New reloader recommendations

[tanks]

After going from single stage to 550 to finally 650XL with a bullet feeder for pistol rounds, I'll say go with the 650XL and get a Mr. BulletFeeder for it. My journey and pics here:

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1222200

[osis32]

Yeah I saw that thread tanks. That's a lot of green for the bullet feeder. I gotta find a permanent spot for this thing to utilize that.

[tanks]

Yeah, but it is a one time purchase. I spend more on components per month than that. How much is your time and effort worth?

[osis32]

It's a two time purchase if I go big primer little primer :-)

[stilly]

You can get a single stage conversion for the 650 on eBay.

LoL...

Now THAT is funny.

Reminds me of...

[Revoman]

Ya know, I have some buddies that went prairie dog shooting every year spending many hours cranking out single stage press ammo for shooting the dogs at great distances....with some very fancy/high priced rifles and scopes.
Talking about how exhausting all that loading was another friend piped up that they might try a 650, to which they all scoffed....but one listened and took the advice.
He said that while there are very minor deviations in the loads at times, he had a hit rate every bit as good as the handloaded buddies. He was actually quite amazed at how the 650 was so consistent.
Just sayin' cause you might wanna consider that when making your choice if you're gonna be 'about that accurate'.

[milotrain]

You aren't going to shoot a lot of rounds of a lot of calibers. You may think you will but no one actually does because there just isn't enough time in the day. So decide what you want to shoot the most frequently and build a progressive system around that, then just use a T7 for the rest. You don't need to churn out ammo for everything you shoot, and swapping over a 650 for 100 rounds of ammo isn't worth the time. Just decide what you are actually going to do, don't plan on what you think you might want to do in the future. Progressive Dillons can be very accurate depending on what you want your load to do. Most people I know who shoot NRA matches at 600 yards with the .223 do so with progressively thrown ammo, each of them who shoot the 308 at 800,900, and 1000 yards does their long range 308 on a single stage with a chargemaster.

I have a 550. I reload .223, .30-06, .357, .45acp.

I make .357, .45acp and .30-06 once or twice a year and I make a batch big enough to justify swapping the 550 over.

I make .223 every week, but I'd rather make 4000 rounds once every six months, so I bought a 1050 that a friend was selling for a song.

[Eljay]

Always interesting to see the different opinions on this sort of thing. I find the 650 makes rifle much better than factory but perhaps not quite at the level I'd get doing it the slow way and tricking every charge and so forth. For many kinds of matches I guess I'd call it match grade but for some purposes perhaps not. Some people might accept a little more variance in a practice round for that matter.

Anyway I'd get a 650 and a bulletfeeder and start cranking out pistol rounds. Once you're happy with those try a rifle caliber or two and see if you're happy and proceed accordingly. I don't find changing from large to small primer to be that big of a deal if you have the $80 quick change thing. The only additional change is to swap out the primer punch which isn't any big deal. I try to keep excursions into large primer land infrequent so I try to keep batches of my secondary calibers at a level where I'll be good for quite a while.

[osis32]

That's pretty much the course I decided to take eljay. I go through pistol rounds faster than anything so they take precedence.

[stand125]

Look on YouTube for the Lee classic turret press. Gavintoobe has great videos on different reloading presses

[milotrain]

Two things you may discover with primers and some of the Dillon presses.

1. The small pistol primer 45acp just became your friend. The good news is there are only like three of us who like this stuff so you can trade other people for it.
2. With the 550 don't swap primer bars, once you get the priming system timed and tuned just swap out the primer cup, plunger and spring by using the set screw on the primer bar. It's a bit of a crammed space to work this out but you never have to deal with re-timing and tuning the primer system.
3. Get some lock-eze. Graphite suspended dry lube will make your life a lot easier than a lube that collects dust from the shop.

If you are set on the 650 buy it without the bullet feeder first and get used to the press. I think you'll find that you'd rather make rifle ammo and whatever pistol ammo you don't make as often on a 550 rather than swapping the 650 over, it's really not a simple caliber swap the way the 550 is. Once you feel that the lack of a bullet feeder is slowing you down then buy one. A 650 with a bullet feeder is a daunting first progressive.

[Eljay]

I agree there's no need to buy the bulletfeeder first thing but it does improve the flow of the press a lot and makes the operation a lot simpler. Still, it is one more thing to get set up and it is one more expense so there's nothing wrong with adding it after a month or whatever.

I thought about getting small primer .45 myself but I can scavenge large primer brass much more easily and I'd rather buy the primer quick change than buy small primer 45 brass. If you have the $80 quick change then literally all you have to do is undo those two screws, remove the whole unit and swap in the other one before you put the new shellplate back on. Then unscrew the one primer punch and screw in the other. A primer change takes maybe a minute or two. Plus that way you have a whole spare primer feed system if there's a problem.

The big difference with the 650 versus the 550 is all those casefeeder parts have to be swapped out...