dillon 550b

[torquewrench]

I picked a dillon 550b yesterday. set it up and tuned it in less than two hours. what a difference. really nice. I heard that tula primers dont work well in progressive presses. wrong. two hundred rounds loaded witb zero issues. love the dillon.

[jdillon]

Great reloaders and work fine with proper setup. Reload 7 pistol and 1 rifle caliber with it. Primer feeding can be an issue at times if the height tolerance of the primer seater is not properly set and cleaned. Have each caliber setup on separate tool head which makes changing a breeze.

[excelerater]

I have a 550B,most of the time its trouble free,but primers can and do
jam it up because they miss the bucket on occasion (lamest part of the press IMO) and also the primer bar gets gummed up and needs a tear down and cleaning too often for my tastes

[Navy joe]

One of the best little stunts to improve primer feed is to stick an empty .45 case on the head of the follower rod. That and don't take the primer assy apart except if it needs cleaned. I went for a full polish and dry lube, it works fantastic. When I go back to reloading I now have two presses, one per primer size.

[Misssissippi Dave]

I've been having a bit of a primer problem on a new 550B. I will try the .45 case on the follower rod. The slight added weight makes plenty of sense. I was going to take the assembly apart after the primers in it goes empty to see about using some moly powder to lubricate the bar and at the same time check for any burs that might be there. It seems to be the only part of the press that is less than perfect. The powder measure is quite accurate with ball type powders. I believe once I clear up the primer problems I should be quite pleased with this press.

[torquewrench]

mine came with the large primer bar installed. I swapped it out with the small primer bar. the smal pistol primers were not feeding at all or were feeding upside down. then I realized that I didnt swap the large primer tube with the small primer tube in the primer feeder. the primer seating works better on the dillon than my single stage rcbs. I didnt expect that. I am loading 300 an hour all tasks included. I am loading 7 per minute on the press time. that is about 420 per hour. drops to 300 per hour stopping to refill primers..

[torquewrench]

the .45 case for extra weight seems to work well. I put it on prior to loading any rounds. so I dont know how ot works witbou it.

[caz223]

My primer feed works 100% without the weight with CCI primers.
With Winchester primers it's more like 98% with the little weighted stem.
I think they vary in size more.
My systems are spotlessly clean because I decap and resize on a loadmaster, then ultrasonically clean the brass, and give it a spritz of one shot before it touches the dillon. I like it that way because there's almost no resizing effort contaminating the 'feel' of the rest of the processes.
Also, no dirty primer pockets, and no media in the flash holes.

[zippy13]

The primer feed is the weakest link on my ancient Dillon. Like excelerater, IMHO, it needs too much attention to function smoothly. I've not tried Tula primers; but, I have used CCI, Win, Rem, and Feds and they all seem to feed about the same.

[torquewrench]

tula primers are the most difficult on my single stage press. cci are the easiest for me. if this dilon can handle tula primers, the premium should be a breeze.

I didnt thimk about cleaning the primer mechanism from builsd up from depriming. makes sense. I will keep an eye on it. thanks.

[Shotgun693]

I have an old Dillon 450 Press. I called Mike Dillon years ago and he told me to use W-W Primers which I have for I guess 25 years. I've never had a problem with'm.
When my primer feed starts to gum up, I clean the bar and guide, slot it rides in, with bore cleaner and put a good gun oil on the bar with a Q-tip. I've never taken the Press or Primer Unit apart. I just clean it the best I can with the Q-tip.
I don't know how many rounds have been loaded on this press but I've thrown out 2, 5 gallon buckets of spent primers (not counting the spent primers tossed out by others).

[chiefr]

I bought the 550 the first year they were offered. I want to say 1982 if my memory is correct. Although the manual was very detailed, I called the Dillion toll free number as I have never owned a progressive before and had questions about initial setup. Dillons experts were outstanding. I have been using mine ever since. Guess I am one of the lucky ones. Never had a primer feed problem. I use CCI, WW, Fed, & Rem primers. Never tried anything else.

[sdt11670]

I heard that tula primers dont work well in progressive presses

Never heard this before, but i can say that I've never had a single problem with them on my Loadmaster.

[Kevin Rohrer]

I have a 550B,most of the time its trouble free,but primers can and do
jam it up because they miss the bucket on occasion (lamest part of the press IMO) and also the primer bar gets gummed up and needs a tear down and cleaning too often for my tastes

Although it is the weakest part, the primer arm normally works well as long as the slide is lubed (I use a dry moly lube) and the primer cup is clean. I take extra care to inspect the primer cup after it picks-up a primer to make sure it's there. As I also inspect a charged case to make sure there is powder in it before cycling the shellholder, I am glad I stuck w/ a 550B.

[Misssissippi Dave]

Well I used a stone to debur the primer bar and the slot it rides in tonight. I also lubricated it with some Moly powder while it was out. I couldn't believe the difference. I only loaded 100 rounds and it didn't miss a primer once. The only things I'm now watching for are if the primer was extracted from the case and the amount of powder in the case before placing the bullet on top to seat. It is working rather well now. That was probably the easiest fix there is for a frustrating problem. I didn't do any polishing of parts just squaring things up by removing high spots. The 550B is a pretty good press and fairly easy to use.

[CPTMurdoc30]

I load wolf primers and they cycle through my machine just fine.

[lockinload]

I have a 550 and would have to agree that the primer loader is the weak link in this system. When it works it works great but sometimes it becomes finicky and I have trouble pin pointing the exact problem. I do like the suggestion of the 45 casing on the top of the primer rod. One thing for sure, you can't beat Dillon's warranty and customer service. They replace broken parts with no questions asked and they will work through any problems on the phone.

[torquewrench]

I have 1000 rounds of .40 cal completed. Zero issues love the dillon 550b. I read all the q&a on the dillon web site. Good info there. Look at the info there if you haven't.

Good discussion. Really appreciate everyone's input. Good recommendations too.

Thanks

[Misssissippi Dave]

Cranking down the primer removal pin a 1/4 turn fixed the problem of poping out the old primers. Now I just need time to load up a lot of ammo.

[Navy joe]

Another factor besides a properly de-burred, polished and dry-lubed primer system is how the operator does their thing. On the downstroke make sure you take the handle positively to its limit, but don't slam it. Not good for any of the cases you are working, nor for the primer feeding.