New reloader Dillon 750xl issues and advice

[GW Staar]

So, if you want to use a bullet feeder, case feeder, powder check, AND seat and crimp in two stations, you've got to move up to a 10 station press.

"Got to" is so final....

Always unconventionally looking for "other possibilities", I found that 6 stations can do more than they are supposed to. On my little 6 station Pro 6000, I use a video powder checker without using a station at all, and I feed AND seat rifle bullets in ONE station using a coupler with a rifle feed die on one end and a Gold Medal Seater with a "window" on the other end. As the video below demonstrates with .223.... (Youtube is screwing around again....you may have to click "watch on Youtube" instead of clicking the arrow.)

and I made another for .308 testing off the press.....both work great.


But I won't ever get to swage on the press. Nor is Lee's existing primer system ever going to be trouble free enough for a motor drive.....but still....the fun continues.

 

[jmorris]

Jmorris, there is something wrong in your XL750 primer feed setup. Both my XL750s feed primers 100% reliably all the time.

No, it’s with all of the Dillon’s except the 650. They all rely on the same plastic tip on the primer feed tube and it doesn’t last forever, why they all come with spares, you can swap out when they fail.

 

[jmorris]

That first video in #17 is a 5 station press, with case feed/size deprime #1, charge/expand #2, powder check #3, seat #4 and crimp at #5.

The 2nd is an 8 station one that checks all of the boxes too. It can be done with less than 10 for sure.

 

[GW Staar]

jmorris.....did you look at the video link in #14? What's your take on the vibrating primer tray they have? Also, notice the plunger in front of the press, that drops into the primer feed. Have you seen an Apex yet in person yet? What does the plunger do?

One more question: I know its your favorite priming system, but have you ever had a primer go off on the 650 primer feed? What do you think users that did, did wrong. (trying to prevent such a thing on my brother's 650 setup).

 

[JimGnitecki]

No, it’s with all of the Dillon’s except the 650. They all rely on the same plastic tip on the primer feed tube and it doesn’t last forever, why they all come with spares, you can swap out when they fail.

Oh, ok. I guess I simply have not used my XL750s enough yet to run into the problem. Gotta do more shooting!! I'll try that one on my wife . . .

Jim G

 

[EricBu]

jmorris.....did you look at the video link in #14? What's your take on the vibrating primer tray they have? Also, notice the plunger in front of the press, that drops into the primer feed. Have you seen an Apex yet in person yet? What does the plunger do?

One more question: I know its your favorite priming system, but have you ever had a primer go off on the 650 primer feed? What do you think users that did, did wrong. (trying to prevent such a thing on my brother's 650 setup).

The stock Apex comes with a tube style priming system, not the vibrating bowl. There is an upgraded primer system that can be had for it. The Revo comes with the primer bowl system stock..and it's flawless. I just dump 300 to 500 primers in the bowl and turn it on. The Apex is a 10 station press, shares toolheads with the Revo and Evo.

 

[EricBu]

That first video in #17 is a 5 station press, with case feed/size deprime #1, charge/expand #2, powder check #3, seat #4 and crimp at #5.

The 2nd is an 8 station one that checks all of the boxes too. It can be done with less than 10 for sure.

Let me rephrase my answer....unless you are a machinist, with a nack for customizing your own stuff, and an endless amount of design ingenuity and patience to make things work.........if you want to run with a bullet feeder, powder check, and seat in crimp in separate stations, and run over a thousand rounds an hour out of the box reliably....you need to move up to a 10 station press. Yes, it's possible on a 1050....but there are a lot of things that have to be moved around, and things you have to fabricate to get it work. The commercial shops I know running 1050's are either going without a powdercheck (insanity), or seating and crimping in a single step. The only guys I know running fully automated 1050's that seat and crimp in separate steps, and use a powder check and a bullet feeder made a lot of parts themselves, and have pretty non-standard configurations. In fact, the 10 station toolhead is the biggest selling point of the Mark 7 Revo's...and why so many shops moved to them from blue...this very reason.

But regardless of that, to go back to OP...his setup will work and do what he wants it to...he just needs to get all the little things dialed in on his press. I mean, the more things you're doing, and the faster you're trying to go, the more important it is that each and every adjustment point is perfect. Is the 750 the best choice for a MBF and automation, absolutely not. But will it work? Sure, you'll just have a higher pain point. The 750 priming system is reliable as heck..once you get it adjusted, same with the powder measure, and the all in one seat/crimp die...Fix one thing at a time, take your time, and once you get it all adjusted, it will run just fine. If you have unlimited funding...just buy a Revolution...spend your time filling hoppers. At 2500 RPH, you'd be surprised how hard that is to keep up with. Oh, and stay away from Collet style factory crimp dies.....that's the quickest way there is to destroy a shell plate on an automated press....lol.

 

[jmorris]

Let me rephrase my answer....unless you are a machinist, with a nack for customizing your own stuff, and an endless amount of design ingenuity and patience to make things work.........if you want to run with a bullet feeder, powder check, and seat in crimp in separate stations, and run over a thousand rounds an hour out of the box reliably....you need to move up to a 10 station press. Yes, it's possible on a 1050....but there are a lot of things that have to be moved around, and things you have to fabricate to get it work.

This is one of my 650’s with a GSI tool head/feeder, only thing I made was the collator but one can 3D print them easy, these days.



100 rounds in 4 minutes. Another 2 minutes to top things off every 100 rounds gets you 1000 rounds an hour, when everything is running smoothly.

Oh, ok. I guess I simply have not used my XL750s enough yet to run into the problem. Gotta do more shooting!! I'll try that one on my wife . . .

Jim G

If you don’t tighten down on the blast shield cap they can last a very long time but they still need to be replaced from time to time.

 

[JimGnitecki]

. . .
If you don’t tighten down on the blast shield cap they can last a very long time but they still need to be replaced from time to time.

Thanks, jmorris! Now I will know what is happening when it shows up on my 750s.

Jim G

 

[EricBu]

This is one of my 650’s with a GSI tool head/feeder, only thing I made was the collator but one can 3D print them easy, these days.



100 rounds in 4 minutes. Another 2 minutes to top things off every 100 rounds gets you 1000 rounds an hour, when everything is running smoothly.

GSI doesn't make that anymore, I know, I tried to buy one once upon a time. I think we had that conversation, think it was you that showed that to me. Now, you'd have to make that yourself as well. In fact, sadly, it seems that GSI is kind of more or less defunct. It's still there, and their website is still up, but apparently they've never recovered from the covid era. As far as I know, they were the only company making that sort of tooling, haven't seen anything else with that anyway.

FYI, my automated 750, once you get it tweaked and the top and bottom dwell set, and the primer seating depth good....will load 45-70 about 600 rounds an hour. It would probably do 9mm at close to 1K an hour, but I've no reason to do 9mm on it. The only thing I'm doing on the automated 750 is brass processing which it does a great job on, and sometimes I do 45-70 and .30-06. When I do load on the automated 750, I use the Mark 7 powder sensor, which is nice, as it actually stops the machine. Oh, and the 750 makes a great 45 acp brass processor because by running the clutch on 3, and using a swage-it on the press....it halts on small pistol primers, which means no more hand sorting those;-) I've now got maybe hundreds of thousands of pieces of brass processed on that guy...223, 9, 40, 45 (and the 223 gets trimmed on it too)...and it's handling it just fine. No warranty once you do that, but my cost to replace a 750 is about 600 bucks compared to 2K to replace a busted CP2000 or 1050...both of which lose their warranty as well once you put the drive on them. I may have to eventually replace it with a 1050, just for the speed, but right now I pretty much just leave the 750 running all day in the background and just dump more brass in the hopper when I walk past it, so the speed isn't causing a problem yet.

Compared to say...9mm on my Revo, which will happily hit 3K rounds an hour. A speed I can't run it at because I can't fill the case feeder, bullet feeder, and primer bowl at 3K an hour...and you have to stop it to fill the powder hopper anyway...which isn't a big deal with 9mm (hopper holds 2lbs of powder - that goes a LONG way with 9mm), but I just can't keep up with everythign else, especially if I'm running 2 of them.