Progressive Reloading Setup Advice

[message2rey]

Enough said. 2 super 1050's and your good to go !!!

[painkiller]

Just got home be remembered i need to get fat food and fat litter and water

[TexasJackKin]

I've got the Hornady LnL progressive, and love it. I've played a bit with a Dillon 650 loaded maybe 50 rounds on it, then bought the LnL.

I've mentioned having to "tinker around" well actually I think I've said "monkey around" with the LnL, in other threads, to get it running the way I wanted. But I think most of us are tinkerers by nature, and it's all part of the process!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of RED fanatic, nothing wrong with a Dillon, I just liked the Hornady better, at least for my uses. YMMV

If you want to step up sustained production get on of those vibrating primer tube loaders. IIRC, Frankfort Arsenal makes them. I wouldn't pay full price for one, but I see them on sale for half price now and then. And yes, you may have to monkey with them a bit to get them to work smoothly.....

[GW]

The Pro 1000 is the most infuriating press I've ever used. The primers hang up and don't feed then powder drops and plugs up the works even worse. Parts continually wear out and break. Don't buy a Pro 1000, a Loadmaster perhaps a Pro 1000 forget it. I've one friend that still loads on a couple, he babies them and loads at a slightly higher rate than a single stage. They still gum up, jam and break. He is constantly buying new parts for them. Lee warranties nothing.
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This. I had been loading happily on a Lee turret press, which I still own, when I decided to step it up. I bought a Pro 1000 and fought with it from the moment I set it up. Particularly with that primer feed. It had great ideas like the case collator but they were so cheaply made that they broke after minimal use. I sold it off and bought a Dillon SDB and have been a Dillon junkie ever since. Now I'm running a 1050 and a 650. I could just run the 650 if it weren't for my deep, abiding hatred of swaging 5.56 brass. Anyway, the Dillon's just keep running despite my best efforts to break them and Dillon customer service just keeps sending me replacement springs and parts after I lose them.
Go Dillon Blue!!

[stilly]

This. I had been loading happily on a Lee turret press, which I still own, when I decided to step it up. I bought a Pro 1000 and fought with it from the moment I set it up. Particularly with that primer feed. It had great ideas like the case collator but they were so cheaply made that they broke after minimal use. I sold it off and bought a Dillon SDB and have been a Dillon junkie ever since. Now I'm running a 1050 and a 650. I could just run the 650 if it weren't for my deep, abiding hatred of swaging 5.56 brass. Anyway, the Dillon's just keep running despite my best efforts to break them and Dillon customer service just keeps sending me replacement springs and parts after I lose them.
Go Dillon Blue!!

Now THAT is the typical Lee Pro-1000 customer I usually hear about. However, every now and then guys post things about how they are AWESOME!

Funny how this stuff works out. I can break a dillon though. And since I tend to resemble the owl in the tree at the Tootsie Pop commercial, I estimate I could break a dillon in 3...

But good for you.

Lee's new press will be out sometime next year I MAY or may NOT be included in testing with it. I am but a small fish. I am sure they might ship a working model to the guy down the street that has a red house, red cars and married a ginger before they send one my way. But I will tear the *** out of any shells I can while I have it in order to make it better or prove it is a GLORIOUS TOOL THAT YOU WILL LIFT YOU UP TO THE HALLS OF VALHALLA! NO MORE MEDIOCRITY BROTHER!

Oh sorry.

Sorry to hear you had an issue.

[Lead Waster]

I have a Dillon 550b and it works great for multiple calibers, including rifle.

Conversion kits are $50 for the shellplate and doodads, though some calibers can use the same plates. Toolheads are $20, though honestly if you wanted to you can just use one toolhead and swap dies. I only have one powder dropper I move between toolheads.

OK, I'm slightly lying, I have two 550bs and a 1050. The 1050 is a one caliber press ... 9mm, but it is because that's the round I shoot the most and I want to swage out military crimped primers. I bought two of those presses used.

If I had to keep one, it would be my casefed 550b. Probably the most versatile of all the Dillons.

As for other presses, I can't say. If they sucked, they wouldn't sell, and if they have issues, they are probably all worked out by now either by the company or by other people and fixes are shown on youtube.

"Even" Dillon's have issues. My 550b with the casefeeder showers my feet with spent primers. I've had an entire stack of primers explode in my 1050.

They are tools and if you learn to use them, they will work. If you only reload once every 3 years and forget what you are doing, then they will not work as well for you.

[JMP]

I was going to go with the Dillon XL650 with the optional bullet feeder and case feeder. When I was younger, Dillon was the standard that everyone dreamed about. I have been reading reviews online and it seems a lot of magazines and review sites are pushing the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP over the Dillon. What do you guys think? What should I buy given the calibers I want to reload? Please try to support your opinion rather thank just make comments like "Go blue or go home" with nothing to back it.

Your initial instincts are correct. I hate progressive reloading with every bone in my body, but it is a necessity for pistol and blasting ammo. So, when I use my progressive machine, I want to set it up and crank out a big batch of a given cartridge so I don't have to worry about it for a while. All I care about is reliability and a reasonable speed. For this, I've opted for the 650.

Yes, the Hornady is popular and a lot will boil down to preference. I believe Dillon simply makes a higher quality product, and when it comes to progressive reloading, Dillon really knows what it is doing. If you look around, most of the people that know their stuff will tend to favor Dillon for a prog.

[bigbossman]

The Pro 1000 is the most infuriating press I've ever used. The primers hang up and don't feed then powder drops and plugs up the works even worse. Parts continually wear out and break............ Lee warranties nothing.

I must have the only 2 working Lee 1000's on the planet. The 1st one I bought back in 1996 or so has to have about 100k rounds of 45 loaded through it by now..... I shot IPSC for years and load/loaded 45 exclusively on that press. I've worn out a few primer trays, bu that about it. I can easily load 400 rounds of .45 (or more) in an hour.

The second press I bought used (and cheap) a few years ago from someone like you that hated it. I use it to load various calibers - 44 mag, 38-40, 32-20, 38 special, 9mm, etc.... and it seems to work just fine for me.

On the occasion that I needed a replacement part, Lee always sent me one, so that hasn't been an issue, either.

The thing with the Pro 1000 is that they are pretty much pistol presses, and don't do well if you have to stack the powder dispensing disks. Also - they need to be kept clean so require a periodic take-down and cleaning of the shell carrier. But for the common pistol calibers they work just fine when set up properly and maintained.

Yeah - they are not machined like the Dillons, and so it really boils down to what your requirements are, what you have to spend, and so forth. I can easily afford a Dillon, and I am sure that they make a very fine machine. I just haven't had a reason to upgrade yet.

[tanks]

After much research I went with the LNL. When comparing to Dillon you'll have to specify which one. I'm not sure which Dillon it was that I was mostly using as a comparison but it looked awkward to use necessitating doing some operations with the right hand forcing it off the handle, and there were a few other things I didn't like....

The one you were comparing it to was the 550 which requires you to take the hand off the handle to feed cases.

OP was talking about the 650XL with a case feeder which does not require one to take one's hand off the handle. Ditto for the 1050.

[RestrictedColt]

The one you were comparing it to was the 550 which requires you to take the hand off the handle to feed cases.

OP was talking about the 650XL with a case feeder which does not require one to take one's hand off the handle. Ditto for the 1050.

That would make it more user friendly for sure. I'm a LNL user and bought a second just because I found a great deal. What I've been told my many is that if you're gonna want shell & bullet feeders the Dillon ends up being about the same cost as the Hornady because Dillon's feeders cost less.

When initially shopping I knew that I wouldn't care for feeders, I mean who really needs that stuff?!? Now I have both case and bullet feeders and couldn't imagine going back. I got a good deal on them and found that Hornady's pistol feeder will do rifle bullets as well so I'm more in love with red. If one is looking to buy new and with the feeders it seems blue might be the way to go. Probably higher quality at a pretty competitive price. Or try Lee, if it works for you you're a bunch of money ahead.

[dwalker]

You ever notice when people are selling a used Dillon it's because they are either upgrading to another Dillon or getting out of reloading? I'm sure somewhere someone with a brain injury sold their Dillon to get a Hornady. The last Dillon I got was from a friend that just wasn't using it and I wanted a 550 for large pistol primer (45ACP) and he approached me and said "I got a 550 laying around, you want it?" I purchased it for $300 complete with the promise if I ever sell it, he gets first crack at buying it for what I paid for it.

I actually sold both my Dillons and went with other brands. When it felt like I knew the guys at Dillon by name it seemed to be an indicator I should go a different path. That and the second time a primer tube blew up on me.

[RestrictedColt]

I actually sold both my Dillons and went with other brands. When it felt like I knew the guys at Dillon by name it seemed to be an indicator I should go a different path. That and the second time a primer tube blew up on me.

I'd forgotten about the primer issue. I read of a few blue blow-ups but the Hornady is apparently immune or at least extremely less likely to do that. I think I've only had one legit warrantee with Hornady and it was easy. I then had a few parts a friend broke and even tho I told her they were broken by abuse and offered to buy the parts they just sent them.

Edit: 2 legit warrantees, beam scale that wouldn't properly zero out, still worked but it was questionable, and the large primer shuttle that had a loose pin. It worked but would fall out on occasion.