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I installed a ball bearing Camming Pin on my Dillon 650XL.
By sight, I looked at the relation and clearance of the Case Insert Slide to the Shell Plate and reinstalled it. The press cycled ok, but it was not very smooth. The Shell Plate seemed to snag. I suspected that it was dirty, the press is used, and I tried to address it by cleaning the bottom of the Shell Plate multiple times.
Something is off, but I was reloading fine. I kept going back to the manual but couldn't find an adjustment for indexing. The press is new to me, I’d owned and loaded thousands of rounds on a 550B and a Rockchucker. This was my first time to reload 9 mm on it, and I had loaded 300 rounds of 223 successfully in early December. What is going on? Being that I had my suspicions, I checked on my eye protection and proceeded to load slowly to find the problem. Wrong decision.
Just slightly over 100 rounds, I pulled the handle and things went south.The last cycle didnt index properly, short maybe 1-2mm and inadvertently, pinched a primer into the Shell Plate
causing it to explode.
At that point, I had about another 80 primers in the press, and 1/2 pound of smokeless powder a foot from my face. My reaction was....
I ran out of my garage like a budding actress who just realized she was in a closed room with Harvey Weinstein.
I've heard of primer magazines exploding and thought to myself sure that distance was a good thing.
A couple of minutes later, my ears still ringing, I went back into the garage, to the press, completely unloaded it, and proceeded to cycle the machine dry. I found the problem.
Lessons learned:
1) The Camming Pin on the 650XL, it is timed at the factory. The manual discusses it in the caliber conversion section. When you do replace or re-sintall the pin, the operator must time it such that the Case Insert Slide will come to the shell plate as it finishes indexing, not before it. It can be installed in the opposite side of the range which will cause the malfunction I experienced. If you install incorrectly like I did, the operator will see the slide touch the plate before the indexing is finished, which causes a little friction, and the case to pop into the shell plate, not inserted. The bearing cam does not offer the same fine tuning as the original cam as it can be set only at 12 and 6 o'clock in relation to the bearing. Not a major issue though.
2) Hearing protection is not optional.
3) When reassembling a semi-auto press, don't try to fix a problem with live primers and smokeless powder loaded. Don't do it.
I proceeded to load to finish off the rest of the primer tubes I'd filled. Finished with 400 rounds.
I got off lightly. I hope this helps another reloader.
By sight, I looked at the relation and clearance of the Case Insert Slide to the Shell Plate and reinstalled it. The press cycled ok, but it was not very smooth. The Shell Plate seemed to snag. I suspected that it was dirty, the press is used, and I tried to address it by cleaning the bottom of the Shell Plate multiple times.
Something is off, but I was reloading fine. I kept going back to the manual but couldn't find an adjustment for indexing. The press is new to me, I’d owned and loaded thousands of rounds on a 550B and a Rockchucker. This was my first time to reload 9 mm on it, and I had loaded 300 rounds of 223 successfully in early December. What is going on? Being that I had my suspicions, I checked on my eye protection and proceeded to load slowly to find the problem. Wrong decision.
Just slightly over 100 rounds, I pulled the handle and things went south.The last cycle didnt index properly, short maybe 1-2mm and inadvertently, pinched a primer into the Shell Plate
causing it to explode.
At that point, I had about another 80 primers in the press, and 1/2 pound of smokeless powder a foot from my face. My reaction was....
I ran out of my garage like a budding actress who just realized she was in a closed room with Harvey Weinstein.
I've heard of primer magazines exploding and thought to myself sure that distance was a good thing.
A couple of minutes later, my ears still ringing, I went back into the garage, to the press, completely unloaded it, and proceeded to cycle the machine dry. I found the problem.
Lessons learned:
1) The Camming Pin on the 650XL, it is timed at the factory. The manual discusses it in the caliber conversion section. When you do replace or re-sintall the pin, the operator must time it such that the Case Insert Slide will come to the shell plate as it finishes indexing, not before it. It can be installed in the opposite side of the range which will cause the malfunction I experienced. If you install incorrectly like I did, the operator will see the slide touch the plate before the indexing is finished, which causes a little friction, and the case to pop into the shell plate, not inserted. The bearing cam does not offer the same fine tuning as the original cam as it can be set only at 12 and 6 o'clock in relation to the bearing. Not a major issue though.
2) Hearing protection is not optional.
3) When reassembling a semi-auto press, don't try to fix a problem with live primers and smokeless powder loaded. Don't do it.
I proceeded to load to finish off the rest of the primer tubes I'd filled. Finished with 400 rounds.
I got off lightly. I hope this helps another reloader.
Bob B. 
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