[ipscchef]

I have had a couple of Dillon 550's and am now about to sell my old 650, they are both outstanding machines IMHO. But as I wrote in a thread some months ago, since I no longer compete in IPSC competition anymore, where I was loading 5000+ rounds of .45 acp. per month, I did not need the volume. Rather, my needs turned to loading smaller batches of a wider variety of calibers. I ended up buying a Lee Classic Turret from Natchezz, for the Princley sum of $83, and have never been happier!! I can switch calibers in under thirty seconds, and the Turrets for each set of dies are less than $9 apiece. So now I have a seperate Turret for each caliber. It can be used in the "Auto Index" mode which gives a faster rate, or can be used as a true single stage. I know that there are some here who will blast me a little bit for not recommending a progressive unit to start with, but I think it makes sense for even a person who has been handloading for a long time if you do not need to crank out huge volumes of one caliber, but want to make say, a few hundred each of different cartriges. And the $ saved by buying a Lee Classic Turret will allow more dough to be spent on powder, primers bullets, etc. Also for me anyway, I get more joy out of a machine that is as elegently simple as the Lee Classic Turret. And like I said before, the inexpensive easily changed out turrets on the Lee allow you to switch calibers much much faster than any other system I am aware of. And the system is more versitile than any other also.

Of couse that is JMHO, and as always, YMMV.

Willy