Reloading Club - Dillon Specific

[spmat]

Good Morning,

I live in the Sacramento area and I own a Dillon 550. I have been reloading pistol calibers i.e. 9mm, 40 S&W and .45ACP. I would like to perfect reloading of rifle calibers, i.e. .223, 300AAC Blackout.

Does anyone out there know of any clubs that would be specific to using the Dillon? I realize there are certain tasks that need to be done no mater what type of machine you use involving, case preparation etc.

Thanks.

[Ferrum]

Several people in the Sac reloading club are blue fans. I am sure that there are several people that are willing to help.

[the86d]

I started on an XL 650 about a year ago.
I 'been learned on youtube.

I reload 5.56/.223, and started by watching videos. I only had issues with my first 2 10-round batches. I wasn't full-length resizing my AR brass.

[tiller]

What do you need help with? It seems as if you already know how to load?

[milotrain]

Here is my recipe for .223 match thrown loads on a 550B.

• Start with processed brass, you can do this however makes most sense to you but I only feed the 550B fully processed rifle brass.
• Handprime all your fully processed brass in one go in front of a crappy movie. I like to do around 1k at a time.
• Use the powder drop station and the bullet seating station only, this renders the 550B less than ideal for the job but it allows you to insert empty cases and drop loaded cases, this is faster than ammo blocking your rounds.
• You may chose to place the bullet seating die in station 4 and a powder check in station 3.

From a cold machine the process is as follows.
1. Recharge the powder hopper
2. Double check the bullet seating die
3. Place a primed case in the powder charge position, pull 5 separate powder throws dumping them back in the hopper. Weigh throw 6. Throw 6 should be within .2gr of your load depending on powder.
4. Run the program. Weigh every 10 or so.

While this method requires far more up front processing time I can easily spit out 100 rounds every 15min. Be careful of powder charge bars that drift, you want to match a bar to the powder system. I run a newer belcrank powder bar driver plus one spring on the bar, this is the most consistent for me. I use the full capabilities of the 550B for pistol rounds, going from tumbled cases with spent primers to loaded rounds all on the machine. I do not find this to be a suitable method for .223 match rounds.

[popeye4]

I have a Dillon 650 and load for pistols and gas guns (AR15, M1, and M14). I have found that the tedious, time consuming steps for bottleneck rifle cartridge handloading all have to occur off the press (case cleaning, resizing, lube removal cleaning, trimming, primer pocket cleaning, priming), so the only two actions I would perform on the press are powder charging and bullet seating. I can do these as fast with a powder thrower (I use a Harrell's) and a single stage press with competition bullet seater. I also save the setup time on the 650 (I use that mainly to load .45 ACP right now). If you only have a 550 it will do the job, but if you also have a single stage, you might be better off leaving the Dillon set up for pistol rounds.

[Bigtls1]

I'm not sure what you mean by having to do the case prep off the press? The only thing I cant do on my 650 is cleaning the lube off after sizing and trimming.

I as well as many other Dillon 650 users size, trim, swage on one complete pass through the machine, clean off the lube then throw then right back into the machine to be loaded. It might be your personal preference to do it your way, but there are "many ways to skin a cat". I can size, trim, and swage 1,000 cases in about and hour and a half.

I can see the 550 not being able to do accomplish the same with the speed of the 650.

IMO, a single stage should be set up for more precision shooting and getting to know how to load for a first-timer.

I have a Dillon 650 and load for pistols and gas guns (AR15, M1, and M14). I have found that the tedious, time consuming steps for bottleneck rifle cartridge handloading all have to occur off the press (case cleaning, resizing, lube removal cleaning, trimming, primer pocket cleaning, priming), so the only two actions I would perform on the press are powder charging and bullet seating. I can do these as fast with a powder thrower (I use a Harrell's) and a single stage press with competition bullet seater. I also save the setup time on the 650 (I use that mainly to load .45 ACP right now). If you only have a 550 it will do the job, but if you also have a single stage, you might be better off leaving the Dillon set up for pistol rounds.

[Davisje011]

Used to have a 550, hand priming sux. The 650's priming system is lightyears ahead.