progressive press
I reloaded shotgun ammo back in the middle fiftys till the middle 70's. I did in on a dillion(I think it was a dillon press) for 12 gage only. It indexed automaticly. And that was my only problem with it. IF you had a problem with a case, you had to clear the machine, fix the problem, then start anew.(A friend and I did pump out one case, one time, in one hour with this 12 gage loader ) HOw much shotgun ammo did I load, MY dad and I shot a lot of skeet and He brought #9 shot by the long ton.(that's 2,200 lbs) I was going to make a raft out of the 8# red dot cans that I had stored up.
The 20 gage was just a five station something and one pump at each station, for each shell it took five pumps or so. ok, So I got about a box of 20 gage about every 30 minutes or so.
The 28 gage was the same machine with different dies.
The .410 was a horrow. I don't even want to talk about it, but, it was about one box every hour or so.
So, when I got into pistol shooting again and wanted a good fast reloader, I had some experence to fall back on. (and yes, I've had a single stage "C" press before and I wanted something faster)
The dillon looked like the answer to what I wanted. NOt the 650, but the 550B.
The set up was a piece of cake. One station at a time and they stay that way. I couldn't believe how accurate the powder measure is. On pistol it doesn't change even after 200 rounds or so. the rifle might move a little but not enough to worry aobut.
I can load 100 rounds of .380, makarov, 9mm, 40, or 45 in about 8 to 10 minutes. (have to reload the primer tubes). I slow down a little for the revolver cases.
the main thing is once I set the dies in the shell holders they are there and don't move. It makes changing cal. every easy.
Side note: the hardest thing on the machine is to change the primer size. I try to stay with the same primer size as long as I can. It doesn't matter rifle or pistol. (large rifle and large pistol, or small pistol or small rifle, like .223)
And yes, a station may get out of kilter but, I only have to fix that one station. Or like I made some 8X56R brass out of 7.62X54R and the 7.62 brass was quite a bit shorter. I had to adjust the powder measure a bit.
I use lee dies for certain cal. But I prefer Dillon dies. They just don't have all the cal. that I load for. The dillons have a little beval in the base of the die that helps center the case.
I load most pistol cal. and quite a few rifle cal. on the same machine. If I had the money and really wanted too, I would buy another 550B and use one machine for small primers and the other for large primers. The primers feed fine, it's just interesting to have to change the primer feed system.
The service from dillon is first class and the people i've talked to have been as nodable as any body that I've ever talked to.
I really like the tool head on the 550's once you set it, your done. it will stay that way. If your going from 38 spl to .357 then you make a little change and move your powder die also. Changing from .308 to 30-06 is aobut the same. (But I've got different tool heads for them)
Yes, there are other reloaders out there But every time I read about them I keep hearing about primer problems that crop up (dirty machine, etc.) cost, etc. But for me, I couldn't be happier with my 550B and it works for me and that's all it takes.
Pat
