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Old October 31, 2005, 07:58 AM   #1
Philthy
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Join Date: October 19, 2005
Location: Montréal, Québec
Posts: 10
Lessons Learned (a bit lengthy)

This past weekend I encountered a few problems reloading with my Dillon XL650. Primers were being seated sideways, upside down and some were seated crushed. At station 1, the casefeed insert slide was not positioning the case properly along the station 1 locator rail & onto the shell plate, causing the platform and die misalignment. All this seemed also to cause a casefeed arm & casefeed adaptor misalignment.

I discovered a few things & thought I'd pass-on the knowledge to those who haven't encountered these problems and where the instruction manual/fault-isolation/troubleshooting fails to provide guidance. I discovered that whenever powder is inadvertently spilled onto the shell plate, it's a really good idea to stop, loosen the mainshaft set screw, remove the plate, remove the entire rotary primer disc assembly and clean as best possible.....this seemed to cause my primers to seat improperly. Also, make sure your shell plate os not screwed-down to far or too high. This seems to have cause my cases to be place improperly at station 1. Unfortunately, there is no guide or marker to establish proper shellplate height.

Bottom line is to keep the machine as clean as possible.....it yends to be unforgiving when powder gets underneath the shell plate and starts impeding the proper function of the rotary primer disc.

Another lesson learned is when you're QC checking powder measure, do it at station 3. That way, if you forget to put the powder back into the case (like I did), the powder check will alert you. Don't do like I did...measure the powder at station 4 (seating station), forget to put back the powder, then continue to cycle. I loaded about 25 bullets before I realized there was powder still in the pan on the scale......I had to throw away all of them not knowing which one had no powder.

Any other lessons learned?

Phil
Montréal, Québec
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Old October 31, 2005, 11:04 AM   #2
Leftoverdj
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If you were using sorted cases and a normal for 9mm powder charge, you could have found the cartridge without the charge by weighing. Cases of the same headstamp should be close enough so a difference of 5-6 grains would show.
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Old October 31, 2005, 11:22 AM   #3
Philthy
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Good advice, but I tried that. From 15 bullets weighed, 4 were averaging about .316. The others were averaging .328!!!! I know that I screwed-up only one! Didn't really have any choice, the way I see it.
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Old October 31, 2005, 11:54 AM   #4
Leftoverdj
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Quote:
Good advice, but I tried that. From 15 bullets weighed, 4 were averaging about .316. The others were averaging .328!!!! I know that I screwed-up only one! Didn't really have any choice, the way I see it.
Philthy, I'm cheaper than most. In that situation, I would have pulled the bullets on the light cartridges to check the charges. Might find just one without powder so I could shoot the rest of the batch and might find more than one indicating an unknown problem. I always have a single station press around and pull bullets by running the cartridge up through the press frame and grabbing the bullet with nippers so it's quick and easy for me.

I'm sure not criticizing your approach. Just dumping the lot was a very sensible decision. Didn't cost much and didn't take any time. Sometimes I ain't real sensible.
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Old October 31, 2005, 01:17 PM   #5
Philthy
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I wanted sooooooo bad to pull'em, but I'm just not that experienced yet.....I'd probably screw-up or blow-up.
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Old October 31, 2005, 03:37 PM   #6
sjstill
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Get a kinetic type bullet puller. Safe & easy to use. There's nothing to it.
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