says something about mass production.

stargeezer

Great results Pal!

On primers, I use Winchester primers myself, because that is one brand my LGS always has on hand. If you have a few hundred CCI primers, you might as well use them up, but I'd really pay attention to any excessive pressure needed for seating the primers - if they start to drag, back off. If the primer ends up sticking out, you could set it with a hand primer tool. You could even remove the deprime pin from the sizing die and run pre-primed brass through. Of course this would necessitate depriming and then priming the brass by hand before loading - more trouble than it might be worth.

The increase in accuracy is THE reason to reload. It is a surprise when you see it for yourself.

Congratulations and welcome to the reloading world. The one drawback will be that your right arm will slowly build more muscle mass - then there is the increased chest size as you puff up in pride over shooting YOUR better quality ammo, while your shooting buds are stuck shooting marginal "factory ammo". Enjoy!!

jlh820

Thanks. I went to Dillon today to buy a bullet tray and ask a LOT of questions. I think I've got my primer issue worked out. He gave me several plastic red tips for the primer feed tube. He says whenever it starts acting up, to replace that cap. He also showed me how to adjust the primer feeding mechanism. The rest I think was user error.

I reloaded 50 more today and you're right, my right arm is getting sore!

Yesterday I ordered some once fired brass from Midway. Their prices seemed pretty good but next time I'll just go to Dillon's. They're a little more expensive, but it's a wash after shipping.

I checked out the 550 because after I get good at pistol rounds, I'd like to progress to rifle. But that's in the future because another press isn't in the budget for the foreseeable future.

I'm going to make a few hundred .45 rounds and then start on 9mm. The next step will be buying a .40 conversion kit. That's about $120. It's got to wait awhile, too.

stargeezer

Reloading equipment is like potato chips - one is never enough! If I lived close to Dillon's place I'd never have any spare cash. I really like their equipment.

My son decided to go with the Hornady progressive and right now he's seriously thinking about selling it and buying a XL650 like Dads. I can't say I'm discouraging him since I am totally sold on Dillon.

We load 45-70, .223, .308, 22-250 rifle and 9mm and 45ACP pistol on the XL650. The next caliber conversion we get will be for 357 if I buy a rifle that I was looking at the other day. So I know what you mean about the cost of conversion kits. The other calibers we load are done on the single stage Rock Chucker press or turret press.

As you do make the jump to rifle ammo, the big change you will see is that you must move a little slower than with pistol ammo. The bigger powder charges take a bit longer to dump, so if your moving too fast you will get powder dumping everywhere and a short charge. It will only happen to you once. After you take the whole machine apart to clean all the powder out and old powder filled grease off, re-grease and re-assemble the machine, you will figure the right rhythm out and never do it again.

Fill free to PM me anytime you have any questions or send me a number if it's something that might be easier to talk over the phone instead of typing it all out. I'm always happy to help out.

Larry