Kind of a different Dillon 650 vs Hornady LNL thread. ADDED A QUESTION ABOUT THE 650

[HighLander51]

There is a reason why 97% of competitive shooters, who run 20,000 - 60,000 rounds a year, go with Dillon

[MR_X]

^Well I guess I'm one of the 3% them. All my rounds go bang and hit paper or steel just fine. Just once in a while I get one round that would miss feed and when I measure it, the OAL is way off. so what I'm doing with the rounds that are over 1.270, I run them through the press again...no miss feeding since. I reloald 1k rounds of 45 ACP a week.

[cindynles]

^Well I guess I'm one of the 3% them. All my rounds go bang and hit paper or steel just fine. Just once in a while I get one round that would miss feed and when I measure it, the OAL is way off. so what I'm doing with the rounds that are over 1.270, I run them through the press again...no miss feeding since. I reloald 1k rounds of 45 ACP a week.

Are you possibly short-stroking the press once in awhile? I've caught myself doing this before and found the OAL for the round in the seating station to be a little on the long side.

[at_liberty]

With that much variance, I suspect you'd better look at the seating stem's compatibility with the bullet nose. My seating dies, maybe all of them, include a flat nose and a female cone-shaped stem. For 45 Colt Henry, I also have the FTX stem from Hornady (and the bullets).

[MR_X]

It could be a possibility, not going to say I'm perfect on it. The one thing I do find that every 50 or so rounds I have to retighten my tool head screw down because it does come loose which is another reason why my OAL gets off. The Loadmaster also has the tendency to move a lot when stroking it. I have added a brace leg.

Here is a picture of something similar to the one I made.


Before me having that installed I couldn't even get to OAL even remotely close. I may add a tool head stabilizing brace to see if it gets better.

I mean there are a few things that I can improve on (like my bench) to get more consistent OAL but there are other things that I don't like on the Loadmaster like the priming system. Even though, I never had an issue with it, the way to take out unused primers and having to load more than needed so it feed the ammount you need, is kind of tasking. Then Lee strongly suggest only using 2 brands of primers with this press. Then the Lee can feed a primer when there is one already there dropping a good primer with the expended ones. I got to the point where I don't prime on it anymore and I use station 1 to resize, station 2 to drop powder, 3 for bullet feed, 4 to sit and 5 to crimp. With this set up I actually get more consistent OAL but not using the press to full potential and priming 1k cases one by one on my Lee Classic gets tiring. I know some of you would find this not enough to not prime on it but I hate to have to dig through my expended primers to find good primers (I send expended primers to recycling). Love the Auto Disk because I get consistent drops (even with Varget). The other thing I don't like is when the shell plate advance is abrupt and when loading with a light large powder like Trail Boss, it tends to blow it out of the cases.

I did try out both presses and I really like them both and very smooth operating compared to my Lee. I like the LNL better because it doesn't use a tool head, the powder dispenser (to me) is better than the bar design I also like that the shell plate moves smooth and only half way between strokes. To get the LNL to have automated case feeder and bullet feeder it actually cost a bit more than the Dillon. The Dillon is a bit smoother and to me seems like the stroke is shorter which is a plus but they are both way shorter than the Lee, so either way I look at it, it is an improvement.

[Pauliedad]

I'm deep into dillon so I have nothing to compare with but I will add that after playing with flare, I have found that I can get really good consistency with the 650 regardless of whether I have other cases in the system. It's kind of a Goldilocks thing slightly on the tight side.

[MR_X]

I was flaring a lot because when I used to load LSWC they were to consistent on bullet diameter (.452-.454). I swithced to plated LSWC in .451 and it also helped since I don't have to flare so much.

The Lee Loadmastr ins't a bad press. I have no issues with it if I load in low volumes (100-200 rounds) so I'm currently loading in 100 round at a time and I have a OAL consistency of 1.249-1.260.

[klewan]

With that much variance, I suspect you'd better look at the seating stem's compatibility with the bullet nose. My seating dies, maybe all of them, include a flat nose and a female cone-shaped stem. For 45 Colt Henry, I also have the FTX stem from Hornady (and the bullets).

+1
People measure OAL at the tip of the bullet, and if you got a handful of bullets and measured the length, most will vary by more than a couple of thousandth's. You need to have a seater that touches the ogive, and have a tool to measure from the ogive. Otherwise the OAL is all over the place.

OP, glad you figured out the need to mount the LM as solidly as possible. The primer is balanced on the primer pin and cycling up 4"+ to seat it. It doesn't take much wobbling to shake the primer off center. Other thing is get into the pattern of full strokes with a noticeable hit at each end. Don't bang it off the stops, just be sure to make contact.

[Frozenguy]

I know with a progressive press there are going to be variances on OAL but what is acceptable? Currently have it set to 1.250 and I get between 1.249-1.276 inches is that acceptable?

Ive only reloaded on my new xl650 and my oal is 1.255 +/- ~0.004

I don't measure any below 1.250 or any above 1.260 when set 'at' 1.255

[HighLander51]

^Well I guess I'm one of the 3% them. All my rounds go bang and hit paper or steel just fine. Just once in a while I get one round that would miss feed and when I measure it, the OAL is way off. so what I'm doing with the rounds that are over 1.270, I run them through the press again...no miss feeding since. I reloald 1k rounds of 45 ACP a week.

That's some serious loading, even for a competitive shooter. What matches do you go to?

[MR_X]

Norco Running Gun or Pala. Doing my last one in Ca this weekend. I also do some breaching fun when Spec Warfare is in town with my carbines.

[HighLander51]

Norco Running Gun or Pala. Doing my last one in Ca this weekend. I also do some breaching fun when Spec Warfare is in town with my carbines.

I shoot NRG every Saturday, what division do you shoot in? Which crew do you hang with? The Pala/Oceanside guys?

[MR_X]

I'll be there Saturday and Sunday for PS. I usually squad with my buddy. We don't have a preference but we do avoid squading with Jojo because he has the biggest squads. If anything we get in the smaller squads. If you want to squad with us and give me some pointers, I would be happier than a fat kid with cake. My buddy is pretty experienced but he is not good at "coaching".

I'm in L10 division. I'm no pro at it I do it mostly for fun. I use a Sig TTT. Most of my shooting is for practice since I got a bad habit of anticipating recoil and my "double taps" were pretty bad. Got better now that I have my gun and loads set up right but still no sub 40 seconds run. I just have to pace myself and take it easy. It is easy to get excited and try to hang with the experienced guys.

I'm trying to make it to the steel challenge in Pala on the 29th but I will be getting packed up to move that following Monday and I just got enough ammo for Saturday left unless I get factory ammo.

[HighLander51]

I'll be there Saturday and Sunday for PS. I usually squad with my buddy. We don't have a preference but we do avoid squading with Jojo because he has the biggest squads. If anything we get in the smaller squads. If you want to squad with us and give me some pointers, I would be happier than a fat kid with cake. My buddy is pretty experienced but he is not good at "coaching".

I'm in L10 division. I'm no pro at it I do it mostly for fun. I use a Sig TTT. Most of my shooting is for practice since I got a bad habit of anticipating recoil and my "double taps" were pretty bad. Got better now that I have my gun and loads set up right but still no sub 40 seconds run. I just have to pace myself and take it easy. It is easy to get excited and try to hang with the experienced guys.

I'm trying to make it to the steel challenge in Pala on the 29th but I will be getting packed up to move that following Monday and I just got enough ammo for Saturday left unless I get factory ammo.

Cool, but how do you burn 1,000 rounds a week in competition? I mean I shoot USPSA on Saturday and Sunday, which counts for about 300-400 rounds. 1,000 rounds a week is very solid. And, oh, by the way, the Pala match is not the Steel Challenge, there are only 3 clubs in California that are the real Steel Challenge, very not all the same as any other steel match... Pala is not the Steel Challenge, it's a local steel match, that's all.

What does PS stand for? To me, it means Palm Springs, do you mean Ron Jung's SSA steel match?

[Multra]

My LNL loads all my target .308 rounds to within .001 CBTO so the press does it's part perfectly. If you are getting huge variation in your COAL I would invest in higher quality dies or bullets, something in that department isn't right if you are getting large fluctuations. Next time try measuring the base to ogive, it might be the same on all your rounds in which case your bullets are likely slightly different lengths.