Issues with 45 ACP on Dillon 650 - Advice needed

[Squ1dward]

Hello Calgunners,

I am pretty new to the board and pretty new to reloading. I finally got my Dillon 650 last year and have been reloading strictly 9mm up to this week when I performed major surgery and converted over to .45 ACP.

I thought I had everything set, but i ran into some problems and was hoping this knowledge base could steer me in the right direction.

Setup:
-Dillon 650 with old *** casefeeder that they don't even make parts for anymore
-Federal primers
-Bullseye powder
-Xtreme 230gr Round nose bullets
-RCBS carbide dies (1 decap/resize die, 1 seater/crimp die)

Issue 1: After the case was dropping into station 1 and going into the decap/resizing die, it would hit the edge of the die and not enter it properly. I had to use my finger to move it a bit so the case would enter the die. I seemed to fix this by using a spare toolhead I had. Now it happens intermittently instead of every round.

Issue 2: As you can see in the picture below, I am getting a noticeable hour glass round coming out of the machine.
- 0.4725 on the top near the mouth
- 0.462 in the middle
- 0.472 at the bottom

When I check the round in my dillon case gauge, it stops just short of going all the way into the gauge, leaving the rim exposed. What am I doing wrong here? Any help would be much appreciated.

[kcstott]

One 5gr of bulleye ain't enough.. But that's another story.

If your cartridge is not droping in the headspace gage all the way it is a case length issue.

Hour glassing happens some times more so then others. typically it's from a too small a sizing die.

[bender152]

I'm no expert....

1. This sometimes (rare) happens to me with 9mm (using a Dillon 550). Usually it only happens with the very first round. Once I have rounds in stations 2 and 3, everything seems to align itself properly and I don't have the problem again.

2. I get the hourglass thing with both 9 and 45 on my 550. Never caused me any problems.

[Toolbox X]

I don't think you are resizing the case all of the way. Make sure your resize/decap die kisses the shell plate when the arm is all the way down.

[emy]

If you didn't have problem with the 9 , it should be just die setting.

[Squ1dward]

Thanks for the advice. The die is touching the shellplate. It appears to cycle in my 21sf so it should not be a problem.

Advice from another friend was to seat the bullet for an OAL of about 1.255 with the Xtreme bullets.

Range day tomorrow, so I will give them a go.

[Squ1dward]

One 5gr of bulleye ain't enough.. But that's another story.

5.0 gr of Bullseye was milspec for 45 ACP for years and multiple friends reload with 5.0 grains. One book says 5.2 and another says max is 5.6. Ill try it tomorrow and see how it rolls

[Pauliedad]

The more cartridges you load for, the more you learn about your machine and all it's little tweaks it needs. I will sometimes need to set a die an eighth turn past touching to get the die to completely resize a case. Be careful though, them shellholders are strong but not that strong. I have a useless #7 I learned that on.
The other thing to do is check the brass after you resize it but before you seat the bullet.
Early on, I would also flare too much and then either scrape brass on the crimping station or in some extreme instances, have really erratic seating depths. I seat and crimp in different stations and while I know the combo dies can be adjusted acceptably, I just prefer the two dies instead.

All my alignment issues have been my doing. Improper adjustment on that black plastic piece that pushes the case into the shellholder was an issue a couple of times. I doubt it ever happens but maybe a die thats not perfectly centered in the threads? Naw, probably not.

As for the 5gr. of Bullseye, that's been a pretty standard load for like ever.

Welcome to the forum and please report back with results on your new loads

[AeroEngi]

Seems like you're not crimping enough. Try crimping the mouth down to .471".

[Fordtrucks]

Yeah I agree, seems like ur crimp is short, needs a bit more squeeze.

[Squ1dward]

[Squ1dward]

Range report.

Ammo cycled and fired fine. I found the old ***** federal primers I was using were crap. There was a solid dent in them from the firing pin, but I probably had about 20 out of 200 rounds that would not fire. Only conclusion is the primer.

The rounds that did work were money. POA/POI AT 10 yds, plate rack at 15 yds, and was hammering a steel plate at 50 consistently out of my 21c. I should be getting my STI back soon and will try them in there as well. I think they will do fine. Only issue was the primers.

Gonna knock those out and try some newer ones I have. Otherwise, good to go!

[XxWoodsHunterxX]

On a progressive especially a Dillon you should use dillon dies. I have Hornady lee and redding dies and all have their quirks on a progressive but Dillion's were made to work with Dillion's. And they are rounded at the base to help casing slip into die

[Squ1dward]

@woodshunter... Thanks for the advice, I was considering that as well and will probably go that route. I would imagine it would remove the case not feeding properly and getting jammed against the side of the sizing die.

Guess I will be posting all my RCBS dies for sale pretty soon...haha

[Pauliedad]

I never knew that about Dillon dies go well with their machines. I would have guessed that was propaganda.
As it turns out, I do use dillon dies and the only others I've used were Redding (I love their competition seating dies) or RCBS. Those are mostly for rifle so I would really be using those in full out progressive mode.