Who here's got a Dillon 550?

[Blue]

Who's got one? I got a stupid question....

[grammaton76]

650 here. But you might wanna try looking over on the forums at brianenos.com. That may as well be the Dillon tech support site (Dillon's reps surf it too)

[Wulf]

I've got one.

[Wulf]

I've probably got a stupid answer too!

[mike100]

If a guy wanted to get into reloading common calibers and didn't want to upgrade or buy stuff twice, which model would be best?

mainly I want to do 9mm, 45, 38/357 and maybe a couple of rifle calibers.

[grammaton76]

550 or 650. I personally went for the 650 because I fully expect to crank out a LOT of ammo. But, I buy the quick change conversions for every caliber I buy.

[Rule .308]

550, Square Deal, and a Rock Chucker of course.

[TMC]

Get the 650, it auto indexes and produce twice the ammo of a 550. Converions aren't too expensive and you'll be happier in the long run.

I wish I had bought a 1050 in the beginning. If you have the means do it, you'll be glad you did.

Also don't wait, the rumor is prices will go up the first of the year.

[Wulf]

Brian Enos has a good "Which Dillon" Faq. http://www.brianenos.com/pages/dillon.html#which

FWIW, I've found the "production rate" numbers dont really mean much. The real production must include not just filling the primer tubes, but case-guageing the finished product, inspecting, sorting, and cleaning brass, and tweeking and working up the load. What seems like a huge savings in handle-pulling time gets lost in the wash of all the other tasks that have to happen to end up with a pile of rounds ready to fire. Its kind of like how taking a plane doesnt really save you any time over driving for trip shorter than a couple hundred miles despite the speed of the plane.

When I first started with my 550 I used to diddle around a lot loading small batches here and there; changing components and specs. Not very efficient. Now, I tend to get a buch of the same components, get a bunch of primer tubes loaded, and all the brass clean, and just go to town about once or twice a year to make all the ammo I think I'll need for the next year. That's how you crank out a lot of ammo....not the difference in production between a 550 and 650.

[ivanimal]

I have a 550 I have too many extras to go 650 or I would. I have 45 die sets. That includes dies for calibers I dont own yet. I am in the Bay Area you should come over some time and crank out some ammo.

[Blue]

Get the 650, it auto indexes and produce twice the ammo of a 550.

That was my question. I bought an AT500 which is a stripped down version of the RL550b. I didn't know if the full blown RL550 auto indexed or not. Now it's time to buy conversion kits and all that great stuff

[shooterx10]

anyone have the 550B casefeeder?

Does anyone have the 550B casefeeder? At $229.95 and for $20 for each caliber conversion (and it's only for pistol calibers now), that's a lot of dough, no?

Is Dillon planning on making conversion kits for rifle calibers?

[Wulf]

Yeah, I cant see paying that kind of money for a case feeder. You'd almost be better off spending it on a SDB or putting it against another 550. A second press would probably save you as much time on caliber change over's as the feeder would.

[Chaingun]

550B that has loaded about 50,000 rds

[Bing]

I use the 650 for churning out pistol calibers and plan to use the 550 for the rifle rounds. As you already found out ...the 650 auto indexes but the 550 does not.