Understand one thing, there is NO SUCH THING as a perfect progressive press. Dillon's 1050 has the largest price tag, is the most sophisticated, has the most stations & features, but it isn't perfect either. It
is however the
only cast iron progressive .... except for the RCBS Pro 2000 that is.
The important thing isn't which press you buy, its whether you've done a good job matching your reloading style to the press you buy.
If you shoot IPSC or IDPA a Dillon 650 may be the press you need to churn out a 1000 rounds a week to keep you competitive. A case feeder and the press set up for one caliber is its forte.
If you want to load 7 calibers like I do of rifle and pistol, sometimes 3 calibers per night, there's nothing easier (or faster) to accomplish that, than a Pro 2000. Price? Initial price is more than the Hornady and Dillon 550, and similar to the Dillon 650..........set up for one caliber that is. Add 3 or 4 more caliber kits and The Dillons are more pricey.
But all of this is moot. The three 5 station presses we're talking about here are just different....and that's a good thing. If price is the big thing, buy a Lee.
So where does the Pro 2000 fit in?
The manual version is like a Dillon 550 press with 5 stations instead of four, with built-in upgradeability, that for $100 and small change you can upgrade to a Dillon 650 class press for $100. (Try upgrading a 550.) IMO, worth the price.
The auto-advance version of the Pro 2000 is a Dillon 650 class press, but with a much quicker caliber change, a
faster and safer APS primer system, and simpler operation with fewer moving parts. What is moving stays synced by itself once set up the first time. An IPSC shooter isn't going to care about caliber change speed, but I do. If I had a 650 I wouldn't be interested in loading 300 rounds of .45, 300 rounds of .40, 100 rounds of .308, and 200 rounds of .223.....in one evening. Fact of the matter is, I tried out a friends 650 for a week's worth of evenings before I went looking for something simpler and faster. Faster is relative to what you need to be fast at.
As for APS, every Pro 2000 user I know loves it. Every Dillon user in every gun forum hates it.....sounds a Ford Chevy thing.
This I know: No Pro 2000 user has ever blown up a tube of primers or blown a hole in the ceiling. That's because it ain't possible. And no Dillon owner can buy tubes of a thousand primers ready load and safe to store.
BTW, the simplicity of the press made it easy to modify it to use a case feeder......Dillon's collator will work just fine with it if you want to buy one.
Click the Picture to see the video.
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Why'd I make my own case feeder? Not to make it faster.....I set it up both with a bullet feeder and a case feeder to simplify operation. Less to do means less to screw up.....that makes it safer for people like me.
BTW, the How To on the Case Feeder is on this forum. What did it cost?.....really expensive.
(If I remember right, I think the parts cost me $35 or so.)
