Next: How bada$$ are Dillions??

[Hammer]

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See where lots of folks use the Dillons for handgun calibers but not for rifle.


There is a lot of match grade 223 and 308 rifle ammo loaded on Dillons. A local commercial loader uses Dillon Super 1050s and loads close to 20 million rounds of rifle ammo a year. Loaded a ton of 7mm Rem Mag over the past year since the local gun shops could not get any national brand factory ammo for it. Has no customer complaints.


One rifle cartridge I don't load on a Dillon is my 14 Walker -- and that is because the case mouth is too small and you load the powder through the primer flash hole before seating the primer.

And I do keep three RCBS AmmoMasters set up for semi-progressive loading of the 585 Nyati class of cartridges.

Dillon now has a semi-progressive for the 50 BMG.

Have all the regular single stage and turret presses made in the last umpteen years -- Bonanza CO-AX, Hornady, Lee, Lyman, Redding, etc., plus some custom made ones. Keep two RCBS Rockchuckers setup for loading 222 Remington as a nostalgia thing. They all work fine and I enjoy them. Not a bad thing to say about any of them.

But the prairie dogs and the cape buffalo keep calling and it takes serious amounts of ammo for them.

It is a pain to load 25 ACP on a Dillon as my fingers are too big and I must not be nimble enough with tweezers. Then again, it's a pain to load 25 ACP ammo on a RCBS Rockchucker too.


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[Hammer]

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One of the most embarrassing things I learned after 35+ years of handloading is how little our time is worth.

I take great pride in my ammo and have done about every case prep and ammo accuracy trick ever discussed over my lifetime. Even keep bullet swaging presses setup to swage my own jacketed bullet designs. (Ever hand make rebated boattails. Takes seven die sets.) Have traveled thousands of miles and spent days with the best benchrest shooters in the country to learn from them. Have run controlled experiments on hundreds of variables in order to quantify the improvement of each technique and its synergy with other techniques.

Each round means something to me.



Then I learn that my commercial loader friends figure ammo making labor at $10 per thousand loaded rounds.

$12 for match ammo.

And this from commercial loaders who have been in business for over twenty years with very happy repeat customers.

That hurt.

It also means I'm paying my cowboys too much.


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[CJ in WY]

Have yet to uae the 550B for the 9mm and 45colt (Have yet to pick up the shell plates ???
It does however do a great job of reloading the doggin rounds that use ball powders! Easy to get a few hundred reloaded for a day of doggin.
204 39Sierra Tac, Benchmark??
223 40Vmax Tac & 2200
223AI 40Vmax Tac & 2230-C
22-250 75 Amax H414
243 55Nosler H414

The Rock Chucker IV gets all the long range stick powdes and the Lyman turrent gets the pistols reloaded.

[Senderofan]

Have yet to uae the 550B for the 9mm and 45colt (Have yet to pick up the shell plates ???
It does however do a great job of reloading the doggin rounds that use ball powders! Easy to get a few hundred reloaded for a day of doggin.
204 39Sierra Tac, Benchmark??
223 40Vmax Tac & 2200
223AI 40Vmax Tac & 2230-C
22-250 75 Amax H414
243 55Nosler H414

The Rock Chucker IV gets all the long range stick powdes and the Lyman turrent gets the pistols reloaded.



You won't be disappointed once you get the 9mm and .45 up and running. As long as primer tubes are filled....you can really crank out the rounds.

Wayne

[CJ in WY]

[quote=CJ in WY ]
You won't be disappointed once you get the 9mm and .45 up and running. As long as primer tubes are filled....you can really crank out the rounds.
Wayne




I must be weird? The 9mm is lucky to get to get 50 rounds a year through it (Hi-Point that goes bang every time but is not minute of prairie dog!) and the 45lc/454Casull usually dont get more than a couple hundred. The Doggin rounds dont get as many as I would like but still get 500-1500/each....
The Dillon really does reload as good as the single stage presses.....as long as I dont resize AR brass and use ball powders!!

Hammer
$12/1000 for labor on match ammo :o Man do I feel like a slaker!!

[Joe O]

If you're set on having a progressive press,then check out the Hornady L-n-L progressive.Changing from one caliber to another is quick and far less expensive than the Dillons.Precision rifle loads can be made on the Hornady,with some care.I have loaded thousands of pistol on mine the last 12 years,and now that I am loading rifle again,I'll try some .243.The powder cop is a must,for rifle just to make sure you don't have a short load.Once you price out the additional equipment needed for the Dillon,to change calibers,you'll see the savings,and you can use your present dies,on the Hornady.

[Balljoint]

Use my 550B all the time for 2 and 3 hundred yards. for long range still use dillon and hand through power charge, have two tool heads for this.
Thinking of purchasing the micrometer power adjustment for the Dillons from http://www.uniquetek.com/

[viper9696]

Like I said before I like my Hornady LNL ,just sat down last night and in 30 mins had 300 9mm loaded and ready to go,like others have said keeping the primer tubes filled is the thing that will slow you down the most.

When I bought mine I got 1000 bullets with it for $14.95 s&h ,they are down to 500 now for 2010 but thats still a good $100 worth of bullets.buy their dies and you can get another 100 for $5.95 s&h

Lee dies (to short) do not work in the Hornady LNL ,but dillion rcbs and of course Hornady will work

http://www.hornady.com/promotions/get-loaded

[laportecharlie]

If anyone is interested, there is a new Dillon 550B on E-Bay that closes in two hours. Current bid is $355.00.
Be a great deal at that price.
Charlie