I have used both a Dillon 550 and a Hornady LNL progressive. Both did a great job. I used the Hornady for rifle ammo, and was very impressed with the results. Used rubber o-rings with the dies and life was good.
Which Progressive Press
- Thread starter SD44
- Start date
Keep the Rockchucker and get a Dillon 550B. You will ALWAYS want a single stage press but, for pistol ammo especially, you'll love the Dillon 550. The nice thing about the 550 over the 650 is the manual indexing of the 550. The 650 automatically indexes which makes it a PITA for rifle ammo. For .223 ammo for my ARs I like to full length size, which takes lube, then I clean them in stainless, trim, deburr, chamfer then they go back in the 550 for prime, powder and bullet. Also use a taper from die for the final stage.
waltk
Gold $$ Contributor
loneranger04 said:
I don't understand why automatic indexing would be a pain when loading rifle ammo. I would think it would be just the opposite. Because my .223 brass is a mixture of different types I full length size first on my Forster Co-Ax. Then off to the Giraud trimmer. After that a hour or so in the tumbler. Then check the brass for media and remove. Now, I'm off to the races. Fill the bullet and brass feeder and powder thrower. Check charge weigh and start pulling the handle. Auto feeding, auto indexing, what's not to like?
Erud said:
Maybe. My humble Rockchucher has loaded thousands of rounds over the past 12 months accounting for 19 match wins.
Perhaps some guys can get their progressives measuring Varget, H1000, and H4350 consistently enough for both short and long range accuracy, but I am much more confident weighing charges by hand. I also like more brass prep stages than allowed with a progressive: after resizing, cases get tumbled with STM, carefully inspected, have primer pockets reamed and case necks chamfered. Often flash holes are deburred. After priming, each primer is inspected buth by eye and by feel to ensure uniform seating depths. As bullets are seated, any cartridge with a different feel when seating gets set in a special place in the box designated for sighters only.
Small group sizes and small velocity spreads are no accident. IMHO, progressive reloaders leave too much to chance.
memilanuk
Gold $$ Contributor
Berger.Fan222 said:
Which is why most folks are recommending the manually-indexed, semi-progressive RL550B vs. the auto-indexing, full-progressive models like the XL650 or Hornady LnL AP.
The 550 can churn out the blasta ammo readily enough to keep most casual shooters well supplied. It takes a little more work, and a little longer, than (for example) on a 650 with auto-indexing and a case feeder, but it can do 'yank-n-crank' just fine.
The nice thing about the 550 is that being manually indexed, with less going on every pull of the handle... it is relatively easy to strip things down to where you have just one or two operations going on at a time. Want to decap your brass before running it thru a wet-tumble cycle with SS media? Set up a dedicated tool head with a decapping die and go to town. Set up another for F/L sizing, or a head with just a powder funnel die and a seating die. Do your operations individually if thats what you want, but you *can* cut out some of the 'extra' handling of individual cases even with 'single-staging' operations like this.
I load for accuracy myself, and sold Rock chuckers and A2's and now i use a coax and a 21century hyd. seater. I also own a Hornady progressive for loading a AR .223 space gun. and was pleasantly surprised to see how well it loaded. The powder measure is an other story, but i made a set up to use a Harrells powder measure on it and it will shoot in .3 at 100 with 77 gr. SMK. and 8208 and LC. cases. To get accuracy with any press you have to do your part to get the most out of it………. jim
Berger.Fan222 said:
Those of us using 550's for precision ammo, are typically not using the powder measure that comes with the Dillon, for the same reason most shooters using single stage presses don't just use thrown charges from whatever power measure they have laying around. This has been gone over enough times that it isn't really worth explaining the whole process again, but rest assured it can be done, and is done by many top-level shooters. Every match I shoot is with ammo loaded on a 550, and I've managed to win a fair amount too.
Jay Christopherson
Not An Admin
Erud said:
+1 to what Erud is saying. I'm not trying to dogpile on, but there was a recent thread (aside from this one) that might be eye opening for you. With specific regards to using something other than the Dillon standard powder drop system. I could also see a way to easily use a GD503 or AX 120i, or what have you, to drop in precision powder loads as well. Nothing says that you have to use the powder measure system that comes with the 550. In fact, I would not.
I also know, for example, that David Tubb uses a Dillon 550 to load his match ammo. He's even written a chapter about it in one of his books. Anyone want to tell him that he's leaving too much to chance?
I won't claim to be an expert with it yet - I just recently (thanks to the thread I mentioned earlier) realized the potential for building precision ammo with it. Previously, I would never have considered using it, but after making the suggested modifications and with a lot of really useful advice from someone who has been there and done that with it, I'm seeing ammo come out the other end that looks like it is every bit as good as the ammo I produce by hand, at least as far as I can measure. The target will tell when I get a chance to get to the range.
And the process means that I've gone from "7 touches" per piece of brass during loading, to 3. That's a huge time savings, in my book.
Thanks for enlightening me that with enough fiddling and care one can use a progressive press to reload match quality ammo.
I'll stick with the single stage though. I like to inspect every round at every step and designate rounds as sighters when something looks, feels, or seems off.
I'd be more confident with a progressive using new brass, or switching to one after brass prep is complete. At some point though, I think I'd miss the tactile feedback of "ooh, that primer pocket is getting a bit loose" when I mark a case for its last use.
Due to the smaller X and 10 rings, I also tend to regard benchrest and F-Class as more demanding of precision ammo than other highpower disciplines.
I'll stick with the single stage though. I like to inspect every round at every step and designate rounds as sighters when something looks, feels, or seems off.
I'd be more confident with a progressive using new brass, or switching to one after brass prep is complete. At some point though, I think I'd miss the tactile feedback of "ooh, that primer pocket is getting a bit loose" when I mark a case for its last use.
Due to the smaller X and 10 rings, I also tend to regard benchrest and F-Class as more demanding of precision ammo than other highpower disciplines.
Jay Christopherson
Not An Admin
Berger.Fan222 said:
still not getting it. :-/ That's ok though, everyone is welcome here. I won't argue that the majority of competition shooters likely use single stage. I suggest you do some research though before you dismiss the notion that a progressive can produce ammo that scores well in F-Class or benchrest. At least one of the posters (along with his family) who suggested that competitive ammo can be produced on a 550, are among the top F-Class shooters in the nation. I'm not trying to change what you do, I'm just a little baffled as to why you can't seem to conceive of the possibility that something different than what you do could possibly produce competitive ammunition.
At any rate, I've put in as much as I am going to here - I mostly wanted to point out that all questions here are welcome and valid. Telling someone to take their question elsewhere is not really what this site is about, nor welcome here.
memilanuk
Gold $$ Contributor
missed said:
Just curious, where'd you get that tidbit?
I mean, I load *some* of my ammo on my 550, and I'm dang sure looking at migrating more of it that way... but I think it might be a tad bold to say that 25+ people all load on 550s - cuz I'm pretty sure thats not the case.
missed said:
Link? I can't seem to find the thread, and I'm considering getting the 550 over the Co-Ax I impulse ordered.
I think the 550 is capable of loading consistent ammo but there are so many steps to reload precision rifle ammo that I don't see any benefit over a single stage press. Probably depends on your routine but for me I only use the 550 for priming. It has an excellent priming system. My first step is to bump the shoulder then use my Lee collet die to decap and necksize so the order is off for the 550. I'm sure that you could change some things around and do more steps on the 550 or you could use it like a single stage too. No doubt about it the 550 is a very versatile press.
SD44 said:
I have a Dillon 550 and a 650, both systems have 10's of thousands of rounds loaded on them. I have come to prefer the 550 for its simplicity and general reliability. To be fair, I have never loaded on any other progressive, but would consider looking at the Hornady Lock-N-Load if I were purchasing a first press, the reviews and opinions seem to be largely positive.
One potentially undesirable aspect about Dillon is that you have to order directly from them and wait until its delivered where the Hornady products are sold at Cabelas and other retail stores. But Dillon does have great customer service. I'm not sure I've ever paid for a Dillon replacement part despite my offering and darn near insisting--each time they mailed it out for free--they really do have a NO BS warranty.
The 550 is much easier and cheaper to do caliber changes than the 650 or 1050, but is a little bit slower. But I'm pretty careful and methodical when loading on a progressive, it can be easy to get lazy and make a mistake, so speed is not that important to me. I usually load about 200-300 rounds an hour.
IMO a person would be hard pressed to beat a Dillon 550 for a first progressive press.
I think Hornady's warranty is every bit as good as Dillion so i would say that is a wash………. but with the Hornary you don't have to buy after market parts to load quality ammo, well the powder measures on both are not up to the task. You can't drop powder accurately with the vibration of the press cycling. jim
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